Relational Victimization Predicts Adolescents’ Social Anxiety Through Increases in the Error-Related Negativity Across Two Years

• In Event: Contextual Experiences to Adolescents’ Internalizing Problems: The Roles of Neural Responses to Errors and Rewards

Abstract

Anxiety disorders are the most prevalent and persistent form of mental illness among youth (Ghandour et al., 2019; Kessler et al., 2012; Polanczyk et al., 2015). Recent research has focused on identifying neural markers associated with risk for the development of anxiety, including the error-related negativity (ERN) (Hajcak, 2012; Meyer, 2017, 2022; Moser et al., 2013; Weinberg et al., 2016). The ERN is an event-related potential that is elicited following mistakes on lab-based reaction time tasks. An elevated ERN has been observed in anxious individuals across the lifespan and appears to predict risk for increases in anxiety (Cavanagh & Shackman, 2015; Hajcak, 2012; Meyer, 2016; Moser et al., 2013; Weinberg et al., 2016). The ERN is sensitive to environmental influences during development, including interpersonal stressors (Mehra & Meyer, 2022, Wu et al., 2021). One type of interpersonal stressor, relational victimization (i.e., the extent to which individuals experience peers purposefully attempting to harm their relationships with others) has predicted increases in anxiety in adolescents (Hamilton et al., 2016; Siegel et al. 2009). We tested whether relational victimization predicts increases in the ERN and social anxiety across two years among children and adolescents.We predicted that increased relational victimization would predict an increased ERN two years later. We conducted exploratory analyses to test whether such increases in the ERN would mediate the relationship between baseline relational victimization and increases in social anxiety two years later.

The study sample included 152 girls ages 8–15 years. Participants completed self-report measures on relational victimization (Crick & Grotpeter, 1996) and anxiety symptoms (March et al., 1997) and an arrowhead version of the Flankers task (Eriksen & Eriksen, 1974) while EEG was recorded at baseline, and again two years later.

As shown in Figure 2, participants displayed a larger ERN at Time 2 than at baseline, and the baseline ERN was positively related to the ERN two years later. Furthermore, increased relational victimization at baseline predicted increases in the ERN two years later, controlling for baseline ERN. As shown in Figure 3, relational victimization at baseline predicted increases in social anxiety, and this relationship was mediated by increases in the ERN.

Results suggested relational victimization impacts the developmental trajectory of the neural response to errors, and thereby contributes to increased risk for social anxiety. It is possible that increased frequency of experiencing relational victimization may increase children and adolescents’ sensitivity to threats, including internally generated threats (e.g., their own mistakes; Meyer, 2017; Weinberg et al., 2016). Relatedly, repeated experiences of relational victimization may make children and adolescents more self-conscious and engage in more self-monitoring of their behaviors and performance. Such elevated performance monitoring may result in greater salience and threat-value of errors, and thereby increase risk for anxiety, as elevated error sensitivity has been shown to predict risk for increases in anxiety (Meyer, 2016; Meyer, Carlton, et al., 2018; Meyer, Nelson, et al., 2018). Taken together, our results suggest that increases in error sensitivity following relational victimization may underlie one pathway to social anxiety in adolescents.

Authors

• Sally L. Cole, Florida State University
  Presenting Author

• Lushna Mehra, Florida State University

• Enrique Cibrian, Florida State University

• Elise Cummings, Stony Brook University

• Brady Nelson

• Greg Hajcak

• Alexandria Meyer