Such learning paradigms use pairings with an initially neutral stimulus (NS) and an aversive unconditioned stimulus changing the NS to a conditioned stimulus ( Mertens et al., 2018). Many researchers use classical fear conditioning, which has been extensively investigated in animals and in healthy and phobic humans. Research on fear and anxiety investigates the mechanisms of emotional learning across species with the purpose of improving treatments tackling the severe effects of anxiety disorders in humans. Further empirical evidence on gender differences indicates that psychosocial stress affects fear conditioning in men and women differently ( Jackson et al., 2006 Zorawski et al., 2006). With an odds ratio of 1.5–2.2, SAD is nearly twice as prevalent in women than in men ( Fehm et al., 2005). Introduction Social Anxiety Disorder and Social Fear ConditioningĪccording to the DSM-5, social anxiety disorder (SAD) is characterized by a persistent fear of one or more social or performance situations in which the person is exposed to unfamiliar people or to possible scrutiny by others, which is often associated with avoidance of social situations (American Psychiatric Association American Psychiatric Association, 2013). Future research should further investigate social fear learning mechanisms for developing more efficient treatments of SAD. VR is an interesting tool to measure emotional learning processes on different outcome levels with enhanced ecological validity. SFC was successfully induced and extinguished according to the primary outcome variables. Moreover, we observed a gender but no CS+/CS− differences in SCR. Regarding the secondary physiological outcome variables, we detected an activation in HR response during acquisition, but there were no differences between stimuli or groups. Regarding recognition, participants responded with higher sensitivity to agent than object stimuli, suggesting a higher ability to distinguish the target from the distractor for social cues, which were on focus during SFC. No such differences were found for HSA men. Furthermore, HSA women maintained a larger distance to male compared to female agents. Concerning behavior, results exhibited successful SFC in both groups and a general larger distance to agents in HSA than LSA participants. Furthermore, a clear difference in the fear-potentiated startle response between male CS+ and CS− at the end of acquisition indicates successful SFC to male agents in both groups. Additionally, women reported higher fear compared to men. As hypothesized, fear ratings for CS+ increased significantly during acquisition and the differentiation between CS+ and CS− vanished during extinction.
Secondary outcome variables were personality traits, contingency ratings, heart rate (HR), and skin conductance response (SCR). Primary outcome variables were defined for each of the 4 levels of emotional reactions including experience (fear ratings), psychophysiology (fear-potentiated startle), behavior (avoidance), and cognition (recognition task). In a social fear conditioning (SFC) paradigm, 60 participants actively approached several agents, some of which were paired with an aversive unconditioned stimulus (US) consisting of a verbal rejection and spitting simulated by an aversive air blast (CS+), or without an US (CS−). The present study investigates gender differences and the effect of male versus female agents in low (LSA) and high socially anxious (HSA) participants regarding the acquisition and extinction of social fear in virtual reality (VR). The reason for this difference is still being debated. Women nearly twice as often develop social anxiety disorder (SAD) compared to men. 2Department of Clinical Psychology, Institute of Psychology, Private University of Applied Science Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.1Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychotherapy, Institute of Psychology, University of Regensburg, Regensburg, Germany.Jonas Reichenberger 1*, Michael Pfaller 1, Diana Forster 1, Jennifer Gerczuk 1, Youssef Shiban 2 and Andreas Mühlberger 1