Concept
Tend and Befriend
Tend-and-befriend is a stress response, described by the psychologist Shelley Taylor, in which pressure moves people to protect those they care about and to seek and give social support, rather than only to fight or flee. Kelly McGonigal treats it as evidence that stress can make us more social and more courageous.
Taylor proposed the idea as a counterweight to research that had focused on fight-or-flight. Under threat, she argued, people often turn towards others: they protect those who depend on them, gather allies and look for help. In The Upside of Stress, McGonigal links part of this response to oxytocin, a hormone released during stress that strengthens the urge to connect and dampens fear enough for action. She also reports research by Michael Poulin and colleagues in which people who regularly helped friends, neighbours or relatives did not show the higher risk of death that stressful life events otherwise predicted. That study is observational, so it shows a link rather than proof, but it fits a wider pattern in which caring for others softens stress for the one who cares. At work the response suggests a counter-intuitive move under pressure: spend a few minutes helping a colleague instead of retreating. The limit is proportion. Care that turns into taking over everyone's work depletes rather than protects, and connection includes receiving help as well as giving it.
A real-life example
During a system outage at a bank's call centre in Gaziantep, the shift leader notices that she wants to shut herself in the supervisor's room. Instead she sits for ten minutes beside the newest agent, takes one angry call herself and shows him the script for the outage. The queue is still long, but both of them end the shift steadier than they started it.
How to use it
- 1When you want to withdraw under pressure, make one small move to help someone.
- 2Tell one person what you are carrying, in one sentence.
- 3Keep helping in proportion, so that care does not become taking over.