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Adolescents’ Hormonal Responses to Social Stress and Associations with Adolescent Social Anxiety and Maternal Comfort: A Preliminary Study

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Abstract

Both social support and social stress can impact adolescent physiology including hormonal responses during the sensitive transition to adolescence. Social support from parents continues to play an important role in socioemotional development during adolescence. Sources of social support and stress may be particularly impactful for adolescents with social anxiety symptoms. The goal of the current study was to examine whether adolescent social anxiety symptoms and maternal comfort moderated adolescents’ hormonal response to social stress and support. We evaluated 47 emotionally healthy 11- to 14-year-old adolescents’ cortisol and oxytocin reactivity to social stress and support using a modified version of the Trier Social Stress Test for Adolescents that included a maternal comfort paradigm. Findings demonstrated that adolescents showed significant increases in cortisol and significant decreases in oxytocin following the social stress task. Subsequently, we found that adolescents showed significant decreases in cortisol and increases in oxytocin following the maternal comfort paradigm. Adolescents with greater social anxiety symptoms showed higher levels of cortisol at baseline but greater declines in cortisol response following maternal social support. Social anxiety symptoms were unrelated to oxytocin response to social stress or support. Our findings provide further evidence that mothers play a key role in adolescent regulation of physiological response, particularly if the stressor is consistent with adolescents’ anxiety. More specifically, our findings suggest that adolescents with higher social anxiety symptoms show greater sensitivity to maternal social support following social stressors. Encouraging parents to continue to serve as a supportive presence during adolescent distress may be helpful for promoting stress recovery during the vulnerable transition to adolescence.

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Data availability

Data is available upon request.

Notes

  1. 6 participants had 3 judges present in the room instead of one present in the room (and two judges watching via camera). We chose to change this procedure to increase feasibility of data collection due to staffing needs. There were no significant differences in these 6 adolescents compared to the remaining 41 adolescents in terms of cortisol or oxytocin at any time point (ps = 0.09–0.94) or for adolescent social anxiety symptoms or maternal comforting behaviors (ps = 0.18–0.67).

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Acknowledgements

We thank the families and staff of the Families, Affect, and the Brain study at the University of Pittsburgh for their time and commitment to this research. Correspondence to Judith K. Morgan, PhD at morganjk@upmc.edu.

Funding

This work was supported by the Klingenstein Third Generation Foundation (PI: Judith K. Morgan).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychiatry, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Judith K. Morgan & Jennifer S. Silk

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Judith K. Morgan, Jennifer S. Silk, Jill M. Cyranowski & Erika E. Forbes

  3. University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, Pittsburgh, USA

    Kaetlyn K. Conner & Rachel M. Fridley

  4. Department of Psychology, Temple University, Philadelphia, USA

    Thomas M. Olino

  5. University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, USA

    Karen M. Grewen

  6. Department of Statistics, University of Pittsburgh, Pittsburgh, USA

    Satish Iyengar

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  1. Judith K. Morgan
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Contributions

JM conceived of the study, led its design and coordination, participated in analysis and interpretation of the data, and drafted and finalized the manuscript. KC and RF participated in interpretation of the data and drafting the manuscript. TO and SI led analysis and interpretation of the data. KG helped conceive of the study, participated in its design, and led processing of saliva samples. JS, JC, and EF helped conceive of the study and participated in its design and coordination. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

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Correspondence to Judith K. Morgan.

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Morgan, J.K., Conner, K.K., Fridley, R.M. et al. Adolescents’ Hormonal Responses to Social Stress and Associations with Adolescent Social Anxiety and Maternal Comfort: A Preliminary Study. Child Psychiatry Hum Dev (2023). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10578-023-01521-0

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