Hengen Kristina M, Alpers Georg W
Department of Psychology, School of Social Science, University of Mannheim, Mannheim, Germany.
Front Psychol. 2021 Feb 22;12:578293. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2021.578293. eCollection 2021.
Stress and anxiety can both influence risk-taking in decision-making. While stress typically increases risk-taking, anxiety often leads to risk-averse choices. Few studies have examined both stress and anxiety in a single paradigm to assess risk-averse choices. We therefore set out to examine emotional decision-making under stress in socially anxious participants. In our study, individuals ( = 87) high or low in social anxiety completed an expanded variation of the (). While inflating a balloon to a larger degree is rewarded, a possible explosion leads to (a) a loss of money and (b) it is followed by an emotional picture (i.e., a calm vs. an angry face). To induce stress before this task, participants were told that they would have to deliver a speech. We operationalized risk-taking by the number of pumps during inflation and its functionality by the amount of monetary gain. In addition, response times were recorded as an index of decisional conflict. Without the stressor, high socially anxious compared to low socially anxious participants did not differ in any of the dependent variables. However, under stress, the low socially anxious group took more risk and earned more money, while high socially anxious individuals remained more cautious and did not change their risk-taking under social stress. Overall, high socially anxious individuals made their decisions more hesitantly compared to low socially anxious individuals. Unexpectedly, there were no main effects or interactions with the valence of the emotional faces. This data shows that stress affects socially anxious individuals differently: in low socially anxious individuals stress fosters risk-taking, whereas high socially anxious individuals did not alter their behavior and remained risk-averse. The novel is a promising research tool to examine the specific factors that influence decision-making.
压力和焦虑都会影响决策中的冒险行为。虽然压力通常会增加冒险行为，但焦虑往往会导致规避风险的选择。很少有研究在单一范式中同时考察压力和焦虑以评估规避风险的选择。因此，我们着手研究社交焦虑个体在压力下的情绪决策。在我们的研究中，社交焦虑程度高或低的个体（n = 87）完成了一个扩展版的气球模拟风险任务。将气球吹得更大可获得奖励，但可能的爆炸会导致（a）金钱损失，以及（b）随后出现一张情绪图片（即平静的脸与愤怒的脸）。为了在这项任务之前诱发压力，参与者被告知他们必须发表演讲。我们通过充气时的打气次数来衡量冒险行为，通过金钱收益的数量来衡量其功能性。此外，记录反应时间作为决策冲突的指标。在没有压力源的情况下，与社交焦虑程度低的参与者相比，社交焦虑程度高的参与者在任何因变量上都没有差异。然而，在压力下，社交焦虑程度低的组承担了更多风险并赚取了更多金钱，而社交焦虑程度高的个体则更加谨慎，在社交压力下没有改变他们的冒险行为。总体而言，与社交焦虑程度低的个体相比，社交焦虑程度高的个体做出决策时更加犹豫。出乎意料的是，情绪面孔的效价没有主效应或交互作用。这些数据表明，压力对社交焦虑个体的影响不同：在社交焦虑程度低的个体中，压力促进冒险行为，而社交焦虑程度高的个体没有改变他们的行为，仍然规避风险。这种新颖的气球模拟风险任务是一种很有前景的研究工具，可用于考察影响决策的具体因素。
