Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles 1285 Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of California, Los Angeles 1285 Franz Hall, Los Angeles, CA, 90095, USA.
Behav Res Ther. 2022 Jun;153:104101. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2022.104101. Epub 2022 Apr 17.
The consequences of the COVID-19 pandemic have resulted in many disruptions to daily life, including an abrupt increase in social disconnection. As measures were put in place to combat the spread of COVID-19, people across the globe began living in states of limited social contact, fostering feelings of social isolation and loneliness. Previous literature suggests that these increases in social disconnection can have profound effects on both physical and mental health, perhaps especially in the case of fear disorders. The combination of feeling disconnected from others and the high level of daily threat experienced due to COVID-19 created conditions under which dysfunctional and persistent fears were especially likely to develop. Building on current understanding of the harmful effects of social disconnection on well-being in general as well as specific implications for fear, here we present findings from three preliminary investigations that are the first to directly examine the effects of loneliness on how fears are learned and maintained. The Results of this work show that loneliness impairs the process by which fears are extinguished, which is central to both the regulation of fear and treatment of fear disorders, and provide insight into potential avenues to mitigate such effects.
COVID-19 大流行的后果导致日常生活发生了许多变化，包括社交脱节的急剧增加。随着为应对 COVID-19 传播而采取的措施的实施，全球各地的人们开始生活在社交接触有限的状态下，滋生了社交孤立和孤独感。先前的文献表明，这种社交脱节的增加可能对身心健康产生深远影响，尤其是在恐惧障碍的情况下。与他人脱节的感觉以及因 COVID-19 而产生的高水平日常威胁相结合，为功能失调和持续恐惧的发展创造了条件。在了解社交脱节对幸福感的普遍有害影响以及对恐惧的具体影响的基础上，我们在此介绍三项初步调查的结果，这些结果首次直接研究了孤独感对恐惧学习和维持方式的影响。这项工作的结果表明，孤独感会损害恐惧消退的过程，而恐惧消退是恐惧调节和恐惧障碍治疗的核心，这为减轻这种影响提供了新的思路。
