Effects of Environmental Stress on Individual Decision Making.

摘要

While many of today's judgments and decisions are frequently made under conditions of duress, empirical evidence is lacking for the effects that environmental stressors have on decision-making. The present research examined the effects of an acute, unpredictable, and uncontrollable stressor on the use of heuristics, or shortcutting strategies for making decisions. In order to determine the use of heuristics in a sample comparable to the study sample, a decision-making instrument covering four different heuristics was administered to 100 undergraduates. The present results replicate previous research that has shown that the majority of respondents employ a heuristic in making decisions. However, low reliability coefficients between and among the heuristics suggest that heuristic use is not traitlike, i.e., individuals are not consistent in their use of heuristics, using them at some times, but not others. The second part of the research consisted of two experiments conducted in parallel fashion. The first experiment was designed to examine the effects of an environmental stressor on decisions made during exposure to that stressor. Stress did not affect the decision-making process. Subjects used a comparable number of heuristics regardless of whether they were exposed to a stressor or not. While stress did not affect cognitive performance, there was a tendency for it to increase a person's confidence in his/her decisions. In addition, exposure to the stressor resulted in significant behavioral aftereffects. Specifically, males who had been exposed to the stressor showed significantly less tolerance for frustration than males in a control group. Females persisted regardless of whether they were exposed to the stressor or not. The second experiment was designed to examine the effects of an environmental stressor on decisions made after the stressor was terminated.