Day-to-day friends' victimization, aggression perpetration, and morning cortisol activity in late adolescents.

This study investigates bidirectional associations between adolescents' daily experiences of victimization and aggression perpetration within friendships. We investigated (a) across-day associations between victimization and aggression perpetration; (b) morning cortisol activity as a moderator of cross-day victimization and aggression links; and (c) potential sex differences in these patterns. For 4 consecutive days, 99 adolescents (Mage  = 18.06, SD = 1.09, 46 females) reported whether they were victimized by or aggressive toward their friends. On three of these days, adolescents provided three morning saliva samples. Multilevel path analyses showed that across days, victimization and aggression were bidirectionally linked, but only for male adolescents. Additionally, for male adolescents, morning cortisol output (but not morning cortisol increase) moderated the association between victimization and next-day aggression; victimization predicted greater next-day aggression for boys with low, but not high, morning cortisol output. Findings implicate a physiological factor that may modify daily links between victimization and aggression in male adolescent friendships.

Does the cortisol awakening response link childhood adversity to adult BMI?

OBJECTIVES: Childhood adversity is a risk factor for the development of obesity in adulthood. Dysregulated hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) activity, which has been associated separately with both adverse childhood experiences and obesity, has been posited as a mechanism by which stressful experiences influence body mass index (BMI); however, this mechanism has not yet been tested longitudinally. The present study uses multireporter, longitudinal data across three time points to test whether the adolescent cortisol awakening response (CAR), an index of diurnal HPA activity, mediates the association between adversity in childhood and BMI in adulthood. METHOD: Eighty-two youth, mothers, and fathers reported on adverse childhood experiences from middle childhood to late adolescence. During adolescence, youth provided saliva samples three times each morning across three days, which were assayed for cortisol to calculate CAR. During early adulthood, youth reported height and weight to calculate BMI. RESULTS: Greater adversity predicted flatter CAR and higher young adult BMI. Flatter CAR partially mediated the association between childhood adversity and young adult BMI. CONCLUSIONS: Stress-related alterations to HPA activity account in part for the childhood adversity-adult obesity link. Findings are consistent with theoretical models implicating HPA alterations as linking childhood adversity to metabolic and behavioral determinants of BMI in adulthood. (PsycINFO Database Record

Adolescents' Daily Worry, Morning Cortisol, and Health Symptoms.

PURPOSE: To assess short-term effects of daily worries on hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity and later implications for adolescents' health symptoms. We hypothesized that heightened worry would be associated with stronger next-morning cortisol awakening response (CAR) to prepare the body for the demands of the upcoming day. Guided by biological adaptation to stress theories, we also hypothesized that dysregulated CAR would heighten associations between worries and later health symptoms, while also testing direct associations between worries and dysregulated CAR and health. METHODS: Ninety-nine late adolescents during waves 5 and 6 of a longitudinal study reported on 26 worries for 10 days. On 3 of the 10 days, participants also provided morning saliva samples that were assayed for cortisol to capture the CAR. At both waves, participants reported on 22 common health symptoms. RESULTS: Multilevel models showed significant within-person associations between high daily worries and next-morning heightened CAR for females. Contrary to expectation, worries were inversely related to concurrent health symptoms. For the whole sample, CAR moderated the effect of worries on later health symptoms: Worries were positively associated with health symptoms in adolescents with high CAR and inversely associated with health symptoms for those with low CAR. CONCLUSIONS: In this sample of typically developing adolescents, worries alone do not increase the risk for common health complaints and may be somewhat protective in the short run. However, high worries in the context of high CAR appear to increase the risk for health symptoms.