THE CORPORATE CHAMELEON

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THE CORPORATE CHAMELEON

• What Lizards Can Tell Us About Stress and
  Dominance
• Neil Greenberg
• University of Tennessee
• Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

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STRESS . . .

• Is both a cause and a consequence to be more
  precise, we should speak of
• STRESSORS challenge our capacity to meet our
  needs, and
• STRESS RESPONSE our body's attempt to cope with
  a stressor by evoking neural and endocrine
  compensatory mechanisms.

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HOMEOSTASIS . . .

• "It is the fixity of the milieu interieur which
  is the condition of free and independent life"
• (Claude Bernard, 1878)

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HOMEOSTASIS . . .

• The highly developed living being is an open
  system having many relations to its
  surroundings.
• . . changes in the surroundings excite
  reactions in this system, or affect it directly,
  so that internal disturbances are produced. . .
• the coordinated physiological reactions which
  maintain most of the steady states in the body
  are so complex, and so peculiar to the living
  organism, that it is suggested that a specific
  designation for these states be employed--
  homeostasis" (W.B. Cannon 1929)

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The adaptive process . . .

• is one of continuous assimilation of internally
  mediated consequences of the organisms action on
  the environment and the resulting accommodation
  of these action schemes into the previously
  formed structure
• (Piaget 1980)

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ADAPTATION is . . .

• The processes by which organisms or groups of
  organisms
• maintain homeostasis in and among themselves in
  the face of both
• short-term environmental fluctuations and
  long-term changes
• in the composition and structure of their
  environments. (Rappaport, 1971)

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Many challenges, few responses

• the manifest versatility of the organisms
  coping responses presupposes a nervous system
  endowed with an unfailing sense of biological
  priorities, and is characteristic of the
  economy with which the body defends itself.
• Instead of depending on a large number of
  separate mechanisms, each one of which is
  exclusively reserved for its own particular type
  of emergency, the body improvises responses to
  the threat of injury by assembling new
  combinations of pre-existing functions."
  (Miller, 1978118).

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STRESS helps us cope so we can satisfy our needs

• Maslows need hierarchy
• Physiology (food, drink, exercise)
• Safety (security, order, protection)
• Belonging ( sociability, acceptance, love)
• Esteem (status, prestige, acknowledgment)
• Self-Actualization (personal fulfillment)

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PATHOLOGY

• There are many systems in the body which, because
  of misuse or misfortune, may have their services
  to the organism as a whole so altered as to be
  actually harmful.
• Thus vicious circles of causation become
  established which may lead to death . . .

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The Response Nervous System

• Central Integrative System
• neural interpretation and integration of
  information leading to appropriate response.
• Peripheral System
• Autonomic Nervous System
• Endocrine System

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The Response Nervous System
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Optimal Arousal

• A range of stimulation is not only tolerable, it
  is desirable (adaptive scope)
• But stimuli from different sources may contribute
  to this range
• So a stimulus is meaningful only in the context
  of possible convergence with others

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EUSTRESS

• A little stress is a good thing

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DYSTRESS

• A lot of stress is a bad thing

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The Inverted U

• The Inverted U theory , which is referred to as
  the Yerkes-Dodson Law, implies that performance
  is optimal at a moderate level of arousal, and
  that performance progressively declines as
  arousal increases or decreases from a moderate
  level.

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The Green Anole

• Small and inexpensive
• Not endangered
• Easily maintained
• display wide range of behavioral patterns in the
  lab
• Set up social dominance relationships quickly

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Lizard Dominance

• After an initial period of mutual testing for
  strength and stamina
• Dominants remain green and subordinates become
  brown and adopt distinctive postures.

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Chromomotor model for the stress response

• Acute, repetitive, or sustained stressors are
  integrated in the CNS
• Autonomic neurons activate the adrenal medullary
  response
• H-P-A axis integrates the adrenal cortical
  response
• The Anolis chromatophore reflects coping
  activities