Emotional States and Decision Making

Headed by Susan G. Millstein, PhD.

Young people’s decisions to engage in risky behaviors are often made in situations that involve physiological arousal and stress. Little is known, however, about how these states influence adolescent cognition since most studies examine decision making under relatively stress-free conditions. The broad, long-term objective of my research program in this arena is to explore how emotional states influence cognitive processes in normal and psychiatric populations, with a particular emphasis on identifying developmental variation in these processes. The aim of the current study is to examine the effects of social-evaluative stress on higher-level cognitive functioning in healthy adolescents.

Stress systems relevant to cognition include the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal (HPA) axis and the sympathetic-adrenal-medulla (SAM) axis. I am examining the effects of activation of these stress systems on cognition functioning, including decision making, in adolescents and young adults. Research questions being addressed include: 1) How does acute stress and corresponding HPA and SAM activity affect cognitive function? 2) Do the effects of HPA and SAM activation on cognition, judgment and decision making differ for adolescents and young adults?

A randomized design is used to examine the effects of experimentally induced stress on adolescents’ cognitive functioning. Subjects in the experimental condition (stressful task) are exposed to a social-evaluative situation designed to induce a moderately stressful state. Control subjects perform tasks requiring similar levels of metabolic and cognitive activity but without exposure to the social-evaluative stressor (neutral task). Cognitive functioning is assessed in both groups immediately following the stress induction/neutral task; the assessments will tap a range of component skills and functions relevant to decision making, as well as decision making itself. SAM activation is assessed by impedence cardiography and electrocardiography continuously throughout the experiments; salivary cortisol levels sampled before, during and following the stress induction measure HPA activation. Participants include healthy, post-pubertal, male adolescents (ages 16-20). Data collection is currently underway.

The results of the research are expected to have important implications of interest to researchers, practitioners, program developers and policy makers across diverse areas including behavioral sciences, medicine, social work, law, and social policy. There is much current debate, for example, concerning the legal rights of adolescents to make decisions in the realms of medical and mental health treatment, including their rights to refuse treatment or to obtain treatment without parental knowledge and/or consent. Understanding how emotion, so endemic to real-life situations, influences higher cognitive functions including decision making, will provide a more accurate picture of adolescents’ competence than current research allows.