Social Behavior Correlates of Cortisol Activity in Child Care: Gender Differences and Time‐of‐Day Effects

Abstract

The relations between social behavior and daily patterns of a stress-sensitive hormone production were examined in preschool children (N = 75) attending center-based child care. Three behavioral dimensions, shy/ anxious/internalizing, angry /aggressive/externalizing, and social competence, were assessed by teacher report and classroom observation, and their relations with 2 measures of cortisol activity, median (or typical) levels and reactivity (quartile range score between second and third quartile values) were explored. Cortisolbehavior relations differed by gender: significant associations were found for boys but not for girls. Specifically, for boys externalizing behavior was positively associated with cortisol reactivity, while internalizing behavior was negatively associated with median cortisol. Time of day of cortisol measurement affected the results. Surprisingly, median cortisol levels rose from morning to afternoon, a pattern opposite to that of the typical circadian rhythm of cortisol. This rise in cortisol over the day was positively correlated with internalizing behavior for boys. The methodological and theoretical implications of these findings for the study of the development of hormone-behavior relations are discussed.

Adolescents’ cortisol responses to awakening and social stress; Effects of gender, menstrual phase and oral contraceptives. The TRAILS study

“…This is remarkable since animal studies indicate that adult HPA-axis responses to acute and chronic stress are different from those in adolescents, for instance, adolescent rats have been found to show prolonged HPA activation after exposure to stressful stimuli compared to adult rats (Romeo et al, 2006;McCormick and Mathews, 2007). Previous research on cortisol responses to social stress tasks suggests no differences between boys and girls before the onset of puberty (Buske- Tout et al, 1998). Increases in sex hormones are dissimilar for adolescent boys and girls, which may be one of the mechanisms for the profound gender difference in stress-related disorders that emerge in adolescence (Nolen-Hoeksema, 2001) such as depression (Angold et al, 1998).…”

Homeless street children in Nepal: Use of allostatic load to assess the burden of childhood adversity

“…Second, our study included only boys and cannot address gender differences in performance of our biomarkers. For instance, the genders differ in adrenal regulation from birth (Davis & Emory, 1995), and in effects of challenging or adverse experiences on HPA activity during childhood (Flinn et al, 1996;Tout et al, 1998). Nonetheless, much work overlooks or does not explicitly probe gender in relation to the developmental psychobiology of stress; hence, gender differences in stress-responsive systems remain an important area for further investigation.…”

“…In humans, the organizational impact of traumatic experiences on later mental health, even across generations, is receiving increasing attention (Heim & Nemeroff, 2001;Yehuda, 1999;Yehuda, Teicher, Trestman, Levengood, & Siever, 1996). Social ecological challenges (poverty, maternal depression, quality of day care) also exert concurrent effects on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity (Lupien, King, Meaney, & McEwen, 2001;Tout, de Haan, Campbell, & Gunnar, 1998).…”

Cortisol and externalizing behavior in children and adolescents: Mixed meta‐analytic evidence for the inverse relation of basal cortisol and cortisol reactivity with externalizing behavior

“…Due to the diurnal rhythm, the level of cortisol is highly dependent on time of day of assessment and the relation of cortisol values to behavior may vary across times of day. Tout, De Haan, Campbell, and Gunnar (1998) for example found that morning and afternoon values showed different associations with child behavior.…”