Cited by 610Stress Responses and CortisolChild and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional DevelopmentHeart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control

Stress response and the adolescent transition: performance versus peer rejection stressors

Open access
Stroud, Laura R., Foster, Elizabeth, Papandonatos, George D., Handwerger, Kathryn, Granger, Douglas A., Kivlighan, Katie T., Niaura, Raymond·2009·Development and Psychopathology

Abstract

Little is known about normative variation in stress response over the adolescent transition. This study examined neuroendocrine and cardiovascular responses to performance and peer rejection stressors over the adolescent transition in a normative sample. Participants were 82 healthy children (ages 7–12 years, n = 39, 22 females) and adolescents (ages 13–17, n = 43, 20 females) recruited through community postings. Following a habituation session, participants completed a performance (public speaking, mental arithmetic, mirror tracing) or peer rejection (exclusion challenges) stress session. Salivary cortisol, salivary alpha amylase (sAA), systolic and diastolic blood pressure (SBP, DBP), and heart rate were measured throughout. Adolescents showed significantly greater cortisol, sAA, SBP, and DBP stress response relative to children. Developmental differences were most pronounced in the performance stress session for cortisol and DBP and in the peer rejection session for sAA and SBP. Heightened physiological stress responses in typical adolescents may facilitate adaptation to new challenges of adolescence and adulthood. In high-risk adolescents, this normative shift may tip the balance toward stress response dysregulation associated with depression and other psychopathology. Specificity of physiological response by stressor type highlights the importance of a multisystem approach to the psychobiology of stress and may also have implications for understanding trajectories to psychopathology.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.1017/s0954579409000042

Cites

107 of 107 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • Adolescents show increased physiological responses to stressors, increased prefrontal brain activation during social evaluation, and increased difficulty implementing cognitive control in emotionally evocative events.

    “Research confirms that adolescents experience increased physiological responses to stressors (Stroud et al. 2009), increased prefrontal brain activation during social evaluation (Somerville 2013), and increased difficulty implementing cognitive control skills in the context of emotionally evocative events (Cohen et al. 2016, Somerville et al. 2011).”

    From Adolescent Suicide as a Failure of Acute Stress-Response Systems. (2019) · cites this paper as Stroud et al. 2009

  • Pubertal changes in physiological stress responses are not mirrored by differences in affective responses to stressors.

    “the changes in physiological responses to stressors observed by Stroud et al (2009) during the pubertal transition “were not mirrored by differences in affective responses to the stressors””
  • ANS-associated somatic signs may not be as strongly linked to emotional expression or to optimizing risky decision-making during development as in adulthood.

    “a number of studies have hinted to the provocative possibility that ANS-associated somatic signs may not be as strongly linked to emotional expression (e.g., Quas et al, 2000; Stroud et al, 2009) or to optimizing risky decision-making (e.g., Crone & van der Molen, 2007) during development as in adulthood.”
  • Stroud et al. (2009) found that changes in physiological responses to stressors during puberty were not mirrored by differences in affective responses.

    “the changes in physiological responses to stressors observed by Stroud et al (2009) during the pubertal transition “were not mirrored by differences in affective responses to the stressors” (p.62).”
  • Adolescents are prone to intensified emotional and stress responses to peer evaluation.

    “and are prone to intensified emotional and stress responses to peer evaluation (15–18).”

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Stroud, L. R., Foster, E., Papandonatos, G. D., Handwerger, K., Granger, D. A., Kivlighan, K. T., & Niaura, R.
Affiliations
  • Brown University (US)
  • Tufts University (US)
  • Pennsylvania State University (US)
  • Johns Hopkins University (US)
Corresponding author
Stroud, Laura R.
Venue
Development and Psychopathology
Published
2009-01
Volume
21
Issue
1
Pages
47-68
ISSN
  • 0954-5794 (ISSN-L)
  • 1469-2198
OpenAlex
W2124408454
Cited by
610
References
106
Citations by year
2026: 16 · 2025: 20 · 2024: 16 · 2023: 41 · 2022: 31 · 2021: 47 · 2020: 48 · 2019: 42 · 2018: 33 · 2017: 44 · 2016: 39 · 2015: 42 · 2014: 41 · 2013: 43 · 2012: 35
FWCI
12.97
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Development and Psychopathology (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • PubMed Central (acceptedVersion)
Funders
  • National Institute of Mental Health (K23MH65443, K23MH065443)
  • National Cancer Institute (P50 CA84719, P50CA084719)
Topics
  • Life Sciences › Neuroscience › Behavioral Neuroscience › Stress Responses and Cortisol
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Child and Adolescent Psychosocial and Emotional Development
  • Health Sciences › Medicine › Cardiology and Cardiovascular Medicine › Heart Rate Variability and Autonomic Control
Keywords
adolescent transition, stress response, peer rejection, salivary cortisol, salivary amylase, blood pressure, heart rate, neuroendocrine stress response, cardiovascular stress response, developmental differences, stress response dysregulation, depression risk
MeSH terms
Adolescent, Psychology, Adolescent, Affect, Blood Pressure, Child, Psychology, Child, Emotions, Ethnicity, Female, Heart Rate, Humans, Hydrocortisone, Male, Mathematics, Peer Group, Puberty, Speech, Stress, Physiological, Stress, Psychological, Racial Groups

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review