Forbes Paul A G, Nitschke Jonas P, Hochmeister Nicole, Kalenscher Tobias, Lamm Claus
Comparative Psychology, Institute of Experimental Psychology, Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Germany.
Social, Cognitive, and Affective Neuroscience Unit, Department of Cognition, Emotion, and Methods in Psychology, Faculty of Psychology, University of Vienna, Austria.
Neurobiol Stress. 2024 Jun 3;31:100653. doi: 10.1016/j.ynstr.2024.100653. eCollection 2024 Jul.
Many everyday decisions, including those concerning our health, finances and the environment, involve choosing between a smaller but imminent reward (e.g., €20 now) and a later but larger reward (e.g., €40 in a month). The extent to which an individual prefers smaller imminent rewards over larger delayed rewards can be measured using delay discounting tasks. Acute stress induces a cascade of biological and psychological responses with potential consequences for how individuals think about the future, process rewards, and make decisions, all of which can impact delay discounting. Several studies have shown that individuals focus more on imminent rewards under stress. These findings have been used to explain why individuals make detrimental choices under acute stress. Yet, the evidence linking acute stress to delay discounting is equivocal. To address this uncertainty, we conducted a meta-analysis of 11 studies (14 effects) to systematically quantify the effects of acute stress on monetary delay discounting. Overall, we find no effect of acute stress on delay discounting, compared to control conditions (SMD = -0.18, 95% CI [-0.57, 0.20], p = 0.32). We also find that neither the gender/sex of the participants, the type of stressor (e.g., physical vs. psychosocial) nor whether monetary decisions were hypothetical or incentivized (i.e. monetary decisions were actually paid out) moderated the impact of acute stress on monetary delay discounting. We argue that establishing the effects of acute stress on the separate processes involved in delay discounting, such as reward valuation and prospection, will help to resolve the inconsistencies in the field.
许多日常决策，包括那些与我们的健康、财务和环境相关的决策，都涉及在一个较小但即时的奖励（例如，现在的20欧元）和一个较晚但更大的奖励（例如，一个月后的40欧元）之间做出选择。个体相对于更大的延迟奖励更喜欢较小的即时奖励的程度可以通过延迟折扣任务来衡量。急性应激会引发一系列生物和心理反应，这些反应可能会对个体如何思考未来、处理奖励以及做出决策产生潜在影响，而所有这些都会影响延迟折扣。几项研究表明，个体在压力下会更关注即时奖励。这些发现被用来解释为什么个体在急性应激下会做出有害的选择。然而，将急性应激与延迟折扣联系起来的证据并不明确。为了解决这种不确定性，我们对11项研究（14个效应）进行了荟萃分析，以系统地量化急性应激对货币延迟折扣的影响。总体而言，与对照条件相比，我们发现急性应激对延迟折扣没有影响（标准化均数差= -0.18，95%可信区间[-0.57, 0.20]，p = 0.32）。我们还发现，参与者的性别、应激源的类型（例如，身体应激源与心理社会应激源）以及货币决策是假设性的还是有激励性的（即货币决策实际支付）均未调节急性应激对货币延迟折扣的影响。我们认为，确定急性应激对延迟折扣所涉及的各个过程（如奖励估值和预期）的影响，将有助于解决该领域的不一致性问题。
