A Critical Review of Selye’s Stress Theory: The Statistical Analyses of Selye’s Own Experimental Data Disprove It

Yasuhiro Nageishi

Graduate School of Information Science, Nagoya University, Nagoya, Japan.

DOI: 10.4236/psych.2015.614175                

Abstract

Selye’s article (Selye, 1936a) published in “Nature” has been enormously cited and markedly affected the entire field of “stress”, until today. The key concept of Selye’s stress theory was “the principle of nonspecificity”. Selye defined stress as the nonspecific responses of the body to various noxious agents. He gave various noxious stimuli to rats, and reported the results in his paper (Selye, 1936b). However, he described only raw data (thymus, and adrenal weights in individual rats), without even the mean values. This study analyzed those data statistically. Among his data, the result pattern most frequently observed was the both occurrences of thymus involution and adrenal enlargement. It appeared to give a conclusive evidence for Selye’s theory. However, there were also other two result patterns. The second pattern was a significant decrease in the thymus weight without changes in the adrenal weight (fasting for 24 - 96 hours in 3-month-old rats, morphine injections, and skin lesions). The third pattern was no change in either the thymus or adrenal weight (exposure to heat and bone fractures). These results disproved Selye’s theory of nonspecificity and they forsook it. And moreover, it was suggested that Selye’s results themselves supported Mason’s proposal that all stress responses were elicited through psychological emotional reactions (Mason, 1971), which were very compatible with the recent psychological stress theories.

Keywords

Selye, Stress Theory, Nonspecificity

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.

References

[1]	Canon, W. (1915). Bodily Changes in Pain, Hunger, Fear and Rage, an Account of Recent Researches into the Function of Emotional Excitement. New York and London: D. Appleton and company. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/10013-000
[2]	Hainsworth, F. R. (1967). Saliva Spreading, Activity, and Body Temperature Regulation in the Rat. American Journal of Physiology, 212, 1288-1292.
[3]	Imada, H., & Nageishi, Y. (1982). The Concept of Uncertainty in Animal Experiments Using Aversive Stimulation. Psychological Bulletin, 91, 573-588. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0033-2909.91.3.573
[4]	Kemeny, M. E. (2003). The Psychobiology of Stress. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 12, 124-129. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/1467-8721.01246
[5]	Koolhaas, J. M., Bartolomucci, A., Buwalda, B., de Boer, S. F., Flügge, G., Korte, S. M,, Meerlo, P., Murison, R., Olivier, B., Palanza, P., Richter-Levin, G., Sgoifo, A., Steimer, T., Stiedl, O., van Dijk, G., Wöhr, M., & Fuchs, E. (2011). Stress Revised: A Critical Evaluation of the Stress Concept. Neuroscience and Biobehavioral Reviews, 35, 1291-1301. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.neubiorev.2011.02.003
[6]	Kvetnansky, R., Pacak, K., Sabban, E. L., Kopin, I. J., & Goldstein, D. S. (1997). Stressor Specificity of Peripheral Catecholaminergic Activation. Advances in Pharmacology, 42, 556-560. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S1054-3589(08)60811-X
[7]	Mason, J. W. (1971). A Reevaluation of the Concept of “Non-Specificity” in Stress Theory. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 8, 323-333. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-3956(71)90028-8
[8]	Mason, J. W. (1975). A Historical View of the Stress Field. Journal of Human Stress, 1, 6-12, 22-36. Http://Dx.Doi.Org/10.1080/0097840x.1975.9940405
[9]	McEwen, B., & Lasley, E. N. (2002). The End of Stress as We Know It. Washington, DC: Joseph Henry Press.
[10]	Nageishi, Y. (2013). A Critical Review for Selye’s Stress Theory II: From the Viewpoint of Behavioral Science. Behavioral Science Research, 52, 47-56. (In Japanese with English abstract)
[11]	Pacak, K., Palkovits, M., Yadid, G., Kvetnansky, R., Kopin, I. J., & Goldstein, D. S. (1998). Heterogeneous Neurochemical Responses to Different Stressors: A Test of Selye’s Doctrine of Nonspecificity. American Journal of Physiology—Regulatory, Integrative and Comparative Physiology, 275, R1247-R1255.
[12]	Selye, H. A. (1936a). A Syndrome Produced by Diverse Nocuous Agents. Nature, 138, 32. http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/138032a0
[13]	Selye, H. A. (1936b). Thymus and Adrenals in the Response of the Organism to Injuries and Intoxications. British Journal of Experimental Pathology, 17, 234-248.
[14]	Selye, H. A. (1975). Confusion and Controversy in the Stress Field. Journal of Human Stress, 1, 37-44. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/0097840X.1975.9940406
[15]	Steptoe, A. (1983). Stress, Helplessness and Control: The Implications of Laboratory Studies. Journal of Psychosomatic Research, 27, 361-367. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/0022-3999(83)90067-3