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Individual and Day-to-Day Differences in Active Coping Predict Diurnal Cortisol Patterns among Early Adolescent Girls

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Abstract

Prior work has identified alterations in activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis as a potential mechanism underlying stress-induced emotional health problems, which disproportionately impact girls beginning in mid-adolescence. How adolescent girls differ from one another in dispositional coping tendencies and shift specific coping strategies in response to varying stressors have been theorized as important predictors of their adaptation, health, and well-being during this dynamic period of development. The goal of this study was to examine whether individual and day-to-day (within-person) differences in adolescent girls’ coping responses are associated with daily patterns of hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity, indexed by cortisol. Participants were 122 early adolescent girls (M age = 12.39) who provided three saliva samples per day for 3 days and completed daily coping reports, as well as a standard coping survey. Participants and primary caregivers also completed objective life stress interviews. On average, girls who were more likely to respond to interpersonal stress with voluntary engagement (active) coping exhibited generally adaptive daily physiological regulation—steeper diurnal cortisol slopes, lower total diurnal cortisol output, and lower cortisol awakening responses. Chronic interpersonal stress level significantly moderated these associations in different ways for two distinct components of the diurnal pattern—the slope and cortisol awakening responses. Regarding within-person differences, using active coping more than usual was associated with higher waking cortisol the following morning, which may help to prepare adolescent girls for perceived daily demands. These findings highlight the interactive influence of stress and coping in the prediction of daily hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis activity and support the stress-buffering role of active coping for adolescent girls.

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Acknowledgments

Portions of these data were presented at the 2016 biennial meeting of the Society for Research on Adolescence and the 2016 annual meeting of the Association for Cognitive and Behavioral Therapies. We thank the families who generously gave their time to participate in this project, the staff of the Williams College Youth Emotion Center, and Andrea Gierens at Biochemisches Labor at the University of Trier for technical assistance with salivary assays.

Funding

This research was supported by institutional funds from Williams College. M.R.S. was supported by the National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program under Grant No. DGE-1311230 and L.D.D. was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number R01HD079520 and a William T. Grant Foundation Scholars Award. Any opinion, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this material are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the views of the funding institutions.

Author Contributions

M.R.S. performed the statistical analyses and drafted the manuscript; L.D.D. participated in the design of the larger project, consulted on the salivary cortisol collection, and helped draft the manuscript; C.B.S. designed the larger project, led and coordinated data collection, and helped draft the manuscript. All authors conceived of the study, contributed to hypothesis generation, responded to peer reviews during the revision process, and read and approved the final manuscript.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ, 85287, USA

    Michael R. Sladek & Leah D. Doane

  2. Department of Psychology, Williams College, Williamstown, MA, USA

    Catherine B. Stroud

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  1. Michael R. Sladek
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Correspondence to Michael R. Sladek.

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All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the Institutional Review Board at Williams College, and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Participants and their primary caregivers completed assent and consent forms, respectively, during a laboratory visit prior to participation.

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Sladek, M.R., Doane, L.D. & Stroud, C.B. Individual and Day-to-Day Differences in Active Coping Predict Diurnal Cortisol Patterns among Early Adolescent Girls. J Youth Adolescence 46, 121–135 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-016-0591-2

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