The effects of early adversity on infants hair cortisol levels: The moderating role of negative emotional temperament

Date

2019-09-01

Author

Ertekin, Zeynep
Kazak Berument, Sibel
Gunnar, Megan

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A number of studies have shown that exposure to poverty and socio-economic adversity are related to elevated salivary cortisol levels in children (Chen, Cohen, and Miller, 2010). Likewise, salivary cortisol has been related to infants’ negative emotionality (Dettling et al., 2000). Hair cortisol is a newer method of assessing activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA) axis, and less is known about how infant hair cortisol relates to family poverty and infant emotionality (Flom et al., 2017). The goal of the present study was to examine infant hair cortisol concentrations as a function of family socioeconomic status (SES) and infant negative emotional temperament. We predict that temperament would moderate SES and cortisol association, where SES effects on cortisol levels are more apparent for infants with high negative emotional temperament. Sixty infants, 6- to 15-months of age participated in the study. Distress to limitations sub-scale was used to measure negative emotional temperament (IBQ: Gartstein & Rothbart, 2003). Mothers’ education level, house income, stimulation in the home environment were reverse scored and combined to index the socio-economic adversity of the families to measure adversity. Cortisol was measured by taking a 3 cm sample of the infant’s hair. Preliminary analyses were run with the process macro of Hayes. The interaction between distress to limitation and early adversity was significant after controlling the age and birth weight of the infants, (B=.25, se=.09, p<.05, 95% CI [-.454, -.056]). According to the Johnson-Neyman region of significance analysis (see Figure 1), at higher levels of negative emotional temperament, the negative association between socioeconomic adversity became increasingly marked, while the positive association between adversity and cortisol was found at lower levels of negative emotional temperament This study is important in terms of showing individual differences in the effects of early adversity. Results will be discussed in terms of differential susceptibility theory.

URI

https://www.ecdp2019.gr/assets/19ECDP_AB.pdf
https://hdl.handle.net/11511/78071

Conference Name

19th European Conference on Developmental Psychology (29 Ağustos - 01 Eylül 2019)

Collections

Department of Psychology, Conference / Seminar

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Citation Formats

Z. Ertekin, S. Kazak Berument, and M. Gunnar, “The effects of early adversity on infants hair cortisol levels: The moderating role of negative emotional temperament,” presented at the 19th European Conference on Developmental Psychology (29 Ağustos - 01 Eylül 2019), Athens, Greece, 2019, Accessed: 00, 2021. [Online]. Available: https://www.ecdp2019.gr/assets/19ECDP_AB.pdf.