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Anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorders are common childhood psychiatric disorders. Behavioral inhibition (BI) is a widely studied risk factor for anxiety. Less is known about overcontrol, a related behavioral phenotype characterized by concern for errors, perfectionism, and inflexibility and also associated with anxiety and obsessive-compulsive disorder. Both BI and overcontrol show associations with aberrant cognitive control and neural error responding (via the error-related negativity; ERN) yet it is unknown whether each imparts differential risk. Understanding whether overcontrol demonstrates independent associations from BI with cognitive functioning, neural error monitoring, and childhood anxiety and obsessive-compulsive presentations could aid in identifying a novel mechanistic treatment target. We assessed BI, overcontrol, cognitive functioning and psychopathology in a cross-sectional sample of 5–6 year old children (N = 126). Children completed an electroencephalogram (EEG) to assess the ERN. Overcontrol was associated with worse cognitive shifting, worse inhibitory control and higher anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms, beyond BI. BI was associated with worse cognitive shifting, better inhibitory control and higher anxiety symptoms, beyond overcontrol. When assessed simultaneously, only overcontrol demonstrated a significant relationship with a blunted ERN. Moreover, overcontrol mediated (cross-sectionally) the well-established relationship between ERN and anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. BI and overcontrol impart differential risk for child cognitive functioning and anxiety while overcontrol demonstrates additional risk for aberrant neural error monitoring, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive presentations. Overcontrol may also be a mechanistic pathway between the ERN and transdiagnostic anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. Overcontrol may be a target warranted for early-childhood intervention in anxiety and OCD. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Correction To: Childhood Behavioral Inhibition and Overcontrol: Relationships with Cognitive Functioning, Error Monitoring, Anxiety and Obsessive-compulsive Symptoms Correction to: Research on Child and Adolescent Psychopathology https://doi.org/10.1007/s1080... The article "Childhood behavioral inhibition and overcontrol: Relationships with cognitive functioning, error monitoring, anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms" was originally published electronically on the publisher's internet portal on 19 July 2022 with errors on author group. The original article can be found online at https://doi.org/10.1007/s10802-022-00953-x. [Extracted from the article]