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Cortisol reactivity and regulation associated with shame responding in early childhood

Rosemary S L Mills1, Gorette P Imm, Bobbi R Walling

  • 1Department of Family Social Sciences, University of Manitoba, Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada. rosemary_mills@unimanitoba.ca

Developmental Psychology
|September 17, 2008
PubMed

Insights

Children experiencing shame after failure show altered cortisol patterns. High shame in boys is linked to prolonged cortisol responses and future shame, while in girls, shame itself predicts future shame.

Area of Science:

  • Developmental Psychology
  • Child Psychology
  • Stress Response Research

Background:

  • Shame is a complex emotion impacting social-emotional development.
  • Understanding the physiological underpinnings of shame, like cortisol response, is crucial for early childhood research.
  • The relationship between shame and the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis requires further elucidation.

Purpose of the Study:

  • To characterize cortisol response and regulation in early childhood shame.
  • To investigate the generalizability of the shame-cortisol relationship across different contexts.
  • To explore sex differences in shame-related cortisol reactivity and regulation.

Main Methods:

  • Assessed shame responding via emotion-expressive behavior in 214 children (3.7–4.5 years) during task failure.
  • Measured hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis activation through salivary cortisol levels.
  • Collected saliva samples at multiple time points before and after initial task failures.

Main Results:

  • High initial shame correlated with greater cortisol reactivity and slower cortisol regulation in boys and some girls.
  • In boys, high shame and slow cortisol regulation predicted subsequent shame responses.
  • In girls, high shame, independent of cortisol response, predicted subsequent shame responses.

Conclusions:

  • Shame responding in early childhood is associated with distinct cortisol patterns, particularly in boys.
  • Cortisol reactivity and regulation play a role in the persistence of shame responding, with sex-specific differences observed.
  • Findings highlight the intricate interplay between emotion regulation, physiological stress response, and social-emotional development in young children.

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