Cortisol reactivity and performance abilities in social situations in adults with Williams syndrome.
Williams syndrome adults release less stress hormone when speaking in public yet stay level while playing music alone.
01Research in Context
What this study did
Prigge et al. (2013) watched adults with Williams syndrome give a short speech and play music alone.
The team took saliva samples before and after each task. They wanted to see if stress hormone levels changed.
They also checked if baseline cortisol linked to how well each person played.
What they found
Cortisol dropped after the speech task. It stayed flat after the solo music task.
Higher morning cortisol went with better musical skill.
The mixed pattern shows stress chemistry depends on the type of social demand.
How this fits with other research
Edmiston et al. (2017) found the opposite pattern in autistic teens. Those teens kept flat cortisol during a public-speaking test. The difference makes sense: people with Williams syndrome often enjoy social attention, while many autistic people find it aversive.
Greer et al. (2013) showed the same WS adults struggle to stay focused. Pair the two papers and you see that low attention control does not stop cortisol from falling when the task feels safe.
Robertson et al. (2013) adds that higher anxiety in WS predicts looking away from eyes. Taken together, cortisol, gaze, and anxiety each tell a separate part of the social-stress story.
Why it matters
If you run social-skills groups, do not assume everyone finds public speaking scary. For clients with Williams syndrome, a short talk may calm them down. Use music tasks as a low-stress warm-up, since cortisol stays steady. Always collect a quick baseline saliva sample if you want to judge true reactivity; morning levels predict performance, so a high baseline might flag hidden talent.
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02At a glance
03Original abstract
Williams syndrome (WS) is a neurodevelopmental disorder associated with hypersociability and anxiety. However, little is known about how these salient aspects of the phenotype are related or their underlying physiology. We examined cortisol reactivity in WS because cortisol is responsive to psychosocial stress. Compared to typically developing adults, adults with WS had a significant cortisol decrease in response to a challenging cognitive battery. In contrast, cortisol levels in WS stayed stable in response to a solo musical performance, and baseline cortisol levels were significantly associated with musical skill. Results indicate that people with WS respond differentially to different socially-loaded situations. Implications for salience and arousal in cognitive and social situations are discussed.
American journal on intellectual and developmental disabilities, 2013 · doi:10.1352/1944-7558-118.5.381