Gender- and age-related differences in the association between social relationship quality and trait levels of salivary cortisol
Gender- and age-related differences in the association between social relationship quality and trait levels of salivary cortisol
复制标题
DOI：
10.1111/j.1532-7795.2008.00559.x
复制
发表时间：
2008-01-01
影响因子：
3.6
通讯作者：
Shirtcliff, Elizabeth A.
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Booth, Alan;Granger, Douglas A.;Shirtcliff, Elizabeth A.
大多数将社会关系质量和下丘脑-垂体-肾上腺（HPA）轴活动的个体差异联系起来的研究都集中在婴儿与其照顾者之间依恋的早期发展上。在发育后期，在童年中期和青春期，HPA与同龄人、父母和兄弟姐妹之间的同龄社会关系的平行联系在很大程度上仍然不明确。这项研究解决了这一知识差距。从367名儿童中期（6-10岁）和357名青少年（M年龄=11-16岁）中连续两天采集清晨唾液样本，间隔1年，并测定皮质醇。潜在的状态-特质模型被用来分离皮质醇水平的方差，这些方差归因于“稳定的特质样”与“状态或情境特异性”来源，以最大限度地减少基础肾上腺皮质活动的高时刻变化。在青春期而不是童年中期，女孩而不是男孩，较低水平的“特质皮质醇”与低质量的社会关系有关。这种模式是强大的，延伸到与父母，兄弟姐妹和同龄人的关系质量。重要的是，这种关系独立于内化或外化问题行为的比率。我们发现，分离的皮质醇水平的变化归因于稳定的内在来源揭示了一个可解释的模式，在基础HPA活动的个体差异，在青春期的社会关系。需要进行研究，以揭示这种性别和年龄特异性现象的建立所涉及的生物社会机制，并破译这种行为-行为联系中的个体差异是否具有适应性。
The majority of studies linking individual differences in the quality of social relationships and activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis have focused on the early development of attachment between infants and their caregivers. Later in development, during middle childhood and adolescence, the parallel HPA links to age-appropriate social relationships with peers, parents, and siblings remain largely unspecified. This study addressed this knowledge gap. Early morning saliva samples were obtained from 367 children in middle childhood (ages 6-10) and 357 adolescents (M age=11-16 years) on two successive days 1 year apart and assayed for cortisol. Latent state-trait modeling was employed to separate variance in cortisol levels attributable to "stable trait-like" versus "state or situational specific" sources to minimize the high moment-to-moment variation in basal adrenocortical activity. During adolescence but not middle childhood, and for girls but not boys, lower levels of "trait cortisol" were associated with poor quality social relationships. The pattern was robust, extending to the quality of relationships with parents, siblings, and peers. Importantly, the relationship was independent of the rates of internalizing or externalizing problem behavior. We found that isolating the variance in cortisol levels attributable to stable intrinsic sources revealed an interpretable pattern that linked individual differences in basal HPA activity to social relationships during adolescence. Studies are needed to reveal the biosocial mechanisms involved in the establishment of this gender- and age-specific phenomenon and to decipher whether or not individual differences in this hormone-behavior link are adaptive.