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 low

SUBMITTER: Qi Y 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8688413 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature