Children's Perspectives of Family Accomodation in Relation to Error-related Negativity and Anxiety

Error-related negativity (ERN) is a neurological marker of brain activity that occurs when individuals make mistakes. ERN has been correlated with increased anxiety symptoms in young to school-aged children. Parenting behaviors have been linked to increased ERN and anxiety symptoms. Family accommodation (FA) involves intentional changes caregivers make to temporarily alleviate a child’s anxiety or distress (Shepherd et al., 2025). Although seemingly effective in the short term, FA behaviors that persist over time are associated with increased anxiety symptoms and risk of developing an anxiety disorder. A majority of FA research has utilized parental self-report, however, child reports offer a unique opportunity to investigate whether or not the same findings between ERN and anxiety might be replicated. The current study aims to address three issues: 1) Are mother-reported and child self-reported FA correlated to each other? 2) Do reports of FA predict ERN? 3) Does ERN mediate FA and parent reported child anxiety as well as child self-reported anxiety?

Research Questions

: 1) Are mother-reported and child self-reported FA correlated to each other?

2) Do reports of FA predict ERN?

3) Does ERN mediate FA and parent reported child anxiety as well as child self-reported anxiety?

Methods

Mother-child dyads (N = 103) participated in laboratory visits when children were between 9 and 14 years old.

FA: Mothers and children reported on FA via the Family Accommodation Scale of Anxiety (Lebowitz et al., 2020). Higher scores indicated greater FA behaviors.

Anxiety: Mothers and children reported on anxiety via the Revised Children’s Anxiety and Depression Scale (RCADS) (Chorpita et al., 2020).

Flanker Task: The Flanker Task (Kappenman et al., 2020) was used to measure ERN

(-50 to 50ms, 0 to 100ms) in the child participants.

Results

•Descriptive statistics and Pearson correlations were run via SPSS. Maternal education was identified as a covariate. Missing data was identified and imputed.

•A negative correlation was found between maternal education and mother-reported child anxiety (r= -.218, p= .028).

•A positive correlation was found between mother-reported and child self-reported anxiety (r= .323, p< .001).

•Mother-reported FA significantly (p= .040) predicted ERN (0 to 100ms), but child self-reported FA did not significantly (p= .497) predict ERN. Mom education significantly (p< .001) predicted ERN.

•ERN was marginally significant (p= .025) in predicting mother-reported anxiety above and beyond FA and maternal education. ERN was not significant in predicting child self-reported anxiety above and beyond FA and maternal education.

•Regressions were run for ERN (-50 to 50ms), however, all findings were nonsignificant and are not shown.

•Indirect effects of mom-reported and child self-reported FA on mother-reported child anxiety through ERN were significant but were not significant for child self-reported anxiety.

Discussion

The literature currently discusses FA and ERN being highly related to child anxiety (Lebowitz et al., 2016; Meyer etal., 2015).

ERN significantly (p=.025) mediates FA and mother-reported child anxiety.

ERN does not significantly mediate FA and child self-reported anxiety.

Our hypothesis was not entirely supported.
- Mother-reported and child self-reported FA were correlated and predicted ERN.
- ERN did not mediate child self-reported anxiety.

Because child reports are multi-dimensionally complex (Makol et al., 2025), this study may have resulted in discrepancies about child anxiety.

Child self-reported FA may not relate to child self-reported anxiety due to a limited ability to think about the self abstractly.

Mother-reported and child self-reported FA may be correlated due to the ability to observe outward behaviors (compared to thinking abstractly about the self).

This study shows the importance of using both parental and child reports.

Limitations

The sample was primarily middle-class European Americans.

The sample size was small and future analyses would benefit from a larger participant pool.

Child reports were used in a limited context and may have caused observed discrepancies.

Future Directions

Replicating the study with a larger data sample may determine the applicability of these findings.

Expanding studies on child report may offer modified techniques in investigating child anxiety.

Expanding studies incorporating child andparental report may confirm or disprove current findings.

Investigating pre-pubescent and pubescent children may offer insight on the validity and reliability of child self-report at various developmental stages.

Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the families who participated in the current project and the Behavior, Emotion, and Relationships Lab staff who worked on the data.

References

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1J0OspPXRTLuV-6qrv-oi4XJo6oTQqTPI_Hjp39V2UIE/edit?usp=sharing

Research Compliance Protocols

All procedures were approved by Miami University's Institutional Review Board (IRB #02190r). Funding for the project was provided by grants from NIH to Elizabeth Kiel (R03 HD119087).

The following is an image of poster presented at the 2026 Undergraduate Research Forum.

A breakdown of my introduction, methods, results, and discussion for children's perspectives of family accommodation, error-related negativity, and anxiety

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