Within-person dynamics of physiological and perceived stress among South African youth in positive youth development programs.

This study investigated weekly within-person relations between physiological (measured through salivary cortisol) and perceived stress (measured through self-report) among youth participating in a rural positive youth development (PYD) program in South Africa. Participants (N = 35, Mage = 11.6, SDage = 0.62) took part in an intensive longitudinal study involving 16 weeks of salivary cortisol collection and completion of a brief weekly survey. Using dynamic structural equation modeling, we tested for changes in physiological and perceived stress over time, as well as for autoregressive and cross-lagged effects. Results revealed a significant decrease in physiological stress over time among youth in the program, whereas perceived stress remained low and stable. We also found that higher stress in 1 week-both physiological and perceived-predicted higher stress in the following week (autoregressive effects), but the two types of stress did not predict one another (cross-lagged effects), and these relations varied across individuals. These findings suggest that, even within the same PYD program context, different indicators of stress remain distinct and may follow person-specific patterns. Implications for future PYD research and programs are discussed.