Publication type
Journal Article
Authors
Publication date
July 8, 2026
Summary:
Adolescence has been proposed as a second sensitive period of development with heightened sensitivity to socio-cultural processing. However, age-specific relationships between adverse social experiences and internalising symptoms are unclear. In this study, we used self-reported data at yearly intervals from age 10 to 21 years from the UK Household Longitudinal (UKHLS) Study. We investigated individual differences in how internalising symptoms change with age and whether there are differences in sensitivity to adverse social experiences (bullying and social exclusion). We captured the relationship between bullying and internalising symptoms from age 10 to 15 years (N = 10,285) and social exclusion and internalising symptoms from age 16 to 21 years (N = 11,623) by leveraging latent growth curve models with time-varying covariates. More bullying was associated with greater internalising symptoms, and there was evidence for age-specific sensitivity at yearly intervals from age 10-15 years (estimates = .541-.714, standardised estimates: .270-.400, ps < .001, FDR corrected ps < .05). From ages 16-21, higher feelings of social exclusion were associated with greater internalising symptoms (est = .312, p < .001), and the strength of this relationship remained stable over time. This evidence shows that vulnerability to adverse social experiences varies over age, and more so between age 10-15 years. The findings highlight: 1) the role of adverse social experiences in internalising symptoms with yearly precision, 2) the relevance of age-specific vulnerabilities to adverse social experiences, 3) and the importance of considering sensitivities beyond age 18 years.
Published in
Communications Psychology
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1038/s44271-026-00492-x
ISSN
27319121
Subjects
Notes
Online Early
© The Author(s) 2026.
Open Access
This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Code: Our main analysis script is published on the Open Science Framework: https://osf.io/mkwhz/overview
#589135