Salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase levels during an assessment procedure correlate differently with risk-taking measures in male and female police recruits.

Ruud Van Den Bos,Joris C Verster,Lydia De Haan,Ruben Taris,Bianca Scheppink

doi:10.3389/fnbeh.2013.00219

Abstract

Recent laboratory studies have shown that men display more risk-taking behavior in decision-making tasks following stress, whilst women are more risk-aversive or become more task-focused. In addition, these studies have shown that sex differences are related to levels of the stress hormone cortisol (indicative of activation of the hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenocortical-axis): the higher the levels of cortisol the more risk-taking behavior is shown by men, whereas women generally display more risk-aversive or task-focused behavior following higher levels of cortisol. Here, we assessed whether such relationships hold outside the laboratory, correlating levels of cortisol obtained during a job-related assessment procedure with decision-making parameters in the Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT) in male and female police recruits. The CGT allows for discriminating different aspects of reward-based decision-making. In addition, we correlated levels of alpha-amylase [indicative of activation of the sympatho-adrenomedullary-axis (SAM)] and decision-making parameters. In line with earlier studies men and women only differed in risk-adjustment in the CGT. Salivary cortisol levels correlated positively and strongly with risk-taking measures in men, which was significantly different from the weak negative correlation in women. In contrast, and less strongly so, salivary alpha-amylase levels correlated positively with risk-taking in women, which was significantly different from the weak negative correlation with risk-taking in men. Collectively, these data support and extend data of earlier studies indicating that risky decision-making in men and women is differently affected by stress hormones. The data are briefly discussed in relation to the effects of stress on gambling.

Highlights

We have reviewed whether sex differences are present in the occurrence and development of disordered gambling (van den Bos et al, 2013a); an area of research still poorly studied
CAMBRIDGE GAMBLING TASK No differences were found between men and women for choosing the most likely option [Quality of decisionmaking (QDM): men vs. women: 0.96 ± 0.06 vs. 0.95 ± 0.06; Student t-test, NS], for risk-taking measures [Overall proportion bet (OPB): 0.53 ± 0.09 vs. 0.54 ± 0.11 (Student t-test, NS); LPB: 0.58 ± 0.10 vs. 0.58 ± 0.11 (Student t-test, NS)] and for impulsivity measures [Deliberation time (DT): 2019.6 ± 1132.8 ms vs. 1749.8 ± 565.2 ms (Student t-test, NS); Delay Aversion (DA): 0.14 ± 0.12 vs. 0.19 ± 0.16 (Student t-test, NS)]
SALIVARY CORTISOL AND ALPHA-AMYLASE Table 1A shows the levels of salivary cortisol and alpha-amylase before the Cambridge Gambling Task (CGT) at the different time-points across the day, www.frontiersin.org while Table 1B shows the levels of salivary cortisol and alphaamylase after the CGT at the different time-points across the day

Summary

Introduction

We have reviewed whether sex differences are present in the occurrence and development of disordered gambling (van den Bos et al, 2013a); an area of research still poorly studied (see van den Bos et al, 2013b). Studies encompassing both sexes have shown that men display more risk-taking behavior following stress, whilst women are more risk-aversive or become more taskfocused (Preston et al, 2007; Lighthall et al, 2009; van den Bos et al, 2009; Mather and Lighthall, 2012). It has been found that the higher the levels of cortisol [indicative of activation of the hypothalamic-pituitary-adrenal cortex (HPA) axis] the more risk-taking behavior men show (van den Bos et al, 2009), while in general women show more risk-aversive or task-focused behavior (Lighthall et al, 2009; van den Bos et al, 2009).

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