Do testosterone and cortisol levels moderate aggressive responses to peer victimization in adolescents?

Abstract

Aggressive reactions to peer victimization may be tempered by hormone levels. Grounded on the dualhormone hypothesis (DHH), which proposes that testosterone (T) is associated with aggressive behavior only when cortisol (C) is low, this study assessed whether the combination of T and C moderated adolescents’ aggressive responses to peer victimization. The study involved 577 adolescents (50.4% girls, aged 12–17 years), who completed measures of online and offline victimization and perpetration of aggressive behavior in three waves over the course of one year. Moreover, they provided salivary samples to measure T and C levels. Multilevel analyses showed a three-way interaction between T, C, and victimization levels for both online and offline aggressive behaviors. In both cases, the adolescents with high T and high C or low T and low C responded with more aggressive behaviors when victimized or provoked by peers. The T/C ratio was only associated with aggressive behavior in the girls’ sample. The results are opposite to those predicted by the DHH, but they are consistent with the findings of other studies that examined aggressive behaviors as reactions to provocations. These results suggest that some combinations of T and C predict higher aggressive reactions to peer victimization.

Do Hormone Levels Influence Bullying during Childhood and Adolescence? A Systematic Review of the Literature

“…Finally, a recent study explored the moderating effects of testosterone and cortisol on the association between bullying and aggressive behavior. Results showed that adolescents with high testosterone and cortisol levels or with low testosterone and cortisol levels responded more aggressively when victimized or provoked [30].…”

“…Only three studies [29][30][31] have analyzed the role of HPG axis-dependent hormones in bullying behavior. All three studies measured testosterone levels in saliva, and one of them measured the participants' 2D:4D ratio as an indicator of prenatal sex hormones [29].…”

“…A single study focused on exploring the predictive role of cortisol and testosterone in bullying behavior [29]. Another ten studies explored the mediating role of cortisol (n = 10; 30%) [30,34,38,56,57,[59][60][61][62]. The remainder (n = 21; 64%) studied the influence of bullying on cortisol levels.…”

“…One study showed that increased cortisol levels (AUC) buffered the link between victimization and next-day aggression only in boys [57]. Another study concluded that both, adolescents with high testosterone and high cortisol levels, and those with low testosterone and low cortisol levels responded more aggressively when victimized by peers [30]. Finally, one study observed that, at high levels of victimization, children with high cortisol levels presented not only higher levels of aggressiveness, but also higher levels of frustration.…”

“…During this developmental stage, sex hormones can influence various brain structures [23], organizing and activating neuroendocrine circuits that control behavior [24,25]. Although some review studies and meta-analyses have found a statistically positive significant association between prenatal and pubertal sexual hormones and aggressive behavior [26][27][28], only a few studies have analyzed the association between sex hormone levels and bullying behavior, they have found mixed results [29][30][31].…”