Abstract
Stress can precipitate the onset of mood and anxiety disorders. This may occur, at least in part, via a modulatory effect of stress on decision-making. Some individuals are, however, more resilient to the effects of stress than others. The mechanisms underlying such vulnerability differences are nevertheless unknown. In this study we attempted to begin quantifying individual differences in vulnerability by exploring the effect of experimentally induced stress on decision-making. The threat of unpredictable shock was used to induce stress in healthy volunteers (N = 47) using a within-subjects, within-session design, and its impact on a financial decision-making task (the Iowa Gambling Task) was assessed alongside anxious and depressive symptomatology. As expected, participants learned to select advantageous decks and avoid disadvantageous decks. Importantly, we found that stress provoked a pattern of harm-avoidant behaviour (decreased selection of disadvantageous decks) in individuals with low levels of trait anxiety. By contrast, individuals with high trait anxiety demonstrated the opposite pattern: stress-induced risk-seeking (increased selection of disadvantageous decks). These contrasting influences of stress depending on mood and anxiety symptoms might provide insight into vulnerability to common mental illness. In particular, we speculate that those who adopt a more harm-avoidant strategy may be better able to regulate their exposure to further environmental stress, reducing their susceptibility to mood and anxiety disorders.
Highlights
It is well established that stress can precipitate mood and anxiety disorders (de Kloet, Joels & Holsboer, 2005)
Individual differences and manipulation check There was a strong correlation between depression and trait anxiety measures (r(47) = 0.74,p < 0.0001)
Subjects rated themselves as significantly more anxious (F(1,46) = 85.3, p < 0.0001, η2 = 0.65) during the threat condition than the safe condition. This was not influenced by trait anxiety (F(1,45) = 0.004, p = 0.95, η2 = 0.00009) or depression (F(1,45) = 0.42, p = 0.52, η2 = 0.009) and there was no impact of order (F(1,45) = 0.3, p = 0.6η2 = 0.007
Summary
It is well established that stress can precipitate mood and anxiety disorders (de Kloet, Joels & Holsboer, 2005). The neural and behavioural mechanisms underlying such individual differences in vulnerability remain poorly understood. One potential mechanism by which stress might contribute to mood disorder vulnerability is via its modulatory impacts on behaviour (Dias-Ferreira et al, 2009; Robinson et al, 2013). In this study we sought to explore how the impact of stress on behaviour might vary as a function of individual differences in mood and anxiety symptoms. How to cite this article Robinson et al (2015), The impact of stress on financial decision-making varies as a function of depression and anxiety symptoms.
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