Fig. 3.

Relationships between Elo rating, behavioral tendency, and the cortisol response to acute dexamethasone challenge (DCT) in Phase 1. Dexamethasone (0.125 mg/kg) was administered at 0800 h immediately following baseline serum collection. Adjusting for other model predictors (Table S3), more positive y-axis values (i.e., larger change from baseline) indicate greater suppression of cortisol by Dex. (A) At 1.5 h post-Dex administration, social approachability (residual PC1 scores) had rank-dependent effects on cortisol suppression (β_Elo*PC1 = 0.43, t₃₄ = 2.24, P = 0.031): rank predicted sensitivity to Dex only among females who scored high on PC1. (B) At 1.5 h post-Dex, anxiousness (residual PC3) was associated with increased cortisol suppression by Dex (1.5 h: β_PC3 = 0.67, t₃₄ = 2.54, P = 0.016). Component scores are split into tertiles for visualization only; statistical models reported inthe maintext were fit using continuously distributed component scores (Table S3), but Pearson correlations (A) for each tertile are shown to provide a summary of the stratified data.