Chemosensory anxiety signals as modulators of trust, and aggression

• Applicant: Professorin Dr. Bettina M. Pause
• Subject Area: General, Cognitive and Mathematical Psychology
• Term: from 2013 to 2016
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 244493213

Chemosensory signals of anxiety increase the perceptual acuity for social signals of danger and they prime withdrawal related motor systems. As chemosensory signals of anxiety are processed within brain areas regulating empathic feelings it is proposed that these chemosignals convey feelings of anxiety from the sender to the perceiver. In addition, people suffering from social anxiety seem to process and react to chemosensory signals of anxiety stronger than non-anxious individuals. Here, it is aimed to investigate whether also overt social behavior in socially anxious and non-socially anxious participants is affected in the context of these chemosignals. Sweat will be sampled while the odor donors participate in the Trier Social Stress Test (TSST, group testing) and while they are performing an easy ergometer training (control condition). The experimental part of the project will be related to the behavioral outcome of signal processing in the perceiver. As chemosginals of anxiety probably serve to inform conspecifics about a potential danger, it is expected that gender specific stress-related behavioral responses are going to be evoked in the context of chemosignals of anxiety. While men might respond to chemosensory anxiety signals with fight or flight behavior, in females, tend- and befriend behavior might be affected. Therefore, it is intended to set up two different measures of behavioral stress responses: one of which will be related to aggression and defense, the other one will be related to social binding, such as trust. It is expected that males respond to these chemosignals with an increased readiness to show overt aggression. However, in females the perception of chemosensory stress signals should activate an increased readiness to show binding behavior, such as trust. The behavioral experiments will be carried out with participants scoring high and low in social anxiety. In accordance with our previous findings, it is expected that the behavioral effects of the social chemosignals with be stronger in people experiencing high levels of social anxiety.

• DFG Programme: Research Grants
• Participating Person: Professor Dr. Oliver Tobias Wolf