I Like Them…Will They Like Me? Evidence for the Role of the Ventrolateral Prefrontal Cortex During Mismatched Social Appraisals in Anxious Youth

Abstract

Objective: Socially anxious adolescents report distress during social decision-making, wherein their favorable view of peers directly conflicts with their expectation to be viewed negatively by peers; a phenomenon we refer to as "mismatch bias." The present study utilizes a novel paradigm with dynamic social stimuli to explore the correlates of mismatch biases in anxious and healthy youth.

Method: The behavioral and neural correlates of mismatch biases were assessed in healthy (N = 17) and anxious (N = 14) youth during functional MRI. Participants completed a novel task where they viewed silent videos of unknown peers. After viewing each video, participants appraised the social desirability of the peer ("How much do you think you would like them [if you met them]") or predicted how socially desirable the peer would find them ("How much do you think they would like you [if you met them]"). Each participant's mismatch bias was calculated as the difference between their appraisal of peers and their prediction of peers' appraisal of them.

Results: We found that anxious youth exhibited mismatch bias: they rated unknown peers as more desirable than they predicted peers would rate them. This effect was not present in the healthy group. Mismatch biases were associated with increased engagement of the ventrolateral prefrontal cortex (vlPFC), a region broadly involved in flexible cognitions and behavioral selection. In addition, greater mismatch biases and vlPFC activation during mismatch biases were associated with more severe anxiety symptoms.

Conclusions: The findings highlight the importance of understanding mismatch biases to inform treatments that target distress elicited by discrepant social appraisals in anxious youth.

Trial registration: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT00018057.

Keywords: adolescence; fMRI; social anxiety; social cognition.

Conflict of interest statement

No competing financial interests exist.

Figures

FIG. 1.

Social Appraisal Task. Participants view a series of silent videos (5 seconds) of unknown youth discussing either their anxiety or a nonanxiety-related topic. After each video participants then make one of two social appraisals (3 seconds) regarding the person in the video. This decision is then followed by a jittered interval (0–8 seconds) before the beginning of the next trial. Participants complete 2, 9-minute runs of the social appraisal task. Photo used with permission.

FIG. 2.

Mismatch bias by Group. (a) Anxious participants demonstrated a significantly greater mismatch bias (i.e., higher appraisal of interest in peers compared to their prediction of peers' appraisal of them) compared with healthy participants (p < 0.05). (b) There were no group differences in appraisal ratings of the social desirability of peers (p > 0.05) or predictions of peers' ratings of the participant's social desirability (p > 0.05). **p < 0.01, *p < 0.05, asterisks within bars represent significant differences from zero as determined by a one-sampled t-test.

FIG. 3.

The relationship between mismatch bias and SCARED total (a) and SCARED social anxiety (b). Across all participants a larger mismatch bias was related to higher self-reported anxiety (total SCARED scores; r = 0.50, p < 0.05) with a trend toward higher self-reported social anxiety (SCARED social anxiety scores; r = 0.35, p = 0.059).

FIG. 4.

vlPFC activation from a Group × Question interaction. (a) Results of a whole-brain group-level analysis indicated a significant group × question interaction (p < 0.005; k = 219) in the vlPFC. (b) Follow-up tests revealed significantly greater vlPFC activation during the “I like them” than the “They like me” appraisal blocks in anxious participants, whereas healthy participants showed the opposite effect (p < 0.001). (c) Furthermore, during “I like you” blocks, anxious participants showed greater vlPFC activation than healthy participants. The opposite pattern emerged during “They like me” blocks, where anxious participants showed significant deactivation in this region compared with healthy participants. **p < 0.01, asterisks within bars represent significant differences from zero as determined by a one-sampled t-test. vlPFC, ventrolateral prefrontal cortex.

FIG. 5.

The relationship between mismatch bias in the vLPFC and SCARED total (a) and SCARED social anxiety (b). Across all participants, those with higher vlPFC activation during mismatch bias reported more anxiety symptoms (r = 0.56, p < 0.005) and more social anxiety symptoms (r = 0.53, p = 0.005).