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

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.

The effects of everyday-life social interactions on anxiety-related autonomic responses differ between men and women

“…This finding of decreased HR and increased HRV when women interact with familiar partners is in accordance with previous findings of stronger social buffering effects in women [3,21]. On the one hand, it could mean that women benefit more from the presence of a familiar interaction partner than men.…”

“…Evidence regarding gender effects in social buffering have been largely conflicting, from stronger social buffering effects in women [3,21], vice versa [22,23], to no gender difference in social buffering [26,27]. Most previous studies primarily focused on the participant's gender, while the gender of the interaction partner was either kept constant [3,22] or was not included in the main analyses [23]. The present findings are novel in that they show that social buffering effects in everyday life are shaped by the gender of both the participant and their interaction partners.…”

“…We hypothesized that women would show higher HR and lower HRV than men during everyday social interactions [18,20]. Based on previous findings [3,19,22], we expected that men and women would show more adaptive subjective and cardiovascular responses (i.e., lower state anxiety, lower HR, higher HRV) in the presence of female interaction partners. Alternatively, we expected opposite-gender social buffering effects [28,29], or no effects of the interaction partners' gender [26].…”

“…Findings concerning gender effects in social buffering of anxiety are mixed, however. Some studies reported stronger effects in women compared to men [3,21], while other studies showed the opposite [22,23]. Yet other studies found no gender differences in general anxiety levels [24,25] or in social buffering effects [26,27].…”

“…Regarding the gender of the interaction partner, both men and women showed reduced autonomic responses (systolic blood pressure [BP]) when receiving social support from Gender-specific social buffering in everyday life 4 female, but not male social partners [19]. Similarly, other laboratory settings with anxietyrelated autonomic measurements revealed social buffering effects in female, but not male dyads, e.g., on skin conductance responses [3]. Challenging this result, other studies reported reduced cardiovascular reactivity (systolic BP, HR) in women in the presence of their romantic partner [28] or when receiving social support from a male friend [29].…”