Mentor: Elizabeth Kiel, Ph.D.

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?

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