Stress, Health, and the Social Environment: A Sociobiologic Approach to Medicine

290 Pages·1977·15.864 MB·English

by  J. P. Henry, P. M. Stephens (auth.)

Topics in Environmental Physiology and Medicine
edited by Karl E. Schaefer
Stress, Health, and
the Social Environment
A Sociobiologic Approach to Medicine
J. P. Henry and P.M. Stephens
Springer-Verlag New York Heidelberg Berlin
J. P. Henry
and
P. M. Stephens
Department of Physiology
University of Southern California School of Medicine
Los Angeles. California 90033
Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data
Henry, James Paget, 1914-
Stress, health, and the social environment.
(fopics in environmental physiology and medicine)
Includes bibliographies.
1. Medicine. Psychosomatic. 2. Human behavior. 3. Cerebral
dominance. 4. Social medicine. I. Stephens, Patricia M., 1930- joint
author. [DNLM: 1. Psychophysiologic disorders. 2. Social
environment. 3. Stress, Psychologicial. WM90 H522sl
RC49.H44 616.08 77-10500
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be translated or reproduced in any form without written
permission from Springer-Verlag.
© 1977 by Springer-Verlag New York Inc.
Softcover reprint ofthe hardcover 1st edition 1977
987654321
ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-6365-4 e-ISBN-13: 978-1-4612-6363-0
DOl: 10.1007/978-1-4612-6363-0
"Voc(l{us atque non vocatus Deus aderit."
Deeply carved into the lintel of Carl lung's home near Zurich
is the Delphic Oracle's enigmatic reply to the Spartans who were
planning a war against Athens; it translates as the foreboding,
"Summoned and not summoned, God will be there" (lung, 1961).
Sociologist Peter L. Berger (1976) elaborates on the Twentieth
Centufl,"s increasing secularization and disregard of oracles hy
commenting that the myths that guide nfe spring from the soil of
religious faith. Their power comes from those realms of the mind
in which the gods used to dwell, and the gods have always been
relentless.
Preface
The mastery of a variety of biomedical They avoided the self-destruction and dis
techniques has led our society to the solu ease that can so readily follow the escalation
tion of the problems in environmental con of social disorder in an isolated colony. By
trol imposed by space flight. By an unparal following a "code of civility" that may be as
leled social cooperative effort, man has much a part of man's biologic inheritance as
launched himself successfully on the path of his speech, they established cultures in
interplanetary exploration and space travel. which power was exercised with sufficient
By a like synthesis of knowledge available to respect to establish a consensus. They fol
him, Stone Age man kept a foothold on tiny lowed revered cultural canons, using an
Pacific atolls for the better part of a thousand accumulation of rational empiric data from
years, despite obliterating hurricanes and social experience to modify and control the
limited resources. By combining empiric inherited biogrammar. This we often fail to
navigational skills, such as the sighting of do. There is growing evidence that it is phys
stars with intuitive feeling for ocean swells iologically possible for the left hemisphere of
and other subtle cues, tiny populations were the brain, which deals with logic and lan
maintained in communication over vast dis guage, to be cut off from the right hemi
tances. Atolls such as the Tokelaus, Bikini, sphere and other realms of the mind, han
Rongelap, or Puka Puka are scarcely larger dling emotion, fantasy, and religious experi
than the one-mile diameter space stations ence. Such alienation is fostered by today's
being planned by today's technology. secular technocracies that replace parental
Our Stone Age ancestors also devel and filial care with institutions, govern by
oped cultural practices that permitted stable bureaucracy, and blur the identity of the
occupancy for centuries. In spite of violent sexes. Our health and well-being are en
perturbation following sickness, natural ca dangered by a viewpoint overemphasizing
tastrophes, and competition for scarce re left hemispheric function and distorting and
sources, these primitive human societies suppressing traits inherited from our hunter
found it possible to maintain an equilibrium. gatherer forefathers that normally speak to
viii preface
us through the archetypal patterns of sym for their health are clearly dependent on
bols. their social order.
This book proposes why some societies This book has a dual authorship be
remain relatively free from psychosomatic cause of its dual origins. One of us is
diseases that plague others; by a detailed chiefly responsible for the collection of liter
observance of the normative patterns of ature and its compilation; the other, for the
their culture, they avoid a loss of values, fifteen years of social-ethologic study of
thus following the preconditions for a rodent colonies on which our conclusions
healthy social life-thereby for health itself. are based.
Frequent confrontations and much emotion The authors wish, first, to thank Jo Kol
al arousal occur from an extensive break up sum for her sustained editorial craftsman
of the protective affiliative network which is ship and Dr. John P. Meehan, chairman of
man's basic social asset. The path is cleared our physiology department, for his unfailing
for an excessive stimulation of the neuroen support of an esoteric approach to the study
docrine apparatus by unconstrained fight of disease.
flight and withdrawal responses. The ensu The detailed and constructive criticisms
ing disturbed autonomic and hormonal lev by Dr. DanielL. Ely and Dr. Peter H. Henry
els in turn upset tissue regulatory balances, have been invaluable and most encouraging.
reducing their resistance to other influences The names of our other collaborators appear
and exposing the organism to the breakdown throughout the accounts of our experiments:
of disease. they have given this work its momentum.
We parallel Insel and Moos's (1974) The authors to the best of their knowl
anthology, Health and the Social Environ edge have obtained permissions for all copy
ment, which, from the clinical point of view, right material; but if any required acknowl
summarizes the evolutionary biologic edgements have been omitted, or any rights
approach of the Stanford medical group with overlooked it is hoped they will be notified
which the Hamburgs have been associated. so that any omissions may be corrected for
It shares our point of view and makes fre future editions.
quent references to the literature. It is a pleasure to acknowledge the sup
We have tried to show how the mecha port of the National Aeronautics and Space
nisms controlling man's adaptation and Administration-Ames Research Center
resistance to certain diseases can be illumi Grant NGL 05-018-003 (NsG-433) and the
nated not merely by studies with primates, National Institutes of Health Grants MH
but also by work with colonies of tiny 19441 and HL 17706.
rodents. These social mammals are available
in convenient genetic strains and live in J. P. Henry
accelerated biologic time. The preconditions P. M. Stephens
Contents
I A historical introduction and theoretical concept 1
Donnison's Civilization and Disease
Halliday's Psychosocial Medicine: A Study of the Sick Society
Emotion as a driving force in evolutionary biology 3
Cannon and stress; Selye and distress 5
Wolff's Stress and Disease 6
Hinkle's studies of sociocultural changes and health 7
Holmes-Rahe life change and illness susceptibility scale 7
Theoretical mechanisms of psychosomatic disease 11
Social environment as initiator of a chain of events 13
Our format: from stimulus to pathology 17
Summary 18
2 Basic patterns of social interaction 19
The basic patterns 19
Territory in relation to dominance and subordination 20
Dominance and subordination in monkeys 22
Conflict behavior in rhesus monkeys 23
Dominance and subordination in man 24
Depression and loss of status 26
Male and female patterns of behavior 26
Male-female differentiation in the kibbutz 28
Attachment behavior in female mice 29
Maternal attachment in primates 30
Mother-infant attachment in man 30
x contents
Generalization of attachment during maturation 33
The wish to be held and the need for attachment 34
Human sexuality as a behavioral reward system 35
Behavior of the aged food gatherer 36
Summary 38
3 Inherited behavioral patterns as social assets 40
Normal behavior patterns of mice 40
A disordered rodent society 42
Normal primate behavior patterns 43
A disordered primate society 48
Normal behavior patterns of hunter-gatherers 51
A disordered primitive human society 54
S~m~ ~
4 The critical role of early experience and the programming of behavior 57
The critical role of early experience 57
Socialization in mice and early experience 58
Socialization in subhuman primates and early experience 61
Programming of behavior in man and early experience 63
Innate facial expressions and body gestures in man 64
Summary 68
5 Monitoring behavioral disturbances in experimental social systems 69
Concepts and reasons for monitoring 69
Basic types of behavioral monitoring 70
Techniques for producing behavioral disturbances 74
Primate experiments 75
Rodent experiments 84
Comparison of results for mice and primates 90
Summary 90
6 The role of the neocortex and the limbic system in social interaction 92
Introduction: man's four brain systems 92
The evolution~ origin of lateralization 94
Functional differences between the two hemispheres 96
Lateralization of emotion 100
Cerebral lateralization and sexual differentiation in man 103
The limbic system: affect and programmed behavior 103
The hippocampus and territory: the amygdala and reward 105
Patterns of thinking and susceptibility to psychosomatic disease 107
Experimental sleep disturbance and failure of communication between the
limbic system and the neocortex 111
Summary 116
contents xi
7 Neuroendocrine responses to social interaction 118
The frontal lobes and amygdalar and hippocampal function 119
The amygdala and Cannon's sympathetic adrenal-medullary defense pattern 120
Peripheral effects of the sympathetic adrenal-medullary response 121
The hippocampus and adrenocortical secretion 125
Depression and the pituitary-adrenocortical mode 126
Endocrine characteristics of dominant and subordinate status in animals 131
Endocrine characteristics of Type A and Type B personalities 134
The inverse relation between the gonadotropic hormones and the defense and
alarm reactions 138
Summary 140
8 Functional and structural changes in response to psychosocial stimulation 141
Distinction between Cannon and Selyean stress 141
Changes primarily related to the sympathetic adrenal-medullary response 142
Changes primarily related to the pituitary adrenal-cortical response 154
Adrenal-cortical hormones and my~cardial damage 161
Psychosocial effects and immune response mechanisms 162
Neuroendocrine mechanisms and mammary tumor formation 163
Summary 166
9 Production of disease in animals by psychosocial stimulation 167
Effects of acute psychosocial stimulation 167
Effects of chronic psychosocial stimulation 169
Lack of informational feedback and pathophysiology 171
Chronic psychosocial stimulation and blood pressure elevation in mice 172
Psychosocial factors and arteriosclerosis in CBA mice 175
Rate of development of pathologic changes 178
Psychosocial stimulation and renal damage 185
Acceleration of pathologic changes by caffeinated beverages 186
Summary 188
10 Pathophysiologic consequences of human social disturbance 189
Tough and easy cultures 190
Cardiovascular disease in Roseto 190
Friedman and Rosenman's Type A versus Type B behavior pattern 192
Monastic life and coronary heart disease 196
Contrasts between traditional Japanese and American cultures 196
Coronary heart disease in acculturated Japanese-Americans 199
Myocardial infarction in former medical students 200
Bereavement and myocardial infarction 200
Blood pressure and cultural change 201
Psychosocial factors, salt, and hypertension 208
Cancer of the lung and psychosocial parameters 212
xii contents
Psychologic attributes of breast cancer 215
Summary 217
11 The prevention and treatment of detrimental effects in the psychosocial
environment 218
Natural defenses against stressful events 218
Individual coping behavior: conservation-withdrawal and group-oriented
responses 219
Psychosocial assets and the group 219
Social support as a moderator of life stresses 221
Combat studies of group-coping mechanisms 222
Small groups and the control of psychosocial stimulation 224
Relaxation response and biofeedback in the control of hypertension 226
Physiologic mechanisms and the relaxation response 229
The relaxation response in a religious context 231
The cultural canon as a social asset 232
Loss of the cultural canon and social breakdown 233
The compensatory role of religion in a culture 234
An effective cultural canon protects against disease 236
Conclusions 240
Bibliography 245
Glossary of sociobiologic terms 265
Author index 269
Subject index 275