Unpacking the buffering effect of social support figures: Social support attenuates fear acquisition

Abstract

Social support is associated with positive health outcomes, and research has demonstrated that the presence, or even just a reminder, of a social-support figure can reduce psychological and physiological responses to threats. However, the mechanisms underlying this effect are unclear, and no previous work has examined the impact of social support on basic fear learning processes, which have implications for threat responding. This study examined whether social support inhibits the formation of fear associations. After conducting a fear-conditioning procedure in which social-support stimuli were paired with conditional stimuli during fear acquisition, we found that the threat of shock was not associated with conditional stimuli paired with images of social-support figures, but was associated with stimuli paired with images of strangers. These findings indicate that social support prevents the formation of fear associations, reducing the amount of learned fears people acquire as they navigate the world, consequently reducing threat-related stress.

Thinking of attachment figures blocks differential fear conditioning

“…The results supported our hypothesis that the attachment prime inhibited the differential fear response during fear acquisition, and this had long-term effects on the recall of extinction 48 h later. These findings replicate an earlier report that social support figures inhibit fear acquisition when attachment figures are associated with the CS (Hornstein and Eisenberger, 2017 ). This current report extends this previous report by showing that awareness of an attachment figure prior to acquisition, even when the attachment figure is not directly conditioned with the aversive stimulus, limits the extent to which fear is acquired.…”

“…To test the proposal that attachments serve as a unique inhibitor of fear, we aimed to compare the fear inhibitory effects of attachment and positive cues. While Hornstein and Eisenberger ( 2017 ) found that social support cues resulted in greater inhibition of fear relative to strangers, they did not directly compare the inhibitory effects with positive stimuli. Whereas previous studies of attachments as potential safety signals have paired social cues with the CS, we tested the capacity of a brief awareness of attachment figures prior to fear conditioning to limit fear acquisition.…”

“…If attachment stimuli were simply safety stimuli or appetitive excitors, then it would be expected to find more fear acquisition acquired to the neutral cues following the removal of the safety cue, the so-called ‘superconditioning’ effect (Rescorla, 1971 ). However, in a subsequent study, Hornstein and Eisenberger ( 2017 ) showed that pairing attachment cues with neutral stimuli in a fear-conditioning task result in weaker fear learning than pairing the conditioned cues with images of strangers; further, lower levels of fear to the conditioned stimuli (CS) were maintained even after the attachment cues were removed, suggesting that attachment cues are not simply conditioned inhibitors of the fear response, but function in a distinctive manner.…”

Social support from nurses and non‐adherence with directly observed therapy (DOTS) maintenance phase among patients with tuberculosis in Metro Manila, Philippines

“…One way they can assist patients is to provide social support, which is defined as the “ transactional communicative process, including verbal and non‐verbal communication, which aims to improve an individual's feelings of coping, competence, belonging, and/or esteem” (Mattson & Hall, , p.184). Social support has shown several benefits related to disease outcomes, including lower stress, better medication intake, and disease screening (Hornstein & Eisenberger, ; Martin et al, ).…”

Predicting fear and perceived health during the COVID-19 pandemic using machine learning: A cross-national longitudinal study.

“…Factors influencing fear and behavior in the face of threats may be perceived vulnerability (Weinstein, 2000), social support (Hornstein & Eisenberger, 2017), and close relationships, since they are crucial for well-being and health (Holt-Lunstad, Smith & Layton, 2010). Similarly, attachment style influences affect regulation (Marganska, Gallagher & Miranda, 2013), and insecure attachment has been linked to heightened sensitivity for anxiety (Watt, Lachlan & Campbell, 2005), as well as personal fear of death (Mikulincer, Florian & Tolmacz, 1990).…”