The fight or flight response including the role of adrenaline

Fight or flight overview

Triggered when we experience stressful situations- things that we find threatening and that we feel we cannot deal with

This might be a physical threat such as car speeding towards you/ wild animal about to attack, or a psychological threat such as anxiety about upcoming exams

Either way, the body produces a general response- the body’s response is exactly the same

Fight or flight response

Once a threat has been detected, the hypothalamus activates the sympathetic branch of the ANS

This causes adrenaline and noradrenaline to be released from the adrenal medulla.

Adrenaline has physiological effects on the body, resulting in the fight or flight response

Once the threat has passed, the parasympathetic branch of the ANS returns the body to its normal resting state, reducing heart rate, blood pressure and slowing breathing

The parasympathetic branch acts as a break and reduces the effects of the fight/flight response

The role of adrenaline

The role of adrenaline is to prepare the body for action- to fight or run away/flee. Some of the direct effects of adrenaline include:

•increased heart rate - to increase blood flow to organs and increase movement of adrenaline around the body

•increased breathing rate - to increase oxygen intake

•pupil dilation - to increase light entry into the eye and enhance vision

•sweat production - to regulate temperature

Evaluating fight or flight response

C - Fight or flight doesn’t fully explain the stress response in females. Taylor et al suggested that females adopt a ‘tend and befriend’ response in stressful situations. This is thought to be influenced by the hormone oxytocin that brings about bonding and caring behaviour. This suggests that women are more likely to protect their offspring (tend) and form alliances either other women (befriend), rather than fight or flee

Evaluation (2)

C- The initial response to a threatening situation may not be to either fight or flight, but to freeze. Gray suggests that the first response to danger is to avoid confrontation altogether- the freeze response. During the freeze response, humans are hyper vigilant while they assess the situation to decide the best course of action for that particular threat. This suggests that the fight/flight explanation is limited and doesn’t fully explain biological factors that underpin the human response to stress

Eval

C- A researcher challenged the claim that males respond only with fight or flight to stressful situations. There are examples of everyday situations that show males demonstrate cooperative and friendly behaviour under acute stress d.g during the 9/11 terrorist attacks in New York, no one did fight/ flight, they all worked together to save as many people as possible. It could be that both men and women have evolved to show cooperative behaviour in response to stress because it allows our species to thrive. This suggests fight/flight explanation is too simplistic