Tuesday, April 2, 2019

Decision-Making Under Stress: The Brain Remembers Rewards, Forgets Punishments

It's counterintuitive, but under stress we tend to focus more on the rewards than on the risks of any decision.

A new review shows that acute stress affects the way the brain considers the pros and cons, causing it to focus on pleasure and ignore the possible negative consequences of a decision.

The research has implications for everything from obesity and addictions to finance, suggesting that stress may modify the way people make choices in predictable ways.
“Stress affects how people learn,” says Mara Mather, a psychology professor at the University of Southern California and the lead author of the review. “People learn better about positive than negative outcomes under stress.”
...The new review paper also found that stress appears to affect decision-making differently in men and women. While both men and women tend to focus on rewards and less on consequences under stress, their responses to risk turn out to be different.
Read more [HERE].