Men and women react differently under stress. What are the implications for your Customer Experience?

A recent article in Science Daily reports that under stress men and women response differently. In men, the research suggests, experience a “fight or flight” response, women had a more emotional response.
 
Researchers at the University of Pennsylvania used a high-tech imaging method to scan the brains of 16 men and 16 women. The subjects were placed inside a functional magnetic resonance imaging machine, or fMRI.”Using this state-of-the art-functional magnetic resonance imaging technique, we try to directly visualize what the human brain does during stress,” Jiongjiong Wang, Ph.D., a research assistant professor of radiology and neurology at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, told Ivanhoe.
 
Researchers then purposely induced moderate performance stress by asking the men and women to count backward by 13, starting at 1,600. Researchers monitored the subject’s heart rate. They also measured the blood flow to the brain and checked for cortisol, a stress hormone.
 
When the scans were completed, neuroscientists consistently found differences between the men’s stressed-out brains and the women’s. Men responded with increased blood flow to the right prefrontal cortex, responsible for “fight or flight.” Women had increased blood flow to the limbic system, which is also associated with a more nurturing and friendly response.
 
So what? This is just further evidence that men and women are different. This research raises a number of questions. Here are just a few…
 

• Are you training your front line people to understand that men and women are different?
• Are you training you people to understand that when the customer are in a stressful situation men and women will react differently?
• Are you considering your employees and how they will react in stressful situations?
• Are you considering you recruitment process and your Customer Experience? If you have a stressful role are you considering the emotional output that you want your employees to give your customers – fight or flight may not be the best Customer Experience!

 
By COLIN SHAW | Published: FEBRUARY 19, 2009