Recent work has revealed that social support cues are powerful inhibitors of the fear response. They are endowed with a unique combination of inhibitory properties, enabling them to both inhibit fear in the short term and reduce fear in the long term. While these findings had previously been thought to suggest that social support cues belong to a category of prepared safety stimuli, mounting evidence clearly shows that the mechanisms underlying safety signaling cannot account for the unique effects of social support cues. Here, we propose a reclassification of social support cues as members of a prepared fear suppressor category. We present an argument for the prepared fear suppressor classification, discuss potential mechanisms underlying the unique effects of prepared fear suppressors, and outline next steps to build an understanding of this category and its clinical implications. This review is meant to serve as a roadmap for exploring this novel category of prepared fear suppressors, whose never-before-seen range of inhibitory effects makes them an important and impactful discovery with implications for both fear learning theory and clinical application.

最近的研究表明，社会支持线索是恐惧反应的强大抑制剂。它们被赋予了独特的抑制特性组合，使它们能够在短期内抑制恐惧，并在长期内减少恐惧。虽然这些发现以前被认为表明社会支持线索属于准备好的安全刺激类别，但越来越多的证据清楚地表明，安全信号背后的机制无法解释社会支持线索的独特效果。在这里，我们建议将社会支持线索重新分类为准备好的恐惧抑制类别的成员。我们提出了准备好的恐惧抑制器分类的论点，讨论了准备好的恐惧抑制器独特作用的潜在机制，并概述了后续步骤以建立对该类别及其临床意义的理解。这篇综述旨在作为探索这种新型恐惧抑制剂的路线图，其前所未见的一系列抑制作用使它们成为一个重要且有影响力的发现，对恐惧学习理论和临床应用都有影响。