Adolescence is a developmental period characterized by substantial biological, neural, behavioral, and social changes. Learning to navigate the complex social world requires adaptive skills. Although anticipation of social situations can serve an adaptive function, providing opportunity to adjust behavior, socially anxious individuals may engage in maladaptive anticipatory processing. Importantly, elevated social anxiety often coincides with adolescence. This study investigated cortical electroencephalogram (EEG) responses during anticipation of evaluative feedback in 106 healthy adolescents aged 12–17 years. We examined differences in anticipatory event-related potentials (i.e., stimulus preceding negativity [SPN]) in relation to social anxiety levels and pubertal maturation. As expected, the right frontal SPN was more negative during feedback anticipation, particularly for adolescents with higher social anxiety and adolescents who were at a more advanced pubertal stage. Effects for the left posterior SPN were the opposite of those for the right frontal SPN consistent with a dipole. Anticipatory reactivity in adolescence was related to social anxiety symptom severity, especially in females, and pubertal maturation in a social evaluative situation. This study provides evidence for the development of social anticipatory processes in adolescence and potential mechanisms underlying maladaptive anticipation in social anxiety.

Many of our decisions take place under uncertainty. To successfully navigate the environment, individuals need to estimate the degree of uncertainty and adapt their behaviors accordingly by learning from experiences. However, uncertainty is a broad construct and distinct types of uncertainty may differentially influence our learning. We provide a semi-systematic review to illustrate cognitive and neurobiological processes involved in learning under two types of uncertainty: learning in environments with stochastic outcomes, and with volatile outcomes. We specifically reviewed studies (N = 26 studies) that included an adolescent population, because adolescence is a period in life characterized by heightened exploration and learning, as well as heightened uncertainty due to experiencing many new, often social, environments. Until now, reviews have not comprehensively compared learning under distinct types of uncertainties in this age range. Our main findings show that although the overall developmental patterns were mixed, most studies indicate that learning from stochastic outcomes, as indicated by increased accuracy in performance, improved with age. We also found that adolescents tended to have an advantage compared with adults and children when learning from volatile outcomes. We discuss potential mechanisms explaining these age-related differences and conclude by outlining future research directions.

Frontal midline (FM) theta (4–8 Hz) reactivity to unexpected social rejection seems to be an important correlate of a neural threat-detection system. Neurovisceral integration theory proposes that the functioning of such systems is indexed by heart rate variability (HRV). Here, we tested this by examining whether baseline HRV predicts FM-theta reactivity to unexpected rejection feedback. Additionally, we examined whether this alleged heart-brain connection differs based on individual differences in personality and behavioral constructs relevant to social threat sensitivity. Female undergraduates (n = 149; mean age = 19.7 years) performed the social-judgment paradigm, where they communicated their expectations about being liked/disliked by unfamiliar peers who had allegedly evaluated them, and received peer-feedback indicating social acceptance/rejection. We used community structure analysis to subtract subgroups, based on self-esteem, social feedback expectations, and response speed of providing expectations. Results provided evidence of two distinct subgroups: optimistic vs. pessimistic in light of social threat. Baseline HRV did not predict FM-theta reactivity to unexpected rejection, and this relationship was not modulated by the subgroups. Both subgroups showed a significant FM-theta power increase following unexpected rejection. Additionally, the optimistic subgroup was uniquely characterized by a FM-theta power increase following rejection (as against acceptance) feedback. Supporting prior studies, our results suggest that enhanced FM-theta signals the need for cognitive control when faced with unexpected outcomes, and extend this by suggesting that differences in social threat sensitivity may determine whether an outcome is deemed meaningful enough to signal the need for cognitive control.