Day-to-day friends' victimization, aggression perpetration, and morning cortisol activity in late adolescents

On the complex relationship between resilience and hair cortisol levels in adolescence despite parental physical abuse: a fourth wave of resilience research

Introduction

To understand the family's role in adolescents' mental health development and the connection to neurodevelopmental disorders related to experienced parental physical abuse, we first explored resilience pathways longitudinally and secondly, connected the identified patterns to adolescents' hair cortisol levels that are rooted in the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal axis as the main stress response system and connected brain structure alterations.

Methods

We analyzed longitudinal online questionnaire data for three consecutive high school years (from seventh to ninth grade) and four survey waves from a representative sample of n = 1609 high school students in Switzerland on violence-resilience pathways. Furthermore, we collected students' hair samples from a subsample of n = 229 at survey wave 4. About 30% of the participating adolescents had been physically abused by their parents. Out of the overall sample, we drew a subsample of adolescents with parental abuse experiences (survey wave 1 n = 509; survey wave 2 n = 506; survey wave 3 n = 561; survey wave 4 n = 560).

Results

Despite the odds, about 20-30% of adolescents who have experienced parental physical abuse escaped the family violence cycle and can be called resilient. By applying a person-oriented analytical approach via latent class and transition analysis, we longitudinally identified and compared four distinct violence-resilience patterns. We identified violence resilience as a multidimensional latent construct, which includes hedonic and eudaimonic protective and risk indicators. Because resilience should not solely be operationalized based on the lack of psychopathology, our latent construct included both feeling good (hedonic indicators such as high levels of self-esteem and low levels of depression/anxiety and dissociation) and doing well (eudaimonic indicators such as high levels of self-determination and self-efficacy as well as low levels of aggression toward peers).

Discussion

The present study confirmed that higher cortisol levels significantly relate to the comorbid pattern (internalizing and externalizing symptoms), and further confirmed the presence of lasting alterations in brain structures. In this way, we corroborated the insight that when studying the resilience pathways and trajectories of abused adolescents, biological markers such as hair cortisol significantly enhance and deepen the understanding of the longitudinal mechanisms of psychological markers (e.g., self-determination, self-esteem, self-efficacy) that are commonly applied in questionnaires.

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

(1) Background: Bullying is one of the most common forms of aggressive behavior during childhood and adolescence. Some decades ago, researchers began exploring the basis of peer victimization from a biological perspective. Specifically, the Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Adrenal (HPA) and Hypothalamic-Pituitary-Gonadal (HPG) axes have been studied in relation to status-relevant behaviors, such as bullying. (2) Methods: We conducted a systematic review following the PRISMA guide and registered the review protocol at PROSPERO (CRD42023494738). We searched for relevant studies in PubMed, Psycinfo, Scopus, and Web of Science, and assessed them using the Robins E-tool. (3) Results: Our search yielded 152 studies, of which 33 were included in the review. These studies explored the association between testosterone and cortisol levels with bullying behavior, finding diverse results. Most of the studies were rated as having a low risk of bias. (4) Conclusions: This study not only enhances our understanding of bullying, but also provides guidance for the development of prevention and management programs for it. In the future, researchers should continue exploring the joint effects of different hormones on the HPA and HPG axis, using a broader set of biomarkers.

The Development and Preliminary Validation of a Measure of Victimization within the Friendships of Emerging Adults

For emerging adults, high-quality friendships can be an important source of companionship and support. The most commonly studied negative interaction between friends is conflict, yet work with youth suggests more serious victimization also occurs in friendship. In the current study, we developed and obtained preliminary psychometric evidence for the Friendship Victimization Scale, a measure that assesses physical, sexual, relational, and verbal forms of victimization in the friendships of emerging adults, as well as coercive and controlling behaviors. Emerging adults (N = 316, Mage = 21.27 years, SD = 1.47; 60.4% women, 37.0% men; 59.2% White) completed the Friendship Victimization Scale along with measures to examine construct validity. The majority of the sample reported experiencing at least one act of victimization by a friend, and men reported more victimization than did women. Results supported a 2-factor structure, with relational and verbal victimization loading on one factor and physical and sexual victimization and controlling behaviors loading on the other. Cronbach's alphas exceeded .90 for the total score and both subscales. Greater friendship victimization was predicted by negative features in each of a best and a challenging friendship, even after accounting for negative features in a dating relationship, and was unrelated to positive features in any of these relationships. Overall, results indicate that victimization is common in emerging adults' friendships. The findings provide preliminary evidence for the utility of the Friendship Victimization Scale as a measure of this understudied source of risk in the interpersonal lives of emerging adults.

Hair cortisol as a biomarker of chronic stress in preadolescents: influence of school context and bullying

Bullying has been identified as the most common form of aggression and a major source of stress among children and adolescents. The main objective of this study was to analyze the association that school context in general and bullying in particular might have with hair cortisol concentration (HCC), examining the effect of executive function and sex on this association. The study included 659 11-year-old preadolescents from the cohorts of Gipuzkoa and Sabadell of the INMA (INfancia y Medio Ambiente-Children and Environment) project. We gathered information about school-related factors (bullying, school environment, problems with peers and academic performance) and executive function (risky decision-making). Hair samples were collected to measure cortisol concentrations and Structural Equation Modeling was used to examine associations between school-related factors, executive function and HCC. Results showed that being involved as a bully/victim was related to higher HCC and, higher HCC was associated with poorer executive function. This study may contribute to a better understanding of the consequences that chronic exposure to a stressful factors may have on preadolescents' health and developmental outcomes. Besides, our results are relevant for designing programs for prevention and intervention, which could modify individual physiological responses to stress and reduce the effects of stress on the health.

Prosocial Behavior and Aggression in the Daily School Lives of Early Adolescents

Research has not adequately addressed a possible mutual co-regulatory influence of prosocial and aggressive behaviors in adolescents' daily lives. This study explored bidirectional within-person associations between prosocial and aggressive behaviors in the daily school lives of early adolescents. The sample included 242 sixth-graders [M_age = 11.96 (SD = 0.18), 50% girls] and their teachers. Adolescents reported on daily prosocial behavior and reactive and proactive aggression for ten consecutive days. Teachers and adolescents reported on adolescents' overall prosocial behaviors. Across-day prosocial behaviors increased after days when adolescents exhibited more reactive aggression but not among self-reported low-prosocial adolescents. Increased prosocial behaviors did not mitigate aggression the next day. The findings suggest prosocial behaviors are a plausible compensatory strategy after daily aggressive reactions.