Presence of a Dog but Not a Social Support Figure During Extinction Training of Conditioned Fear Decreases State Anxiety and Increases Positive Affect

Despite its first-line status, the dissemination of exposure is limited across disorders and health care systems. Research suggests that this is at least partially due to the high emotional distress experienced during exposure. Here, we employed a two-day differential fear-conditioning paradigm to investigate the effects of dog support and social support during extinction training (an analog to exposure therapy) on anxiety, stress, arousal, affect, and learning. We collected data from N = 123 participants (dog support: n = 41, social support: n = 40, control: n = 42) and found significantly lower state anxiety (State-Trait Anxiety Inventory) and significantly more positive affect (Positive and Negative Affect Schedule) during extinction training for dog but not for social support. Moreover, state anxiety significantly increased from pre-to post-extinction training for social and no support but not for dog support. A selective detriment in declarative, cognitive fear extinction for dog support, indicated by significantly higher US-expectancy difference scores during and after extinction training, was not present in the return of fear test (an analog of return-of-fear phenomena observed in relapse). In sum, our findings serve as a proof of concept for the potential of dog support to modulate emotional distress during exposure analogs.