Does loneliness enhance fear learning and can social support reminders ameliorate this effect?

孤独感是一种与社交孤立感相关的痛苦经历，据估计，超过五分之三的美国人受到孤独感的影响，而且这种情况正在上升。除了造成情绪困扰外，孤独还与许多负面的精神和身体健康结果有关，包括死亡风险增加。对这些有害影响的一种解释是，孤独可能会加剧有害和痛苦的恐惧反应。经历孤独的人对潜在的威胁反应过度，当他们得知新的威胁时，他们也可能会感到过度的恐惧。拟议中的项目考察了孤独是否会增加恐惧学习的强度，即新恐惧形成的过程，这将放大人类持续恐惧的发展。重要的是，这项研究还测试了通过防止或减少孤独者有害恐惧的发展来减轻这些影响的方法。通过研究孤独和恐惧学习之间的关系，这项工作促进了对孤独导致负面结果的途径以及如何减轻这些影响的理解。这个项目为人类如何体验孤独提供了新的见解。动物文献的研究结果表明，社会隔离会导致焦虑行为增加、恐惧学习增强、恐惧减少延迟（消失）和持续的恐惧反应。此外，对人类的初步研究表明，孤独的人减少恐惧的过程受到损害，但当有社会支持人物的提醒时，这种损害就不那么明显了。该项目涉及一系列研究，以检验是否：1)孤独增强人类的恐惧学习，导致更持久的恐惧；2)社会支持人物的图像减少恐惧学习和保留过程；3)当经历身体温暖时，社会支持提醒的缓解效果类似。物理上温暖的物体与社会支持提醒具有重叠的减少恐惧的特性，对于没有支持性社会关系的孤独个体来说更容易获得。这项工作的发现提供了关于孤独的重要信息。对预期恐惧过程的支持可以提出简单、非侵入性和低成本的干预措施，以减少孤独的有害影响。该奖项反映了美国国家科学基金会的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的知识价值和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。

Loneliness, the distressing experience associated with feeling socially isolated, is estimated to affect more than 3 out of 5 Americans and is on the rise. In addition to causing emotional distress, loneliness has been linked to a multitude of negative mental and physical health outcomes, including an increased risk of death. One explanation for these harmful effects is that loneliness may intensify harmful and distressing fear responses. Individuals who experience loneliness overreact to potential threats, and they may also experience excessive fear when learning about new threats. The proposed project examines whether being lonely increases the strength of fear learning, the process by which new fears are formed, which would amplify the development of persistent fears in humans. Importantly, this research also tests methods to alleviate these effects by preventing or reducing the development of harmful fears among lonely individuals. By examining the relationship between loneliness and fear learning, this work advances an understanding of a route through which loneliness leads to negative outcomes and how to mitigate these effects. This project provides new insights on how humans experience loneliness. Findings in the animal literature demonstrate that social isolation causes increased anxious behavior, augmented fear learning, delayed reductions in fear (extinction), and persistent fear responses. Additionally, preliminary work in humans reveals that the process by which fears are reduced is impaired in lonely individuals, but that this impairment is less pronounced when there are reminders of social support figures. This project involves a series of studies that examine whether: 1) loneliness augments fear learning in humans, leading to more persistent fears, 2) images of social support figures reduce fear learning and retention processes, and 3) the mitigating effects of social support reminders similarly occur when experiencing physical warmth. Physically warm objects share overlapping fear-reducing properties with social support reminders and are more accessible for lonely individuals who do not have supportive social bonds. The findings of this work provide important information on loneliness. Support for the expected fear processes can suggest simple, non-invasive, and low-cost interventions to reduce the harmful effects of being lonely.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.