Human social defeat and approach–avoidance: Escalating social‐evaluative threat and threat of aggression increases social avoidance

Abstract

Basic research on avoidance by Murray Sidman laid the foundation for advances in the classification, conceptualization and treatment of avoidance in psychological disorders. Contemporary avoidance research is explicitly translational and increasingly focused on how competing appetitive and aversive contingencies influence avoidance. In this laboratory investigation, we examined the effects of escalating social‐evaluative threat and threat of social aggression on avoidance of social interactions. During social‐defeat learning, 38 adults learned to associate 9 virtual peers with an increasing probability of receiving negative evaluations. Additionally, 1 virtual peer was associated with positive evaluations. Next, in an approach–avoidance task with social‐evaluative threat, 1 peer associated with negative evaluations was presented alongside the peer associated with positive evaluations. Approaching peers produced a positive or a probabilistic negative evaluation, while avoiding peers prevented a negative evaluation (and forfeited a positive evaluation). In an approach–avoidance task with social aggression, virtual peers gave and took money away from participants. Escalating social‐evaluative threat and aggression increased avoidance, ratings of feeling threatened and threat expectancy and decreased ratings of peer favorableness. These findings underscore the potential of coupling social defeat and approach–avoidance paradigms for translational research on the neurobehavioral mechanisms of social approach–avoidance decision‐making and anxiety.

How Socially Avoidant Emerging Adults Process Social Feedback during Human-to-Human Interaction after Social Rejection: An Event-Related Potential Study

“…In contrast, we did not find this pattern in the socially avoidant group. It seemed that socially avoidant emerging adults distributed equal attentional resources to cooperation and competition, which suggests that they might consider cooperation and competition as analogous social interactions, possibly due to their lack of social skills [ 19 ].…”

“…Previous research has shown that, when dealing with necessary interpersonal interaction, socially avoidant emerging adults would feel stressed and have poor-quality relationships with others [ 3 ]. After that, they are probably unable to receive positive social evaluations from their peers, and their accumulated negative social evaluation would increase their social avoidance motivation [ 19 ]. Considering that socially avoidant emerging adults show intense social avoidance during interpersonal interaction, real interpersonal interaction would be an ideal situation to examine the ERPs related to social avoidance.…”

A dedicated hypothalamic oxytocin circuit controls aversive social learning

“…Additionally, the loser learns to stay away from the area where defeat had occurred to presumably minimize the chance of encountering the aggressor 6,7 . The defeat-induced avoidance is observed across species, including humans 8 . In the US, a quarter of kids between 12-18 years old reportedly experienced bullying and showed increased social isolation and school avoidance 9 .…”

Trajectories and predictors of social avoidance in female patients with breast cancer

“…However, researchers have mainly focused on pathology, ignoring the social avoidance caused by disease (17). In addition, translational research on the social avoidance of human beings has been largely ignored due to difficulties in scheduling ecologically valid social threats in the laboratory (18). Therefore, paying attention to the social avoidance problems of patients with breast cancer is of significance for improving their quality of life and helping them reintegrate into society.…”