As they wait: Anticipatory neural response to evaluative peer feedback varies by pubertal status and social anxiety

Abstract

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.

Context and domain matter: the error-related negativity in peer presence predicts fear of negative evaluation, not global social anxiety, in adolescents

“…Given that the ERN is an established index of self-monitoring for errors, we similarly hypothesize a close association between ERN magnitude within social settings and FNE (as opposed to social anxiety symptoms more generally). Indeed, neural responses associated with anticipated social feedback are correlated with FNE (Topel et al, 2021; Van der Molen et al, 2014), although prior work has not directly assessed the link between FNE and the ERN in social settings.…”

Neurophysiology of predictable unpleasant event processing in preadolescents and early adolescents, part I: Event‐related potential markers of unpleasant image anticipation and processing

“…Indeed, in child/adolescent work, SPN has mainly been tested in contexts of awaiting feedback after an active response, and these studies have generally focused on anticipating response-contingent monetary outcomes as opposed to semantically unpleasant events (e.g., Feldmann et al, 2021). As one exception, a recent study tested modulation of SPN in 12-17-year-old individuals while they awaited confirmation or disconfirmation of guesses as to whether peers would accept or reject them-and in this study, late SPN amplitude increased with age and with increasing social anxiety (Topel et al, 2021). Though this finding does suggest development of anticipatory processing as reflected by late SPN in nonmonetary contexts, however, it does not speak to how SPN is modulated during predictable event anticipation since feedback in the study reflected expectations rather than known outcomes.…”

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

“…Given that the ERN is an established index of self-monitoring for errors, we similarly hypothesize a close association between ERN magnitude within social settings and FNE (as opposed to social anxiety symptoms more generally). Indeed, neural responses associated with anticipated social feedback are correlated with FNE (Topel et al, 2021; Van der Molen et al, 2014), although prior work has not directly assessed the link between FNE and the ERN in social settings.…”