Perceived stress, coping, and cortisol reactivity in daily life: A study of adolescents during the first year of college

Abstract

Adolescents change how they cope with stress across different situations, but also differ from one another in their general capacity to cope. The current study examined whether cortisol reactivity to perceived daily stress varies with both situational (within-person) and individual (between-person) differences in coping. First-year college students (N = 63; Mage = 18.85) provided 15 stress-coping diaries and 15 corresponding saliva samples across 3 weekdays. Results from hierarchical linear growth models revealed that perceiving greater stress than usual in the last hour was significantly associated with elevations in cortisol (relative to diurnal patterning) only during situations characterized by greater than usual diary-reported engagement coping. Regarding individual differences, perceiving greater stress than usual was significantly associated with elevations in cortisol only for adolescents below average on trait measures of engagement coping or belief in their ability to handle stress. Findings indicate that cortisol reactivity to daily stress varies with both situational variation and individual differences in coping.

Perceived Stress and Its Relationship With Chronic Medical Conditions and Multimorbidity Among 229,293 Community-Dwelling Adults in 44 Low- and Middle-Income Countries

“…These processes have been conceptualized as allostatic load (37,38). Even subclinical perceived stress has been linked to changes in cortisol levels, the immune system response, and cortical reactivity (39). There is also evidence to suggest that perceived stress is a core feature of several mental illnesses.…”

Adolescents' Daily Worry, Morning Cortisol, and Health Symptoms

“…However, there may be differences in how males and females experience worries. For example, it is possible that females’ worry motivates actions to resolve a worrisome situation, as demonstrated in a recent study of college students showing associations between stress and cortisol elevations only when students took steps to resolve problems [37]. …”

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

“…The extent to which early adolescent girls develop adaptive tendencies of responding to stress has been identified as a critical factor in the prevention of stress-related mental and physical health problems (Sontag et al 2008; Miller et al 2011). Only more recently have researchers also focused greater attention on the context of stress and coping by considering adolescents’ ability to shift their use of specific coping strategies to meet daily life demands in relation to HPA axis activity (e.g., Sladek et al 2016). …”

“…Racial/ethnic background was represented with a dummy variable (0 = non-White, 1 = White; other between-person covariates detailed below). Daily factors captured in the diary reports were also considered, including time of waking, caffeine use, daily negative affect, and perceived stress level at bedtime (participants were asked to briefly describe the most stressful event of the last hour and subjectively rate how stressful this event was, from 0 = not at all stressful to 3 = very stressful ; see Adam 2006; Sladek et al 2016). Finally, we included dummy variables indicating adherence to the protocol as predictors to test whether compliance problems influenced cortisol estimates, including whether participants used the track cap devices and whether the first two samples of the day were compliant.…”

“…Applying diary reports of coping to cortisol research has been limited. In one study, cortisol levels were higher during late adolescents’ particularly stressful real-life situations only when they also reported more active coping (Sladek et al 2016), highlighting the adaptive nature of the cortisol response in context. Here, we built upon this prior work by collecting multiple diary reports from early adolescent girls in coordination with saliva sampling outside of the laboratory to consider daily coping responses to temporally proximal, naturally occurring stressors.…”