Hormonal and Behavioral Responses to Social Threat

行为科学的研究开始在人类行为、认知和生物学之间建立重要的联系。人们的思考方式和奋斗目标从根本上根植于复杂的生理系统——这些系统是通过进化而设计的，旨在帮助人们面对日常挑战，这些挑战是社会生活的一部分。荷尔蒙系统旨在帮助人们对特定类型的社会事件做出适应性反应，包括社会威胁。新兴研究表明，特定激素的释放与对社会威胁的各种动机反应有关，从无私的帮助行为到侵略和反社会行为。拟议的工作将推进这一总体思路。人类经常面临的一种主要的社会威胁是社会排斥。排斥可以表现为同伴排斥、被社会或工作团体排斥、或被爱情排斥。不管排斥从何而来，研究表明，它会引发一系列有动机的心理和行为反应。其中一些反应是非常有利的。例如，有时被拒绝的人会表现出更大的交友兴趣，表现得友善和慷慨，可能是为了重新获得社会的认可。然而，对社会威胁的其他反应是极具破坏性的。拒绝会引发攻击性、无意义感、抑郁、社交退缩，甚至自杀。现在有许多研究调查了对排斥的心理和行为反应。然而，很少有研究试图揭示这些反应背后的基本生理机制。理解这些生理机制是识别导致人们在面对拒绝时做出建设性或破坏性行为的更广泛过程的关键部分。拟议的工作将检查各种荷尔蒙对社会排斥的反应，因为这些反应为人们的直接动机状态和倾向提供了一个窗口，以执行亲社会和反社会行为。过去的研究表明，黄体酮、皮质醇和睾酮（分别与社会联系、压力和社会支配相关的激素）在决定人们对排斥的反应方面起着关键作用。拟议的实验将检验排除对孕酮、皮质醇和睾酮等激素的影响。研究还将评估这些激素在被拒绝后的释放在多大程度上促进了特定的亲社会和反社会行为，包括利他主义、隶属关系、攻击和社会退缩。了解什么时候、为什么以及对谁来说会出现积极和消极的社会行为，是鼓励或修改这些行为的关键一步。因此，该研究项目对改善个人、社会和组织环境（从婚姻到学校和工作环境）的社会结果具有重要意义。这项研究还将促进心理学、认知科学和行为神经科学之间的深入联系，这些研究领域迄今为止联系相对较少。最后，这项研究的执行将涉及对几名研究生和本科生的培训，其中许多人来自目前在科学事业中代表性不足的群体。

Research in behavioral science is beginning to establish important connections between human behavior, cognition, and biology. The way people think and what they strive for is fundamentally grounded in complex physiological systems -- systems that have been designed through evolution to help people face everyday challenges that are part of social living. Hormonal systems are designed to help people respond adaptively to particular types of social events, including social threats. Emerging research suggests that the release of particular hormones is associated with a variety of motivated responses to social threat, from unselfish helping behavior to aggression and antisocial behavior. The proposed work will advance this general idea. One major type of social threat that humans regularly face is social exclusion. Exclusion can take forms such as peer rejection, ostracism from a social or work group, or romantic rejection. Regardless of where exclusion originates, research shows that it evokes a range of motivated psychological and behavioral responses. Some of those responses are highly favorable. For instance, sometimes rejected people display increased interest in making friends and behave in kind and generous ways, presumably to regain social acceptance. Other responses to social threat, however, are highly destructive. Rejection can elicit aggression, a sense of meaninglessness, depression, social withdrawal, and even suicide.Many studies have now investigated psychological and behavioral responses to exclusion. Yet very little work has sought to uncover the basic physiological mechanisms underlying those responses. Understanding those physiological mechanisms is a critical part of identifying the broader processes that lead people to behave constructively or destructively in response to rejection. The proposed work will examine a variety of hormonal responses to social exclusion because such responses provide a window into people's immediate motivational states and tendencies to perform prosocial and antisocial behaviors. Past research suggests that progesterone, cortisol, and testosterone (hormones associated with social bonding, stress, and social dominance, respectively) play a critical role in determining people's responses to exclusion. The proposed experiments will examine the effect of exclusion on hormones such as progesterone, cortisol, and testosterone. Studies will also evaluate the extent to which the release of these hormones following rejection promotes specific prosocial and antisocial behaviors including altruism, affiliation, aggression, and social withdrawal. Understanding when, why, and for whom positive and negative social behavior occurs is a critical step toward encouraging or modifying such behaviors. Consequently, this research program has implications for improving societal outcomes within a range of personal, social, and organizational contexts, from marriages to school and work settings. The research will also foster deep connections between psychology, cognitive science, and behavioral neuroscience -- research areas that heretofore have had relatively little contact. Finally, the execution of this research will involve the training of several graduate and undergraduate students, many of whom are from groups that are presently underrepresented in science careers.