Cortisol reactions to a social evaluative paradigm in 5- and 6-year-old children

Figures & data

Table I.  Descriptive statistics of demographic characteristics and confounders (N = 42).

Variables	Value
Maternal educational level (%)
Secondary or intermediate  vocational education	45.2
Higher vocational education	28.6
University	26.2
Paternal educational level (%)
Secondary or intermediate  vocational education	45.2
Higher vocational education	31.0
University	23.8
Child age in months,  mean ± SD (range)	68.0 ± 4.3 (57.0–75.9)
Child sex (%)
Boys	47.6
Girls	52.4
Time of testing, hours,  mean ± SD (range)	13:48 h ± 35 min (13:14–15:28 h)
School (%)
School 1	26.2
School 2	40.5
School 3	21.4
School 4	11.9
Sex of experimenter (%)
Male	14.3
Female	85.7
Sex of judge (%)
Male	71.4
Female	28.6

Table II.  Correlations between the actual increase in salivary cortisol concentration (nmol/L) and possible confounders.

	Child's sex	Child's age^a	Parental educational level^a	Time of testing^a	Sex of experimenter	Sex of judge
Δ Cortisol	0.04	0.06	− 0.12	0.13	0.09	− 0.22

^a Pearson correlations; others are Spearman correlations. All non-significant.

Figure 1.  Salivary cortisol concentrations (mean ± SEM) over the CREST paradigm: baseline concentration (lowest of samples C1 and C2), stress concentration (highest of samples C3 and C4), and recovery concentration (lowest of samples C5 and C6) for the group as a whole. N = number of children/samples for each collection point. Paired samples t-tests showed a significant difference in cortisol concentrations between baseline and stress measurements, and a significant difference between stress and recovery measurements (***p < 0.001).

Figure 2.  Top: detailed timeline of the CREST paradigm. Saliva sampling points for cortisol assessment are marked as C1, C2 (baseline), C3, C4 (stress reaction), C5, C6 (recovery). The thick bar indicates the stress phase (20 min: 15 min of performance stress plus 5 min of stress due to an anticipated evaluation). Bottom: salivary cortisol concentrations (mean ± SEM) over the CREST (gray box) for reactors, N = 25 children; mean peak increase in salivary cortisol concentration [mean increase from lowest baseline sample (C1/C2) to highest stress sample (C3/C4)] = 214%; p < 0.001, paired t-test; and non-reactors, N = 16 children; mean decrease in cortisol [mean change from lowest baseline sample (C1/C2) to highest stress sample (C3/C4)] = 7.8%; not significant, paired t-test.