Images of social support reminders, but not learned safety signals, reduce long-term fear

Although previously considered to simply be a form of safety signals, reminders of social-support-figures have recently been shown to have a distinct combination of effects: inhibiting fear while present, like safety signals do, but also enhancing the extinction of fear, in contrast to safety signals, which impair fear extinction. In this direct comparison of these cues, we confirmed this divergent pattern of effects and revealed that while safety signals inhibit fear by reducing expectation that a fearful event will occur, social support reminders inhibit fear via an alternative pathway, possibly by reducing perceived fearfulness of the event itself. These results substantiate the differentiation of social support reminders from safety signals and contribute to their still-being-discovered effects, paving the way for a possible new understanding of the potential benefits of these reminders for extinction-based therapies. Indeed, while safety signals are harmful to fear extinction processes and the therapies that rely on them, social support reminders may be uniquely beneficial—both decreasing the discomfort associated with completing such therapies by inhibiting fear while present, as well as enhancing therapeutic outcomes by enhancing fear extinction. Thus, reminders of our closest others may represent a simple, inexpensive, and non-invasive method to boost current therapies.