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Associations between error-related negativity and childhood anxiety risk differ based on socioeconomic status

Sejal Mistry-Patel1, Rebecca J Brooker1

  • 1Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, Texas A&M University.

Developmental Psychology
|September 29, 2022
PubMed

Insights

Socioeconomic status (SES) influences children's anxiety risk. Lower error-related negativity (ERN) predicted anxiety in high-SES children, while parenting style did not moderate risk across SES levels.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Child Psychiatry
  • Behavioral Neuroscience

Background:

  • Children from lower socioeconomic status (SES) families face higher anxiety risks.
  • Pathways linking SES to childhood anxiety are not well understood.
  • Previous research has not longitudinally or multimethodically examined SES as a moderator.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To investigate socioeconomic status (SES) as a moderator of anxiety risk pathways in children.
  • To examine both biological (error-related negativity [ERN]) and contextual (parenting) pathways.
  • To test if biological pathways are stronger predictors at high SES and contextual pathways at low SES.

Main Methods:

  • Longitudinal study with 121 children (ages 3-5).
  • Measured error-related negativity (ERN) and authoritarian parenting.
  • Assessed child anxious behaviors at age 5.
  • Preregistered hypotheses and analyses.

Main Results:

  • Smaller ERN at ages 3 and 4 predicted greater anxious behaviors at age 5, but only for children in high SES families.
  • Socioeconomic status (SES) did not moderate the link between authoritarian parenting and child anxiety.
  • Findings partially support the hypothesis that biological pathways are stronger predictors at higher SES.

Conclusions:

  • Biological factors, like ERN, may be more critical predictors of anxiety in high-SES children.
  • Parenting style did not emerge as a differential risk pathway across SES levels in this sample.
  • Further research is needed to fully elucidate the complex interplay between SES, biological factors, parenting, and childhood anxiety.

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