Adolescent Cortisol Activity in Home, School and Peer Contexts: Cross-sectional and longitudinal relations with stress, health and performance

Emma Adam

In this study, I propose to analyze data I have collected on adolescent stress hormone activity in relation to everyday events in the home and school contexts. Using a modified experience sampling methodology (ESM), fifty-eight adolescents were randomly beeped across the day for two days as they went about their daily home and school lives. At each beep, adolescents provided diary reports of their current situations and emotions. Twenty minutes later, they provided a sample of saliva in which levels of the stress hormone cortisol may be measured, such that levels of cortisol could be associated with aspects of adolescents’ situations at the time. Questionnaire data were also gathered on adolescents’ family environments and their functioning. A longitudinal subsample of adolescents is repeating these procedures again two years later. Of particular interest in these data are the effects of the quality of adolescents’ social relationships in these settings on their stress hormone levels, and the effects of chronic stress on individual differences in cortisol levels and on adolescents’ emotional and physical health and academic functioning. Both the cross-sectional and longitudinal data will be utilized to explore current correlates of stress hormone levels as well as longitudinal changes in stress hormone levels in relation to adolescents’ changing contexts and changes in functioning. Understanding which features of environments and what types of events and emotions contribute to increased stress hormone activity and decrements in health and performance among adolescents will help policy-makers identify aspects of school and home environments that might be targeted for interventions to lower stress and improve adolescent emotional and physical health and educational functioning. Analytic techniques will include the use of Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) growth curve analysis to model each adolescent’s within-person changes in stress hormone activity across the day and to examine individual difference factors influencing these stress hormone patterns.

About Emma Adam

Emma Adam has a PhD in Child Psychology from the University of Minnesota and a MA in Public Policy from the University of Chicago. She is currently an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Social Policy in the School of Education and Social Policy at Northwestern University. Adam's research focuses on the impact of social-contextual factors such as family and school environments on adolescent emotions, stress hormone levels, and emotional and academic functioning.