Risky Decision Making Under Stressful Conditions: Men and Women With Smaller Cortisol Elevations Make Riskier Social
Anna J Dreyer1, Dale Stephen1, Robyn Human1
1ACSENT Laboratory, Department of Psychology, University of Cape Town, Cape Town, South Africa.
Frontiers in Psychology
|February 21, 2022
Summary
Stress impacts risk-taking differently based on cortisol levels. Lower cortisol, in both men and women, is linked to riskier decisions in economic and social contexts.
Area of Science:
- Neuroscience
- Psychology
- Behavioral Economics
Background:
- Sex differences in risk-taking behavior are well-documented but debated under stress.
- Existing research often relies on artificial laboratory tasks, neglecting real-world complexity.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the impact of acute psychosocial stress on risk decision-making in men and women.
- To compare risk-taking in standardized cognitive tasks versus simulated social interactions.
Main Methods:
- 80 participants (men and women) underwent a psychosocial stressor or control condition.
- Risk-taking was assessed using the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) and a simulated online chatroom.
- Participants were categorized as high or low cortisol responders post-stress.
Main Results:
- Low-cortisol responders and the non-stress group made riskier decisions on the IGT compared to high-cortisol responders.
- In the chatroom simulation, low-cortisol responders exhibited riskier behavior than the non-stress group.
- High-cortisol responders did not show significant changes in risk-taking behavior.
Conclusions:
- Lower cortisol levels are associated with increased risk-taking in both men and women.
- This effect is observed across both economic (IGT) and social (chatroom) decision-making domains.
- Stress-induced cortisol response modulates, rather than uniformly increases, risk-taking behavior.
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