Social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender, social concern, and the presence of real vs virtual agents

Yanyan Qi,Dorothée Bruch,Martin J Herrmann,Marc E Latoschik,Philipp Krop,Grit Hein,Jürgen Deckert

doi:10.1038/s41398-021-01761-5

Yanyan Qi, Dorothée Bruch + Show 5 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1038/s41398-021-01761-5

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Abstract

The presence of a partner can attenuate physiological fear responses, a phenomenon known as social buffering. However, not all individuals are equally sociable. Here we investigated whether social buffering of fear is shaped by sensitivity to social anxiety (social concern) and whether these effects are different in females and males. We collected skin conductance responses (SCRs) and affect ratings of female and male participants when they experienced aversive and neutral sounds alone (alone treatment) or in the presence of an unknown person of the same gender (social treatment). Individual differences in social concern were assessed based on a well-established questionnaire. Our results showed that social concern had a stronger effect on social buffering in females than in males. The lower females scored on social concern, the stronger the SCRs reduction in the social compared to the alone treatment. The effect of social concern on social buffering of fear in females disappeared if participants were paired with a virtual agent instead of a real person. Together, these results showed that social buffering of human fear is shaped by gender and social concern. In females, the presence of virtual agents can buffer fear, irrespective of individual differences in social concern. These findings specify factors that shape the social modulation of human fear, and thus might be relevant for the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Highlights

Excessive fear responses are characteristic of anxiety disorders and pave the way for a variety of other psychological and psychiatric problems
The results showed significantly more negative affect ratings for aversive compared to neutral sounds in females and males, with a stronger effect in females, B = −0.56, p < 0.001 (females: aversive sounds, M = −1.97, social mean (SE) = 0.11, neutral sounds, M = 1.33, SE = 0.11, t(3443) = −56.28, p < 0.0001, estimated marginal means (EMM) = −3.31, SE = 0.059; males: aversive sounds, M = −1.69, SE = 0.11, neutral sounds, M = 1.05, SE = 0.11, t(3443) = −48.91, p < 0.0001, EMM = −2.74, SE = 0.056)
The results of our first study revealed an increased social buffering effect in females (Fig. 2A) that is mainly driven by those participants that scored low on social concern (Fig. 2B)

Summary

Introduction

Excessive fear responses are characteristic of anxiety disorders and pave the way for a variety of other psychological and psychiatric problems. There is evidence from animal models that autonomic [1, 2] and neural [2,3,4,5] fear responses are reduced in the presence of a non-fearful conspecific, a phenomenon known as social buffering [6,7,8]. Adapting the paradigms that were used to study social buffering in animals, recent studies have shown similar social buffering of autonomic fear or stress responses in humans [9,10,11], in particular in individuals who score higher on trait [12, 13] or state [9, 14] anxiety. For individuals scoring high on social concern, the presence of another individual may impose a threat, instead of a safety cue that may trigger social buffering

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