Reclassifying the Unique Inhibitory Properties of Social Support Figures: A Roadmap for Exploring Prepared Fear Suppression

Abstract

Recent work has revealed that social support cues are powerful inhibitors of the fear response. They are endowed with a unique combination of inhibitory properties, enabling them to both inhibit fear in the short term and reduce fear in the long term. While these findings had previously been thought to suggest that social support cues belong to a category of prepared safety stimuli, mounting evidence clearly shows that the mechanisms underlying safety signaling cannot account for the unique effects of social support cues. Here, we propose a reclassification of social support cues as members of a prepared fear suppressor category. We present an argument for the prepared fear suppressor classification, discuss potential mechanisms underlying the unique effects of prepared fear suppressors, and outline next steps to build an understanding of this category and its clinical implications. This review is meant to serve as a roadmap for exploring this novel category of prepared fear suppressors, whose never-before-seen range of inhibitory effects makes them an important and impactful discovery with implications for both fear learning theory and clinical application.

Keywords: Fear inhibition; Pavlovian fear conditioning; Prepared fear suppression; Prepared safety; Safety signal; Social support.