# Social Buffering Over the Pubertal Transition

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA · 2020 · $634,872

## Abstract

The effectiveness of social buffering in regulating stress appears to wane for a period with
puberty at the same time that stress-reactivity increases and young adolescents become more
vulnerable to stress-related affective pathology. However, there is a dearth of knowledge
regarding the neural underpinnings of social buffering in children and the changes in neural
responses to potential social buffers with puberty. Two of the proposed experiments address
this gap in knowledge. In addition, to date, the loss of social buffering effectiveness with puberty
has primarily been examined using activity of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenocortical (HPA)
axis as the stress measure. All three proposed experiments will examine the pervasiveness of
the effect by examining sympathetic and parasympathetic responses, in addition to salivary
cortisol. Urinary oxytocin will also be examined because of its role as an anti-stress hormone.
Finally, the effectiveness of parents and friends as social buffers during the peripubertal period
has only been examined for social evaluative stressors. The proposed experiments will
determine whether the loss of social buffering also extends to threat stimuli as it does in adults
and to situations in which two friends are both experiencing the stressful event together. Finally,
all three proposed studies will explore whether puberty is associated with an emergence of sex
differences in social buffering by parents and friends. Participants will be 11-14 years old and
Tanner staging by nurse exam along with self-report and testosterone and DHEA will index
pubertal status. Our prior research uncovered the waning of the effectiveness of parents to
serve as social buffers of the HPA axis over the pubertal transition and the concomitant failure
of friends to “step in” as stress buffers. The proposed experiments are the logical extension of
this work. The results will have the potential to drive significant attention to the role of
developmental disruptions in social stress buffering as possible contributing factors in the rise of
affective problems in the early teen years.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 9922975
- **Project number:** 5R01HD095904-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF MINNESOTA
- **Principal Investigator:** Megan R Gunnar
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2020
- **Award amount:** $634,872
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2019-05-01 → 2024-04-30

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/9922975

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 9922975, Social Buffering Over the Pubertal Transition (5R01HD095904-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-22 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/9922975. Licensed CC0.

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