Analysis On The Characteristics Of Social Interaction Behavior And Salivary Cortisol During The Transition To Preschool

Developmental adaptation is the core theme of developmental psychology.Preschool admission is the first step for children to move from family to society.Preschool adaptation is not only a key node of their developmental adaptation,but also an important manifestation of their socialization process.In the past research,the fields of psychology and education tended to be observant behavioral observational research,while the fields of medicine and biochemistry focused on simple biochemical indicators of stress level.With the introduction of the interdisciplinary stress-adaptation model,existing studies have begun to explore the relationship between biochemical markers of stress and adaptive behaviors,and the research on admission to kindergarten has initially shown a trend of integrated research.This study adopted a time-series design to explore the trajectory and dynamic relationship between social interaction behavior and salivary cortisol in 102 children during the process of admission to preschool.At the same time,the experimental preschool implement the consistent education model,which provides unique conditions for exploring the adaptive advantages of children with continuous environment under the natural adaptation context.Study 1 used the Social Interaction Behavior Observation Inventory(SIBOI)to conduct behavioral coding for ten consecutive weeks to explore the growth trajectory of social interaction behavior.The results of the latent growth model showed that: within ten weeks,the children’s glancing/wandering showed a linear downward trend,and there were significant individual differences in the initial value and change rate;the initial value of the children’s glancing/wandering in the environmental continuous group was significantly lower than that in the environmental discontinuous group.The children’s positive peer interaction showed a linear upward trend,and there were significant individual differences in the initial value;the initial value of the children’s positive peer interaction in the environmental continuous group was significantly higher than that of the children in the environmental discontinuous group.Children’s activity participation and social integration showed a linear upward trend,and there were significant individual differences in the initial value and growth rate;the initial values of children’s activity participation and social integration in the environmental continuity group were significantly higher than those in the environmental discontinuous group.The rate of change of the children’s social integration in the continuous group was significantly lower than that of the children in the discontinuous group.There was no significant linear or non-linear trend in independent activities,teacherchild interaction,initiating negative interactions,and accepting negative interactions.Study 2 used salivary cortisol as a biochemical marker of stress to explore the relationship between social interaction behavior and cortisol changes in children’s adaptation to preschool.The results of the latent growth model showed that: within ten weeks,the cortisol of the children at the time of entering the preschool showed a linear upward trend,and there were significant individual differences in the initial value and the rate of change;the rate of cortisol rising of children in the continuous environment group was significantly lower than that of children in the discontinuous group.Cortisol after autonomous activities in the morning and afternoon showed a linear downward trend,and there were significant individual differences in the initial value and change rate;the rate of cortisol decline in the morning of the children in the continuous environment group was significantly higher than that of the children in the discontinuous group.The results of the related latent variable growth model showed that: the initial value of cortisol in the park was significantly negatively correlated with the initial value of activity participation;the rate of change of cortisol in the park was significantly positively correlated with the initial value and growth rate of activity participation.The initial value of cortisol in the morning was significantly positively correlated with the growth rate of positive peer interaction;the growth rate of cortisol in the morning was significantly positively correlated with the initial value of glancing/wandering behavior,and negatively correlated with the initial value of social integration.The initial value of cortisol in the afternoon was significantly negatively correlated with the growth rate of glancing/wandering behavior change,and positively correlated with the initial value and growth rate of social integration;the growth rate of cortisol in the afternoon was significantly negatively correlated with the growth rate of social integration.The research shows that:(1)During the preschool adaptation,salivary cortisol in different sampling times and in different adaptation context shows different trends,which is not only related to the specific behavior performance in the context,but also affected by the anticipation of the context.The salivary cortisol measure is highly sensitive and detailed characterization of individual explicit and implicit behavioral changes.(2)The social interaction behavior of children in the adaptation to preschool is closely related to the level of physiological stress.Higher-quality peer relationships and a more dominant group social class are the most effective factors for stress relief.Different levels indicator measurements are consistent.(3)As the adaptation context changes,the frequency of positive social interaction behaviors of environment continuous children is high,and the physiological stress state slows down quickly,indicating the superiority of " environment continuous,stepby-step adaptation".(4)The manifestations of severe maladaptation in children entering kindergarten are: high-frequency glancing/wandering behavior,higher and more slowly declining cortisol levels.Micro-context behavioral observation and comprehensive measurement of salivary cortisol can predict severe maladaptation in preschool and serve as an early warning for children’s subsequent developmental maladaptation.