Associations between infant behavioral inhibition and social error processing in adulthood – A preliminary study

High infant behavioral inhibition (BI) increases risk for social difficulties and anxiety, suggesting long-term consequences for adult socioemotional development. Infant BI and social anxiety also affect error processing. Whether this association extends to social contexts remains unclear. In this prospective, 30-year longitudinal study, we investigated the long-term association between infant BI and self-reported social anxiety, and the association that infant BI and social anxiety show with adult brain and behavioral measures of social error processing. To examine the role of social observation in error processing, participants performed a social flanker task during magnetic resonance imaging. We expected pregenual anterior cingulate activity to be associated with social error processing in participants who scored high on social anxiety and infant temperament. The final sample included data from 24 participants (50% male, mean age 29.50 years). Infant BI was not related to self-reported adult social anxiety scores. We found an interaction effect of temperament and social anxiety on activity in the middle cingulate cortex, temporal and precentral gyrus. Also, we found a main effect of social vs. alone condition on activity in middle cingulate cortex. For all regions, activity was stronger during the processing of correct vs. error trials in the social condition. Contrary to our hypotheses, the findings were in white matter, as the observed activity disappeared after applying a grey matter mask. These preliminary results might suggest that the brain devotes more performance monitoring processing to facilitate better performance during social observation. While preliminary, these findings raise the possibility that early temperamental traits may shape neural sensitivity to social performance contexts in adulthood, particularly in the presence of social anxiety. Future research integrating clinical, self-report, behavioral, and neuroimaging data will be essential for building a more comprehensive understanding of social error processing across development.