The Effects of Incidental Arousal and Stress on Decisions under Uncertainty: A Computational Approach

Abstract

Across three studies, this dissertation explores the impact of stress and arousal at these time scales. Two studies investigated whether incidental, acute arousal and stress affect ambiguity aversion (Chapter 1) and whether incidental, synchronized arousal alters this relationship (Chapter 2). The final study used a counterfactual decision paradigm to test the effects of early life stress on decisions involving future anticipated regret (Chapter 3). Previous research has shown that arousal integral to the choice (FeldmanHall et al., 2016; Levy et al., 2010) and prior lifetime exposure to stress (incidental affect Raio et al., 2022) have been linked to ambiguity attitudes. However, it is not known whether incidental stress or arousal at, or near, the time of the decision can impact these attitudes. Chapter 1 used a lottery task, acute threats of shock (Experiment 1), and a psychosocial stressor (Experiment 2) to test whether incidental arousal or stress casually impacts uncertainty attitudes focusing on ambiguity attitudes. In these experiments, affect was manipulated prior to the choices. It is possible that the temporal gap between the affect manipulation and choice is sufficient for participants to discount its impact. If this is the case, an incidental affective response synchronized may have a bigger impact. To address this question, Chapter 2 explored whether incidental affect synchronized with choices would be unintentionally incorporated into a lottery’s utility function. Affective responses synchronized with the onset of a choice option may be more difficult to dissociate from affect integral to the choice. Chapter 2 modified the lottery task used in Chapter 1 to induce an incidental arousal response synchronized to the choice onset by using emotionally evocative (or neutral) images as the occluders on ambiguous lotteries. Lifetime stress has been shown to be predictive of ambiguous preferences later in life (Raio et al., 2022). It is suggested that more stressful events over the course of one’s life may lead to a cognitive bias that outcomes of ambiguous choices are more likely to result in the worst case scenario. Chapter 3 investigated whether a previous history of stress generalizes to other types of decisions in which integral affect has been shown to play a role. Counterfactual decisions are a type of choice in which participants must choose between two uncertain options. After the decision, they are presented with both the outcome for the chosen and nonchosen lotteries. Counterfactual choices have been shown to be driven by avoiding future feelings of regret (Coricelli et al., 2005; Camille et al., 2004). However, it is unclear whether incidental stressors over the course of one’s life can influence these types of choices. To address this question, we recruited a sample of adolescents half of whom have been previously exposed to maltreatment. A history of stressful events, such as childhood trauma, may exacerbate one’s preferences to avoid future feelings of regret. If this hypothesis is correct, we would expect adolescents exposed to early life stress to be more likely to avoid options that could lead to increased negative affect (i.e., regret).