Effect of Stress on Risky Decision Making: Evidence of A Neuropsychological Test

Several studies have shown that exposure to acute stress can affect many cognitive functions. In this study, the decision-making process affected by external stressors has been investigated.
The present study, from the perspective of methodology is placed in the category of experimental methods (pre-test/post-test with control and experimental groups). for this reason, among the students of department of psychology of Semnam University,a sample contained of 120 students,conveniently token and after screening, for matching the groups, 30 women and 30 men, randomly placed in gender groups of experiment and control. For assessing risky and rational decision making, Iowa Gambling Task, and for assessing state stress of participants, State–Trait Anxiety Inventory for Adults have been used.Data, analyzed with covariance analyze.
Results demonstrated that experimental groups in both women and men, after watching thriller movie tend to make more risky decisions
It seems that feeling acute stress can disturb decision making process and cause people to make risky decisions.Ttherefore, paying attention to the role of coping with stress becomes more significant.