SOCIAL HIERARCHY AND ADRENOCORTICAL STRESS REACTIVITY IN MEN

Baseline and stress induced salivary cortisol levels were investigated in 63 army recruits at the beginning and the end of six week boot cam p training. At the beginning of the training, the recruits were random ly distributed to nine groups, and weekly measurements of the social h ierarchy within each group were obtained. Independent of the social po sition, baseline levels increased over the first weeks of the training period. Under experimental psychological stress, salivary cortisol le vels highly increased in socially dominant subjects (14.0 nmol/l), whi le only a modest elevation was observed in subordinate men (2.9 nmol/l ). Similar differences in response patterns were observed under physic al stress. At the end of the training, blunted cortisol responses were observed to both psychological and physical stress. The data suggest a close relationship between social status and pituitary-adrenal respo nsiveness to psychological stress in men. (C) 1997 Elsevier Science Lt d. All rights reserved.