Impact of stress on decision making

Matveeva Evgeniya Yurevna

A key problem that animals have faced throughout evolution is finding food (for example, when to abandon the current food source in search of a better one). In such foraging decisions, the quality of the environment as a whole can be used to assess the value of future unknowns against which current prospects are compared. Many decisions that people make are reminiscent of the problem of finding food, where a currently known option has to be compared with an unfamiliar alternative. Indeed, intuitively, what might seem like a good option (eg a job offer) versus potential future options depends on the overall quality of the environment (in a particular situation, the labor market). This article discusses the hypothesis that such decisions, like foraging, are inherently sensitive to stress, a physiological response that tracks biologically significant changes in the context of the environment. A number of studies confirm that stress tempts decision-makers to over-exploit current opportunities over optimal choices. This overexploitation can be an adaptive response to situations that threaten homeostasis. Strengthening exploitative behavior is appropriate when there is a lower overall environmental quality score. Stress activates biological systems that monitor and respond to changes in the environment, organizing a series of hormonal, neurophysiological and behavioral adjustments for this. To the extent that stress signals negative information about the environment, it should accordingly be associated with lower perceived average reward rates and greater exploitation of current opportunities. The key role of stress in assessing environmental quality is consistent with its broader role in providing a coordinated body response to complex contexts. It is intuitively obvious that stress contributes to a more negative assessment of the environment, and a stressful environment is almost necessarily defined as repulsive and threatening. However, when the circumstances of the stressor and the circumstances of the decision problem do not match, over-exploitative and pessimistic biases can become maladaptive or pathological.

Keywords:Stress, decision making, environment, exploration, exploitation, choice, reward