研究表明，男性會在壓力下會變得更加以自我為中心，他們會很容易把情緒發泄到周圍人身上。而女性面對壓力，則會變得更加愿意“親近社會”。

實驗參與者被施加了“適度的”壓力，比如進行公開演講或者當面解答數學問題。他們被要求模仿某些動作，或者來描述自己和他人的情緒，或者從他人的視角來判斷問題。

研究人員觀察到，在這三種情況下，壓力都會讓男性的表現更糟糕，而女性則相反。

研究人員指出，從心理學角度來說，女性能夠和別人進行更好的溝通的時候，就會得到更多的外部支持，她們還會吸收這種經驗，為自己所用。

從生理方面來看，這種差異是由于和社會行為相關的催產素引起的。某些研究表明，在充滿壓力的情況下，女性會比男性產生更多的催產素。

Everyone gets stressed out, but new research suggests that men and women cope with these situations in different ways.

According to the study, men become more egocentric and self-centered when stressed. They have trouble separating their own intentions and emotions from those of the people around them.

On the other hand, women who are under a lot of stress may become “prosocial.”

“There's a subtle boundary between the ability to identify with others and take on their perspective — and therefore be empathic — and the inability to distinguish between self and other, thus acting egocentrically,” study author Dr. Giorgia Silani explained in a release. “To be truly empathic and behave prosocially it's important to maintain the ability to distinguish between self and other, and stress appears to play an important role in this.”

The study participants were asked to do “moderately” stressful things, like speak in public or answer math problems in their heads. They were then asked to imitate certain movements, identify their own emotions or those of others, and judge something from another person’s perspective.

“What we observed was that stress worsens the performance of men in all three types of tasks. The opposite is true for women,” Silani said.

The researchers said their original hypothesis was that stress would make people more self-centered across the board, so they were partly correct.

They also said they aren’t sure why this is the case.

"At a psychosocial level, women may have internalized the experience that they receive more external support when they are able to interact better with others," Silani said.

On a physiological level, the discrepancy could be caused by oxytocin, the hormone connected with social behaviors, she added. Other studies have shown that women produce more oxytocin in stressful situations than men do.

The international study was led by Silani, who is from the International School for Advanced Studies (SISSA) in Trieste, Italy, in cooperation with researchers from the University of Freiburg in Germany and the University of Vienna.

The study was published in the journal Psychoneuroendocrinology.

（來源：中國日報網愛新聞iNews 編輯：丹妮）