Under Pressure: Stress and Decision Making - Association for Psychological Science - APS - 1 views
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Many animals store food to use in times of scarcity, but humans are stockpilers too — individuals routinely keep money in the bank (or under their mattress) and cans in the pantry. However, in some individuals, this collecting behavior is taken to extremes in the form of compulsive hoarding — collecting excessive amounts of objects that have little or no value. Preston found that, across species, including humans, anxiety and threats appear to increase the motivation to acquire and collect food and goods
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Responses to positive and negative feedback in the ventral striatum were greatly reduced under stress as compared to when there was no stress, suggesting that stress may dampen your perception of the subjective value of a decision.
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Gaining a better understanding of how stress affects decision making is critical not only for psychological science, but has important, real-world implications
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It is interesting how as humans we still have connections to less developed species. I found it fascinating that the reason why people hoard objects is due to anxiety or stress. People who hoard are stressed about the decision to get rid of an object because they think they may need it later on. I also found it interesting how stress can impair one's decision making by decreasing one's ability to see the value of a decision. This article applies to our class discussions and work because it shows how our emotions, specifically stress, can affect our reasoning.