Context and Domain Matter: The Error-Related Negativity in Peer Presence Predicts Fear of Negative Evaluation, not Global Social Anxiety, in Adolescents

Abstract

Background: Social anxiety symptoms are most likely to emerge during adolescence, a developmental window marked by heightened concern over peer evaluation. However, the neurocognitive mechanism(s) underlying adolescent social anxiety remain unclear. Emerging work points to the error-related negativity (ERN/ΔERN) as a potential neural marker of exaggerated self/error-monitoring in social anxiety, particularly for errors committed in front of peers. However, social anxiety symptoms are marked by heterogeneity and it remains unclear exactly what domain(s) of social anxiety symptoms are associated with ERN/ΔERN variation in peer presence, particularly within the adolescent period. Methods: To advance and deepen the mechanistic understanding of the ERN/ΔERN's putative role as a neural marker for social anxiety in adolescence, we leveraged a social manipulation procedure and assessed a developmentally-salient domain of social anxiety during adolescence-Fear of Negative Evaluation (FNE). Adolescents residing in Hanzhong, a small city in the southwestern region of mainland China, had EEG recorded while performing a flanker task, twice (peer presence/absence); FNE, as well as global social anxiety symptoms were assessed. Results: Overall ERN increases in peer presence. FNE specifically, but not global levels of social anxiety symptoms, predicted ΔERN in peer presence. Conclusions: These data are the first demonstration that the ΔERN relates to a specific domain of social anxiety in adolescents, as well as the first evidence of such relations within a non-WEIRD (Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic) sample. Results have important implications for theory and research into adolescent social anxiety.

Revealing the Fear of Negative Evaluation: Exploring Its Impact on Self-Esteem through Emotional Loneliness and Avoidance among Adolescent

“…Through the comprehensive examination of the mediating role of EL and SA, this research has helped in determining the impact of the FNE on adolescent SE. Multiple researchers have noted that FNE is the leading cause of social anxiety in adolescents that impacts their SE (Li et al, 2023;Naidu et al, 2023;Niu et al, 2023). Selem et al (2023) defined FNE as dread about others' evaluation, anxiety regarding the possibility of an opposing decision, prevention of situations involving evaluations, and the expectation of being negatively evaluated (Selem et al, 2023).…”

Induced error‐related theta activity, not error‐related negativity, predicts task performance as well as anxiety and worry during real‐life stress in a youth sample

“…Finally, more negative ERN during childhood or adolescence is linked to increased anxiety symptom levels when coping with future real‐life stressful events, such as a natural disaster (Meyer, Danielson, et al., 2017) or the COVID‐19 pandemic (Morales et al., 2022). Interestingly, larger ERN is more closely related to increase in worry and concerns about performance in anxiety disorders when assessed in a standard laboratory setting (Buzzell, Troller‐Renfree, et al., 2017; Moser et al., 2013; Niu et al., 2023).…”