Individual differences and the stress response

Abstract

Amid the deleterious consequences of prolonged stress, there is tremendous variability in how readily various stressors provoke stress responses in different individuals. This review covers some of the underpinnings of such differences, heavily emphasizing adrenocortical secretion of glucocorticoids during stress, and responsiveness to psychological, rather than physical stressors. Psychological stress is shown to involve loss of control or of predictability, an absence of outlets for frustration, an absence of social support, and a perception of events worsening, some powerful studies show that the physiological and pathophysiological responses to identical physical stressors will vary dramatically as a result of manipulating some of those psychological variables. Those findings are then used to interpret a literature concerning differences in the stress response among individuals of different ranks among a variety of social animal species. In a broad manner, social dominance in a stable hierarchy, with its attendant psychological rewards, is associated with a more adaptive stress response, as measured by a number of physiological endpoints. However, considerable subtleties in this relationship exist, transcending the mere issue of rank. Instead, rank and its physiological correlates are sensitive to the society in which the rank occurs, the individual's experience of both that rank and that society, and personality factors that color the perception of external events. Finally, these primate studies are used to interpret data in the health psychology field concerning individual differences and coping mechanisms in humans. © 1993 Academic Press Inc.