Social Safety Theory: Understanding social stress, disease risk, resilience, and behavior during the COVID-19 pandemic and beyond

Abstract

Many of life’s most impactful experiences involve either social safety (e.g., acceptance, affiliation, belonging, inclusion) or social threat (e.g., conflict, isolation, rejection, exclusion). According to Social Safety Theory, these experiences greatly impact human health and behavior because a fundamental goal of the brain and immune system is to keep the body biologically safe. To achieve this crucial goal, social threats likely gained the ability to activate anticipatory neural-immune responses that would have historically benefited reproduction and survival; the presence of social safety, in turn, likely dampened these responses. Viewing positive and negative social experiences through this lens affords a biologically based evolutionary account for why certain stressors are particularly impactful. It also provides an integrated, multi-level framework for investigating the biopsychosocial roots of psychopathology, health disparities, aging, longevity, and interpersonal cognition and behavior. Ultimately, this work has the potential to inform new strategies for reducing disease risk and promoting resilience.

Feelings of loneliness and isolation: Social brain and social cognition in the elderly and Alzheimer's disease

“…A modifiable factor, loneliness, can be ameliorated before the development of severe impairment or neurodegenerative disorders likelydue-to-AD. Indeed, inflammation-related diseases and viral infections are among the most prevalent forms of morbidity and mortality associated with this multilevel biological threat response due to social stress and according to the social safety theory (Slavich, 2022). Therefore, this theoretical paper's primary aim is to underline the importance of the social neuroscience perspective to study the social brain and social cognition in the older population, to draw useful indications for preventing the iatrogenic effects of isolation on psychophysical wellbeing and acceleration of neurodegeneration-related processes.…”

“…Positive and negative social experiences can be explained by the social safety theory on a biological and evolutionary basis, allowing us to explain why certain stressors are particularly harmful. The framework also provides a multilevel approach to explore the biopsychosocial determinants of health and aging disparities, physical and cognitive frailty, and interpersonal behavior impairment (Slavich, 2022).…”

Aggressive Measures, Rising Inequalities and Mass Formation During the COVID-19 Crisis: An Overview and Proposed Way Forward

“…The COVID-19 crisis, as with any crisis, spurs feelings of anxiety, frustration and aggression (Slavich, 2022). Social safety theory would predict that social threat greatly impacts human health and behavior (Slavich, 2022).…”

“…The COVID-19 crisis, as with any crisis, spurs feelings of anxiety, frustration and aggression (Slavich, 2022). Social safety theory would predict that social threat greatly impacts human health and behavior (Slavich, 2022). Social isolation has led to the experience of meaninglessness, although the role of mindsets about the COVID-19 situation has been important (Zion et al, 2022).…”

Neural and peripheral markers of reward during positive social evaluation are associated with less clinician-rated depression symptom severity in adolescence

“…Social evaluation can serve as a reward (e.g., a compliment from a peer) or a stressor (e.g., being criticized) [ 12 ]. Social stressors (e.g., negative social evaluation) robustly predict increased depression symptom severity [ 13 , 14 ] as well as overall biological and clinical functioning [ 15 , 16 ]. Animal model work has implicated social stressors in the development of depression [ 17 , 18 ].…”