A new study indicates that women who describe themselves as happily married enjoy certain benefits of being in a happy marriage:
A University of Virginia neuroscientist has found that women under stress who hold their husbands' hands show signs of immediate relief, which can clearly be seen on their brain scans. "This is the first study of the neurological reactions to human touch in a threatening situation, and the first study to measure how the brain facilitates the health-enhancing properties of close social relationships," says Dr. James A. Coan, author of the study, which is published in the December 2006 issue of the journal Psychological Science....I haven't read the study in question, so I don't want to read too much into what appears, at first glance, to be a rather troubling methodology. However, I will take issue with the press release I'm quoting, which is titled "High-quality marriages help to calm nerves." A more reasonable conclusion would be that high-quality relationships help to calm nerves (as Dr. Coan himself implies). I suppose it's possible that further testing will show that women with a marriage certificate are more comforted by handholding than those without, but I suspect that'd have more to do with our cultural biases than anything else.
Coan and colleagues designed a functional MRI (magnetic resonance imaging) study in which 16 married women were subjected to the threat of a very mild electric shock while they by turns held their husband's hand, the hand of a stranger (male) or no hand at all. The MRI was able to show how these women's brains responded to this handholding while in a threatening situation.
Interestingly enough, this research was undertaken at the University of Virginia. Given that state's rabid anti-gay hysteria, I can't help wondering whether the arguably transgressive act of holding hands in a clinical setting might lessen the comforting effect of contact with a same-sex partner.
Just speculation, of course...but I'm always a bit worried about the potential for "objective" tools like MRI to naturalize oppressive social structures.
Hold my hand, won't you?
6 comments:
These sorts of studies are always interpreted quite differently from what the researchers probably intend, I think. Though it's odd that this study just picked married women for it rather than people in general. Some might have held a parent's hand, some a friend's hand and so on, because what they probably are measuring is the feeling of comfort when one is not alone in a threatening situation.
But in general I'm wary of these scanning studies for several reasons. One is how small the studies always are (because they are very expensive, but this means we don't really know much about their generalizability) and how easily people generalize on the basis of something that might have been one person showing different results. (For example, suppose that you had 16 people in the study, 8 men and 8 women, and suppose that 15 people tested essentially the same but that one man tested really off the scales. Then the men's average is going to be different and lo and behold! we get a sex difference. If you think this example is biased, I can show you an example where the numbers were like this except that two men tested differently from everyone else and books were written on that basis.)
Another reason is the odd assumption underlying these studies that if we can show brain evidence of something different, then suddenly everything is biological and the environment doesn't matter at all. But if we can't show brain difference then whatever it is we're looking at doesn't matter at all. Either way, a certain angle wins.
This is not very scientific, in my opinion. If I cry over sad news my tears are caused by my body hormones etcetera, but it's the news I'm reacting to. Note also that something like a depressive episode can change the brain permanently, and so can doing certain type of thinking a lot (e.g. the London cabbies have expanded memory sections in their brains because they have to memorize the whole map of street addresses).
To finish a long post: yeah :)
suppose that you had 16 people in the study, 8 men and 8 women, and suppose that 15 people tested essentially the same but that one man tested really off the scales. Then the men's average is going to be different and lo and behold! we get a sex difference.
respectable scientists will report a median and a mean, but the design of this study, as has been pointed out, is oddly exclusive enough to make me wonder about the respectability quotient.
pets respond to their owners' touch the same way. a comforting hand can cause an anxious dog or cat's heart rate to drop by 10%, and i'd imagine it works both ways. the presence of anyone you know and trust will ease your anxiety. i'm kind of surprised anyone thought it was worth funding a study about something that seems so rooted in common sense, and i'd have to concur that there's probably some creepy keroackian agenda involved.
all the good things we could be using science for, and we waste it on this.
i'd have to concur that there's probably some creepy keroackian agenda involved
Well, given the humiliation I suffered after my ignorant, wrongheaded abuse of Dr. Elizabeth Lloyd, I'm far more cautious about making claims like that. I agree that the research seems kind of...well, pointless, for starters. But what really troubles me is the tone of the press release, since it's fodder for journalists and commentators.
Another reason is the odd assumption underlying these studies that if we can show brain evidence of something different, then suddenly everything is biological and the environment doesn't matter at all. But if we can't show brain difference then whatever it is we're looking at doesn't matter at all.
Yeah, that's the heart of my problem with it. Or I should say, the first part is; I hadn't considered the second part. But you're right, of course.
OT, but got your present ready to be mailed tomorrow. Please share with your wife. :)
OT, but got your present ready to be mailed tomorrow. Please share with your wife. :)
I always do!
Post a Comment