Hans Selye
Austro-Hungarian-born Canadian medical researcher who developed the stress concept
Medical researcher born in Vienna who worked in Montreal. From animal studies in the 1930s and 1940s he developed the general adaptation syndrome and popularised the modern use of the word stress. He also received funding from the tobacco industry.
Why this person matters
Selye's three-stage account of the body's response to harmful agents, and his use of the term stress, shaped later research in health psychology. Psychologists such as Richard Lazarus later changed the concept to include appraisal and coping.
Main contributions
General adaptation syndrome
Selye described a response to diverse harmful agents in three phases: alarm, resistance and exhaustion. The theory rested largely on experiments with rats. He published the 1936 article A Syndrome Produced by Diverse Nocuous Agents.
The stress concept
He developed the concept through animal studies from 1933 to 1945 and popularised it in best-selling books. He held that stress is the same whether the trigger is positive or negative, and called negative stress distress and positive stress eustress.
Institutes for stress research
He was the first director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery at the Universite de Montreal, from 1945 to 1976. After retiring he set up the International Institute of Stress in Montreal.
Context and limits
A 2011 study of tobacco industry documents by Petticrew and Lee found that Selye received substantial industry funding, and that industry lawyers and manufacturers used his statements in litigation and submissions. The authors say he did not disclose the funding while opposing tobacco control. Many experimental physiologists judged his concepts too vague to measure. Academic psychologists took up the stress concept from the late 1960s.
In your introductory course
Stress, health and wellbeing.Selye appears in chapters on stress and health, usually through the general adaptation syndrome. The tobacco industry material is a case of how funding can compromise a research field.
Related course reading: Psychology 2e, section 14.1. This is course context rather than a biographical source.
Years of active work
- 1936
He published A Syndrome Produced by Diverse Nocuous Agents.
- 1945
He became the first director of the Institute of Experimental Medicine and Surgery at the Universite de Montreal.
- 1958
He wrote to the American Tobacco Company seeking funding; the request was declined.
- 1969
The Council for Tobacco Research awarded him US$50,000 a year for three years, and he testified to a Canadian parliamentary committee against anti-smoking measures on 12 June.
Sources
- Petticrew and Lee, The father of stress meets big tobacco (American Journal of Public Health, 2011, PMC)Publisher. Text passages inspected.
- Science.ca, Hans SelyeReference work. Reference article inspected.
- Wikipedia, Hans SelyeReference work. Reference article inspected.