• Korean Journal of Childcare and Education
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• v.11 no.1
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• pp.153-171
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• 2015

The purposes of this study were to explore the relations of preschoolers' narrative representation profile types to diurnal cortisol regulation pattern at home. Fourteen story stems from the MacArthur Story Stem Battery (MSSB, Bretherton, et al., 1990) were administered to 40 preschoolers(22 boys, 18 girls, aged 5) recruited from 8 kindergartens in the Seoul and Gyeonggi areas. And also, their saliva cortisol was collected. The children's responses were aggregated into 5 dimensions, based on content themes and performance scores, which included emotions expressed and narrative coherence using the MacArthur Narrative Coding System(Robinson, et al., 2004). Data were analyzed by means of cluster analysis. Five response profiles emerged over the course of this research: Prosocial, Anxiety, Dyregulated aggression, Restricted, and Avoidance profiles. Cortisol at home showed decrease diurnal cortisol regulation patterns, however it showed a difference according to narrative response profiles. Restricted, Prosocial, and Avoidance profiles showed decrease diurnal cortisol regulation patterns. Anxiety profiles showed flat pattern, and Dyregulated aggression profile showed rising diurnal cortisol regulation pattern. These results show the preschoolers' internal representation may affect the diurnal cortisol reaction in daytime.