Altered social and cognitive control interactions during decision-making in social anxiety

Social anxiety is characterized by fear and avoidance of social situations, yet many everyday decisions are made in the presence of others and are shaped by social influence. However, the influences of social anxiety on social decision-making and the underlying neural processes are not well understood.

Fifty-five adults with varying levels of social anxiety completed a social risk decision-making task during functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI). In each trial, participants chose between a safe option and a risky gamble against either a human or a computer opponent, with or without information about others' choices. Social influence on choice was quantified using repeated-measures analyses and drift-diffusion modeling, while brain activity and functional connectivity were examined using whole-brain analyses.

Compared to individuals with lower social anxiety, those with higher social anxiety showed reduced conformity to others' risky choices, specifically when interacting with human, but not computer, opponents, together with a stronger starting-point bias toward safe options. These behavioral differences were accompanied by lower dorsolateral prefrontal cortex (dlPFC) activation and stronger dlPFC-temporoparietal junction (TPJ) functional connectivity.

Social anxiety is associated with decreased social approach and reduced social influence from others in social decision contexts. Decreased activation of the prefrontal control system and its increased interactions with the social brain network point toward a conflict between heightened social monitoring and inefficient executive control. By distinguishing social-context effects from general risk aversion, this study provides a refined mechanistic framework for understanding how impaired regulatory control shapes maladaptive social decision-making in social anxiety.