When the first few words of this article came across my Feedly account, I just had to click on it. The first few lines of the abstract caught my attention...how aggression studies so far focused primarily on males but that in our Western culture a rise in aggressive females is occurring. Hmmm.... I had to wonder if the primary author had been jilted or perhaps one (or more) of the author(s) is having a turbulent time with a troubled teen. Regardless, their findings that aggression is dependent on anxiety traits & oxytocin control were not all that surprising; although, it does make me think of Meredith Brooks' song
Birthday..."and it isn't just an oxytocin high"....
To read the original article:
Measuring Virgin Female Aggression in the Female Intruder Test (FIT): Effects of Oxytocin, Estrous Cycle, and Anxiety
Sources:
Figure--http://heartymagazine.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/real-talk-girl-fights-bad-girls-club-1.png
Article--http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0091701
This article was definitely an interesting read. I always find it interesting how researchers determine the level of anxiety in animals. In this study, the authors set up an elevated plus shaped container that had two open and two closed arms. They determined that the rats that spent more time near the open arms were less anxious then the rats that spent less time. Personally, I think the rats that spent more time near the open arms were just less afraid of heights. However, we must take the researchers at their word that this is a reliable test. I was not very surprised that rats that had high anxiety levels were also more aggressive when facing an intruder. It was interesting that this aggressive behavior was most prominent in adolescent rats. I wonder if the changing hormone levels associated with adolescence contributes to this aggressive behavior. It would not seem so since male rats were actually less aggressive than the female rats. This was very surprising considering male rats would have far greater levels of testosterone than females. The most novel finding I thought of the whole experiment was that oxytocin lowered aggressive behavior in all rats except rats that had high anxiety levels. This suggests that anxiety, at least in part, relies on a dysregulation or impaired signaling of oxytocin. Oxytocin is the “love” hormone that is associated with intimacy and positive feedback especially in a social setting. A disruption of the normal function of oxytocin could easily lead to a feeling of social out casting that could lead to aggression. It will be interesting to see the results of future studies on oxytocin and its role in anxiety and aggression.
ReplyDeleteI found this study very interesting. Good use of "Bad Girl's Club" by the way, I wonder if the researchers were inspired by that awful show. I found it odd that this study was not done previously. I mean, everyone knows not to get in between momma bear and her cub (well everyone except my grandpa, but I digress). It makes sense the hormone responsible for this is oxytocin.
ReplyDeleteWhat I found most interesting about this article was, aggressive females showed a higher density of pERK-IR neurons in the HAA than the male rodents. Also the aggressive behaviors are a direct connection to the development of social anxiety disorders. This makes perfect sense, especially in retrospect to movies like "Freedom Writers" and my own experience in an urban school. The researchers have found that OXT has a strong inhibiting effect on female aggression and there is an association between low brain levels of OXT and high levels of female aggression instances.
Further research needs to be done on studying the neurobiological pathways and neuronal activation that causes the underlying female aggression. Research needs to be done on the localized effects of OXT, to shed light on the involvement of the endogenous OXT system. They should also expand to include the parameter of women who have peaking levels of estrogen versus women who have very low levels of oxytocin.
I found this article to be very quite relevant to society today. Like the researchers, I too have noticed an increase in the aggresion and hostility in females. Shows like the "Bad Girls Club," and others serve to highlight this growth in aggression seen in women today. I thought that it was interesting how they found that the aggression found in the femal rats, although less frequent, was fairly close to the levels of aggression that occurre in the male mice. I also found that the finding that increase in agggresion was found to be as a result of anxiety levels to be quite fitting with the notion that the increase in females aggression was found to be increased in adolscences associated with substance abuse, lower socio-economic levels, and various other problems. This is interesting because anxiety levels would be higher in people who fall under the above mentioned conditions because stress levels increase in such circumstances.
ReplyDeleteFemale aggression in our society has noticeably increased, especially in the western society. We know hormones affect behaviors and physical characteristics of people, male or female. Increased level of hormones in combination with many other factors seem to cause many issues in our society. However, I think the main cause to the increase of aggression and hostility in females is due to some females taking advantage of their rights. As we all know woman did not have equal rights as men before, and they were prevented from doing many things. Know both man and female have equal rights, some seem to take it to far by acting out, or expressing their feelings more than others. One example is the reality TV show "The bad girls club." Previously such thing would not be allowed let alone be shown on national television. I feel like our society is promoting such things more and more.
ReplyDeleteExtremely interesting article. Firstly, I must say that the Bad Girls Club photo is a nice touch. Often times in research the experiments are conducted on males so it was a pleasant change. When reading the article I was not surprised when the more aggressive females were the ones that had social anxiety issues. Nor that the hormone oxytocin was speculated to be a cause of such aggression.
ReplyDeleteWhat I did find interesting were the results between the adolescent females and the adult females. Also that the males were considered to be less aggressive than the females. I would think that the levels of testosterone that the males possess would make them more aggressive, but that it not what the results show. I think if further studies are conducted then it can show how hormones and social issues play into today's society and ultimately progress in handling them in a more appropriate manner
The title of this article is definitely an attention-grabber. One immediately wonders why researchers would want to test such a topic and how they ever gained committee approval. Other considerations also arise: How did researchers design experimental parameters and determine exactly how each element could be quantitatively measured. The words “violence” and “aggression” automatically conjure images of social studies (i.e. “soft sciences) that have little correlation to actual scientific topics. After reading the article, however, I’m pleasantly surprised by the amount of “hard” science this study contained. Measurement of oxytocin levels, for example, demonstrates the researchers’ interest in collecting hard facts for their study. Future studies should research the degree to which estrogen levels affect oxytocin. More details on the precise interplay of these two molecules should certainly be explored in greater detail.
ReplyDeleteThis article made me laugh while reminding of my hometown. I have seen the results from this study in real life over and over again. I come from a low- to mid-socioeconomic community where most families are rather large, both parents are working (and sometimes one of parents is working two jobs), and families are living paycheck to paycheck. I believe that if the parents do not know how to channel the issues and stress properly, the children will definitely feed off of the parents’ negative expressions – building up that stress the article mentions, leading to the virgin female aggression. If possible, maybe a low dose oxytocin medication, drink, or chocolate…something…can be made to help these young ladies handle their aggression. Maybe it’s also a matter of learning how to they best deal with their stress.
ReplyDeleteOne of the major things that stood out to me in this research was the fact that oxytocin functions differently for two categories of women. For new mothers, it works to increase maternal aggression in order to ensure that the babies are well protected and safe, while in virgin females the same hormone helps to depress aggression. How is that even possible? I mean differences between males and females are easier to picture, but what could be so different between these two classes of women? Are the receptors in virgin females different from those in mothers? Does the hormone follow novel pathways in each? While I am interested to see where this research goes, I can't help but be amazed at God's creative genius. He alone could make something so intricate and complex work so perfectly.
ReplyDeleteThis was a very interesting article. I feel like they spent a lot of money on research that I could've told them from just making observations. Typically, females are the more subdued and docile of the two genders; however, when you mix anxiety into the equation, crazy things happen! Anxiety can come with a lot of different emotions: sadness, fear, worry, aggression. It is not surprising that anxiety is one of the key factors that results in increased aggression among young female virgins. As an intelligent young male, if I knew a female had anxiety, I would do everything in my power to avoid triggering an emotionally charged aggressive fit.
ReplyDeleteThis is a pretty interesting article. One thing that is of particular interest to me is how anxiety can lead to increased levels of aggression. I wonder if in humans this same type of response would occur. I remember reading a study somewhere about how your response to a physiological change is based upon your perception of it. With that being said if a woman was aware as the emotion that she was feeling was anxiety, would it still lead to her being more aggressive (whether physical or otherwise)?
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