Warm hands, warm hearts: An investigation of physical warmth as a prepared safety stimulus.

Abstract

Recent work has demonstrated that social support figures seem to be particularly robust inhibitors of the Pavlovian fear response. Specifically, social support figures appear to act as prepared safety stimuli, stimuli that have played an important role in mammalian survival and are thus less easily associated with threat and more able to inhibit the fear response. Given some of the shared behavioral and neural consequences of both social support and physical warmth, as well as the importance of physical warmth for mammalian survival, we conducted a series of examinations designed to examine whether physical warmth is also a prepared safety stimulus. In two studies conducted in human adults, we examined whether a physically warm stimulus was less readily associated with threat (compared to soft or neutral stimuli; Study 1) and was able to inhibit the fear response elicited by other threatening cues (compared to neutral stimuli; Study 2). Results showed that physical warmth resisted association with threat (Study 1) and not only inhibited the fear response but also led to lasting inhibition even after the warm stimulus was removed (Study 2). Together, these studies indicate that physical warmth, like social support, meets the requirements of being a prepared safety stimulus, and they pave the way for future work to clarify the properties that enable cues in this category to naturally inhibit fear responding.

Association of plasma cytokines and antidepressant response following mild-intensity whole-body hyperthermia in major depressive disorder

“…In regards to mental health, sauna use associates with a reduced risk of new-onset psychosis [ 2 ], hot baths improve symptoms in autistic individuals [ 3 ], and hyperthermic baths and whole-body hyperthermia (WBH) have been repeatedly reported to improve symptoms of major depressive disorder (MDD) [ 4 – 6 ]. These findings are consistent with other studies demonstrating that physical warmth promotes feelings of social connection and safety from threat, both of which are protective factors against the development of MDD [ 7 , 8 ].…”

Social support and fear-inhibition: an examination of underlying neural mechanisms

“… 1 Notably, physical warmth has also been shown to be a member of this category, with physically warm objects performing the same combination of unique inhibitory functions as social-support-reminders ( Hornstein et al. , 2022b ).…”

Pavlovian safety learning: an integrative theoretical review

“…J. McNally & Reiss, 1982, 1984Mineka & Öhman, 2002;Öhman et al, 1975; M. E. P. Seligman, 1971). 'Prepared safety signals' have been examined in several studies, wherein stimuli featuring social support figures or loved ones can exert threat inhibition indicative of conditioned inhibition (Bublatzky et al, 2019;Eisenberger et al, 2011;Hornstein et al, 2016Hornstein et al, , 2021Leschak et al, 2021;Morato et al, 2021Morato et al, , 2023. While untrained safety signals such as these can easily exert threat-counteracting effects, the concept of 'prepared' or innate frustration signal is difficult to conceive of conceptually or experimentally.…”