Childhood Stress and Family
Environment
Kyle Krueger, Jon Schectman, Jennifer Clay
Biology of Stress
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Function of the limbic system and basal ganglia
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(SAM) – Sympathetic-adrenal-medullary
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Epinephrine and norepinephrine
(HPA) – Hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal
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Glucocorticoids
Cortisol
Effects of Stress
Cortisol modulates
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Energy
Immune activity
Mental alertness
Learning
Memory encoding
Why do we care about cortisol and family
environment?
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Psychosocial stress and uncertainty
Costs of Stress
Chronic stress can lead to:
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Immunity deficiencies
Stunted growth
Hippocampal damage
Cognitive impairment
Permanent alteration of HPA functioning
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Prenatal drug exposure
Abuse victims
Challenges
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Factors influencing cortisol levels:
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Circadian rhythm
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Food consumption
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Physical activity
Emotional distress?
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Time course of endocrine functions
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Individual variation
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Temperament
A Useful Approach
How do we account for all of these factors?
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Both behavior and cortisol assay
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Longitudinal Anthropological study
Short-term as well as long-term events
Provides cultural context
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Cultural significance of events
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Individuation of subjects
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Personality
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Past experiences
Population
•247 Children 2 months-18 years from 82
homes-nearly complete sample
•Bwa Mawego, rural village in Dominica
•+/-
780 residents
•Divided into 5 neighborhoods, 4 of which were
involved in this study
•Mixed African, Carib, and European
descents
About Bwa Mawego
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Small houses, most have kitchen and toilet as outbuildings
Children typically sleep together
Wealthier houses have sitting rooms
~60% of homes and electricity
•Part time residence
common
•Large farming and fishing
community
•No running water-obtained
from springs, catchments
and run-off from roofs
Methods and Field Techniques
• Interviews, behavioral scans, participant observation,
and questionnaire instruments
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Household environment, caretaking attention, temperament,
and health
• Radioimmunoassay of saliva samples
 Physiological stress response
Primary focus of this report in on relations between stress
(dependent variable) and family environment (independent
variable)
Saliva collection
 Routine 1:
 Twice daily collection
 16,652 of 18,376 collections this way
 Routine 2:
 “focal follow”
 Child/infant was observed from dawn until early
afternoon with hourly saliva samples
Data was NOT adjusted for…
 Eating and caffeine intake
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Few samples were taken during mealtime
Small effect
 Intensive physical exertion
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Only small amount of samples taken during physical
exertion
Difficult to determine degree of exertions
Circadian Rhythm
 24-hour cycle in biochemical, physiological, or
behavioral processes
 Includes release of cortisol!
Results
Results
 From these results, the conclusion is that childhood
stress is associated with household composition
 Children in difficult caretaking environments may
experience…
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chronic stress
more acute stressors
More frequent stressful events
May have inadequate coping abilities, perhaps developed
from difficult experiences in early childhood
Chronic Stress
 Chronic stress…
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May deplete cellular energy and immune reserves that require
subsequent conservation to rebuild normal cortisol
Along with high average cortisol levels are associated with
frequency of illness
“Sensitive Periods”
 Longitudinal analysis of caretaking histories suggest
that children have “sensitive periods” for
development of stress response
 Children with severe caretaking problems during
INFANCY frequently exhibit one of two cortisol
profiles
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Unusually low with occasional high spikes
Chronically high cortisol levels
 Step children are more likely to have unusual cortisol
profiles and inhibited temperaments
Low-basal-with-high spikes
cortisol profile children all have
low sociability and high
aggressiveness.
All children with the
chronically high cortisol profile
have shyness and social anxiety.
High Stress
 High stress does not mean the events that triggered
were traumatic or “negative”
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Eating meals
Hard physical work
Routine competitive play
Return of a family member who was temporarily absent
Summary
 Stress coping mechanisms
 Beneficial in the short term
 Consume extensive resources
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Leave the body vulnerable after prolonged use
 Children are especially sensitive to stress
 Might be due to extreme exposure
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Its hard to escape parents
 Children have sensitive periods, this allows them to
learn better during certain times.
Discussion
 Limitations
 Only used sample of people in a rural village
 Did stress levels of parents interact with that of children.
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If parents did not act stress did their cortisol levels effect those
of their children
 Not experimental or controlled
Future studies
 Take place in the city
 Does children’s stress effect parents
 Explicit effects on personality
 Does animal parental stress effect children or is this
uniquely human
 Mediation of effects?
Implications
•Parents need to be extra
attentive to stress levels.
•A bad start can lead to
repeated stress
•Small amounts of stress
may lead to development of
coping mechanisms
•Engaging children in
activities that activate
stress could be
beneficial. I.E. Sports.
•Children need strong
support systems
Relationship to EP
 Stress in the environment is relatively
short lived
 Zebra gets attack, zebra runs, stress is
over.
 In modern times stressful situations
last much longer
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Imagine being attacked by a lion 8 hours
a day.
 Supported by finding that stress levels
in people decrease after short time.
 Could be adaptive to respond to
parents feelings quickly. E.X. Mom
scared of lion, good to scare
Some Thoughts
 Do these findings support the Life-History theory of
personality development?
 Are these reflective of Daly & Wilson’s findings onstep-children outcomes
 Can all of these stress responses be considered
adaptive?