Translational Social Neuroscience Unit, Department of Psychiatry, Psychosomatic and Psychotherapy, Center of Mental Health, University of Würzburg, Margarete-Höppel-Platz 1, 97080, Würzburg, Germany.
Sci Rep. 2023 Jun 12;13(1):9498. doi: 10.1038/s41598-023-36118-z.
Social buffering, a phenomenon where social presence can reduce anxiety and fear-related autonomic responses, has been studied in numerous laboratory settings. The results suggest that the familiarity of the interaction partner influences social buffering while also providing some evidence for gender effects. In the laboratory, however, it is difficult to mimic the complexity of real-life social interactions. Consequently, the social modulation of anxiety and related autonomic responses in everyday life remains poorly understood. We used smartphone-based Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) combined with wearable electrocardiogram sensors to investigate how everyday-life social interactions affect state anxiety and related cardiac changes in women and men. On five consecutive days, 96 healthy young participants (53% women) answered up to six EMA surveys per day, indicating characteristics of their most recent social interaction and the respective interaction partner(s). In women, our results showed lower heart rate in the presence of a male interaction partner. Men showed the same effect with female interaction partners. Moreover, only women showed decreased heart rate and increased heart rate variability with increasing interaction partner familiarity. These findings specify the conditions under which social interactions reduce anxiety-related responses in women and men.
社交缓冲，即社交存在可以减轻焦虑和与恐惧相关的自主反应的现象，已经在许多实验室环境中进行了研究。研究结果表明，互动伙伴的熟悉程度影响社交缓冲，同时也为性别效应提供了一些证据。然而，在实验室中，很难模拟现实生活中社交互动的复杂性。因此，日常生活中焦虑和相关自主反应的社交调节仍知之甚少。我们使用基于智能手机的生态瞬时评估 (EMA) 结合可穿戴心电图传感器，研究日常生活中的社交互动如何影响女性和男性的状态焦虑和相关的心脏变化。在连续五天的时间里，96 名健康的年轻参与者（53%为女性）每天回答多达六次 EMA 调查，指出他们最近社交互动的特征及其各自的互动伙伴。研究结果显示，在有男性互动伙伴在场的情况下，女性的心率降低。男性与女性互动伙伴在一起时也有同样的效果。此外，只有女性的心率随着互动伙伴熟悉程度的增加而降低，心率变异性增加。这些发现具体说明了社交互动在女性和男性中减轻与焦虑相关反应的条件。
