Institute of Child Development, University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, Minneapolis, MN 55455, USA.
Dev Psychol. 2011 May;47(3):792-803. doi: 10.1037/a0021902.
Children of ages 3 to 4.5 years (N = 107; 45 boys, 62 girls) were studied twice, 6 months apart, to examine whether the cortisol rise in child care at Time 1 (T1) was associated with (a) changes in anxious, vigilant behavior from T1 to Time 2 (T2) and (b) higher internalizing symptoms at T2. Controlling for measures of home environment and child care quality at T1, as well as for cortisol activity at T2, we obtained results indicating that behavioral inhibition moderated the associations between the rise in cortisol at T1 and child outcomes at T2 (i.e., anxious, vigilant behavior and internalizing symptoms). For both outcomes, the rise in cortisol at T1 became more positively predictive at increasing levels of behavioral inhibition. Specifically, at higher levels of behavioral inhibition, children with larger T1 cortisol increases expressed more internalizing symptoms than did children at lower levels of behavioral inhibition; in contrast, for those with low cortisol activity at T1, children with higher levels of inhibition expressed fewer internalizing symptoms than did children at lower levels of inhibition. In addition, children with higher levels of behavioral inhibition and lower cortisol activity at T1 exhibited reductions in anxious, vigilant behavior from T1 to T2, whereas at lower levels of behavioral inhibition, variations in the T1 cortisol rise bore no relation to changes in this behavior. These results suggest that the rise in cortisol at child care may have differential predictive value as a function of behaviorally inhibited temperament.
我们对 3 至 4.5 岁的儿童（N=107；男 45 名，女 62 名）进行了两次研究，两次研究时间间隔 6 个月，以检验儿童照料中心的皮质醇升高（T1）是否与（a）从 T1 到 T2（b）时的焦虑、警惕行为变化以及（b）T2 时的内化症状有关。控制 T1 时家庭环境和儿童照料质量以及 T2 时皮质醇活性的测量，我们得到的结果表明，行为抑制会调节 T1 皮质醇升高与 T2 时儿童结果之间的关联（即焦虑、警惕行为和内化症状）。对于这两种结果，T1 皮质醇升高与行为抑制程度越高，呈正相关。具体来说，在较高的行为抑制水平下，T1 皮质醇升高幅度较大的儿童表现出更多的内化症状，而行为抑制水平较低的儿童则较少表现出内化症状；相比之下，对于 T1 皮质醇活性较低的儿童，行为抑制水平较高的儿童表现出较少的内化症状，而行为抑制水平较低的儿童则较多表现出内化症状。此外，T1 时行为抑制水平较高、皮质醇活性较低的儿童，从 T1 到 T2 时表现出焦虑、警惕行为的减少，而在行为抑制水平较低的情况下，T1 皮质醇升高的变化与这种行为的变化无关。这些结果表明，儿童照料中心皮质醇的升高可能具有不同的预测价值，这取决于行为抑制气质。
