Will they like me? Neural and behavioral responses to social-evaluative peer feedback in socially and non-socially anxious females

•Social-evaluative feedback processing was studied in social anxiety (SA).•SA females were less optimistic about the social-evaluative outcome.•Unexpected rejection feedback induces significant midfrontal theta power reactivity.•This ‘saliency’ signal is blunted in SA females.•P3 amplitude is enhanced in response to expected acceptance feedback (regardless of SA). The current study examined neural and behavioral responses to social-evaluative feedback processing in social anxiety. Twenty-two non-socially and 17 socially anxious females (mean age = 19.57 years) participated in a Social Judgment Paradigm in which they received peer acceptance/rejection feedback that was either congruent or incongruent with their prior predictions. Results indicated that socially anxious participants believed they would receive less social acceptance feedback than non-socially anxious participants. EEG results demonstrated that unexpected social rejection feedback elicited a significant increase in theta (4–8 Hz) power relative to other feedback conditions. This theta response was only observed in non-socially anxious individuals. Together, results corroborate cognitive-behavioral studies demonstrating a negative expectancy bias in socially anxiety with respect to social evaluation. Furthermore, the present findings highlight a functional role for theta oscillatory dynamics in processing cues that convey social-evaluative threat, and this social threat-monitoring mechanism seems less sensitive in socially anxious females.