The relationship between stress and social dominance is not novel, many studies have shown that stress produces subordinate status. However, these studies utilize solely uncontrollable stressors. This is problematic given that control over a stressor (either perceived or actual) protects against the detrimental effects of an identical uncontrollable stressor. In rats, animals exposed to a controllable stressor (escapable shock/ES) are protected against the behavioral and neurochemical changes that occur following a physically identical uncontrollable stressor (inescapable shock/IS). This protection granted by control only occurs when the instrumental escape response is learned with prefrontal circuitry. Others have shown that similar prefrontal circuitry is both sufficient and necessary for winning in social competitions. Here I will show that 1) controllable stress facilitates dominance through thalamocortical circuitry, 2) repeated dominance relies on corticostriatal circuitry and results in protection against inescapable stress similar to ES, and 3) controllable stress increases instrumental effort in non-social tasks. Together these results indicate that both social dominance and controllable stress rely on a thalamocorticostriatal system used to increase effort in goal oriented instrumental tasks, and that robust activation of this system (i.e. by ES) increases performance in other tasks that rely on instrumental effort.