ASCAP Vol 4, no 1,
Jan 91 (abridged)
Reply to A. Randrup
& G. Sorenson
Social heirarchies
seem to vary enormously in how pleasant it is to live at the bottom. Some subordinates are
treated well, others are literally pecked to death. In human hierarchies,
the important thing seems to be the nature of the person who ranks above
you. If he is kind and competent, you are all right. If he is kind, he does
not keep putting you down with words or blows; he may even praise you and make you feel
valued. If he is competent,
you can respect him and work for him happily, even love him; and he does not give you ideas of usurping
his place, ideas which makes you
insubordinate, which makes him put you down with words or blows.
In your
own work with bank voles (1), you found that an enriched environment greatly reduced the "putting
down" of subordinates by high
ranking voles; but even in the enriched
environment there was one tyrant who
persecuted the subordinate for no apparent reason, and in the pernicious environment some hierarchies were
peaceful. In many species the
unprovoked bullying of subordinates is enough to induce a state
of learned helplessness - no electrified
grid is necessary in these species. In some species there are physiological
effects in subordinates which seem an
important part of their adaptation;
inhibition of sex change in certain
fish, adoption of juvenile colouring in lizards, inhibition of ovulation
in mice and some New World monkeys; we do not know the mechanisms of these changes, nor whether they are related to the
central nervous mechanisms responsible
for psychogenic death. Nor do we know whether
hypertension and other
causes of psychogenic death are entirely mediated by
the increased secretion of
corticosteroids which is a recognised accompaniment of subordinate status. Research on subordination
has a long way to go;
at present it seems to be
mainly financed by cadiologists,
gastroenterologists, nephrologists
and more recently immunologists;
only in
Regarding the book Depression, Your Name Is Woman, I would not see depression as an
extension of the female role, even of its submissive component. Some of the most submissive people
are blissfully happy. To
the extent that female depression is the result of domination by
men, I think it is an extension of the unacceptable
aspect of their subordinate role,
leading to involuntary or depressive yielding. A man can make a woman depressed if
he is more powerful and if there is a mismatch in their role expectations. Either the man can be too
tyrannical, or the woman can
be too rebellious - as the husband of one of my patients put it,
"she doesn't take correction,
doctor", and his solution was to apply increasing amounts of correction. The same, of course,
can apply to a subordinate
husband; see for instance
the depression suffered by Bishop Proudie in Trollope's The
Last Chronicles of Barset. Depression can thus be
seen as an
extension of the coerced subordinate role of any underprivileged individual or group.
But I
think it would be wrong to blame male domination alone for the increased female liability to
depression. Women are also dominated by their children, and even those who are
not dominated are in receipt of frequent
aversive (catathetic) signals from them. The normal
2-4 year old mounts
as many verbal or physical attacks on its mother as the 9 year old referred for the treatment of aggressive
behaviour, and the normal baby spends 8%
of its waking life crying (2). Women are also dominated by other women, and there is reason to think
that in Western society the female hierarchy may be more depressogenic
than the male hierarchy. For instance, formal ranks do not protect women from
social competition in the way they do
men; and women, being the expressive
rather than the instrumental sex (Talcott Parsons), are more skilled than men at subtle
methods of putting each other down.
In summary, I would agree with R & S that
subordination is not pathogenic (depressing) in itself: only in certain circumstances. These circumstances
would seem to be:
1. If the environment is unfavourable so that
agonistic interactions are
increased.
2. If the higher ranking individual is a bully
or lacks the social skill
to accept submission.
3. If the individual lacks the social skill to
submit adequately (or does
not wish to submit) or lacks other coping skills such as R &
S's stereotypies.
It
might clarify things if we reserved the term submission for voluntary acceptance of subordination, in
contrast to its involuntary depressive
counterpart, which could be called depressive yielding. The title of
my essay was confusing, suggesting that
depression masquerading as physical
illness was a metaphor of submission, whereas, being totallly
involuntary, it should not have come
into the category of submission at all. If you submit voluntarily, you do not need to
undergo depressive yielding.
1. Sorenson, G. (1987) Stereotyped behaviour, hyperaggressiveness and "tyrannic"
hierarchy induced in bank voles (Clethrionomys glareolus) by a
restricted cage milieu. Progress in Neuro-psychopharmacology and Biological
Psychiatry, 11, 9-21.
2. Patterson, G.R. (1982) Coercive Family
Process.