Risky Decision Making Under Stressful Conditions: Men and Women With Smaller Cortisol Elevations Make Riskier Social and Economic Decisions

• DOI: 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.810031
• Publication Date: 2022-02-04T06:17:23Z
• Authors: Anna J. Dreyer; Dale Stephen; Robyn Human; Tarah L. Swanepoel; Leanne Adams; Aimee O'Neill; W. Jake Jacobs; Kevin G. F. Thomas
• Keywords: Stressor; Iowa gambling task; Social Stress

Men often make riskier decisions than women across a wide range of real-life behaviors. Whether this sex difference is accentuated, diminished, or stable under stressful conditions is, however, contested in the scientific literature. A critical blind spot lies amid contestation: Most studies use standardized, laboratory-based, cognitive measures decision making rather complex social simulation tasks to assess risk-related behavior. To address spot, we investigated effects acute psychosocial stress on risk men and (N = 80) using standardized measure (the Iowa Gambling Task; IGT) novel task that simulated situation (an online chatroom which participants interacted with other sexually suggestive scenarios). Participants were exposed either an stressor equivalent control condition. Stressor-exposed further characterized as high- low-cortisol responders. Results confirmed experimental manipulation was effective. On IGT, responders (as well those Non-Stress group) made significantly high-cortisol Similarly, chatroom, (but not responders) were, relative group, more likely risky decisions. Together, these results suggest at lower levels cortisol both tend economic spheres.