Fig. 4

Social support counteracts aggressive behavior. a. Cumulative time spent by focal zebrafish in the Social ROI and Mirror Zone (MZ) for CNTRL + SC + M and HGRY + SC + M conditions, b. Mean number of aggressive acts performed in the 6 min agonistic interaction, c. Boxplots show the preference for the social area for CNTRL + SC + M (n = 20) and HGRY + SC + M (n = 20) fish during Social Buffering, d. Cumulative probability distribution of Parallel Index (PI) values for zebrafish under HGRY + SC + M and CNTRL + SC + M, e. Polar scatter plot of the focal fishes’ individual mean resultant vector’s angles α (0˚ to 360˚) combined with corresponding vector lengths R (0 to 1), for each treatment, f. Box plot of the individual resultant vector’s lengths R projected (R proj) onto the stimulus direction (180˚). Positive values indicate directional focus towards the stimulus; zero indicates no directionality; negative values indicate directional focus opposite to the stimulus, g. Heatmap of social preference in the CNTRL + SC + M group; h. Heatmap for the HGRY + SC + M. Box and whisker plots are shown with arithmetic median (middle line), and boxes represent the 1 st and 3rd quartiles. Data shown as mean ± s.e.m. P values are based on non-parametric t test comparing response differences. All asterisks indicate significance (*P < 0.05, **P < 0.01, ***P < 0.001 or ****P < 0.0001), ns: not significant; Mann–Whitney U test.