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

孤独是一种与社交孤立相关的痛苦经历，据估计，超过五分之三的美国人受到孤独的影响，而且还在上升。除了造成情绪困扰外，孤独还与一系列消极的心理和身体健康后果有关，包括增加死亡风险。对这些有害影响的一种解释是，孤独可能会加剧有害和令人痛苦的恐惧反应。经历孤独的人对潜在的威胁反应过度，当他们了解到新的威胁时，他们也可能会经历过度的恐惧。这项拟议的项目调查了孤独是否会增加恐惧学习的强度，恐惧学习是形成新的恐惧的过程，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预防或减少孤独个体中有害恐惧的发展来缓解这些影响的方法。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。动物文献中的发现表明，社交孤立会导致焦虑行为增加，恐惧学习增强，恐惧延迟减少(消退)，以及持续的恐惧反应。此外，在人类中的初步研究表明，孤独的人减少恐惧的过程受到了损害，但当有社会支持数据时，这种损害就不那么明显了。这个项目涉及一系列研究，考察是否：1)孤独增强人类的恐惧学习，导致更持久的恐惧；2)社会支持数字的图像减少恐惧的学习和保持过程；3)社会支持提醒的缓解效果类似地发生在体验身体温暖的时候。身体温暖的物品与社会支持提醒共享重叠的减少恐惧的属性，对于没有支持性社会纽带的孤独个人来说更容易获得。这项工作的发现提供了有关孤独的重要信息。对预期恐惧过程的支持可以建议简单、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NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势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.