Stress and Anxiety Effects on Valuation

Summary

The purpose of this study is to understand how stress, anxiety, and negative affect change learning and decision-making processes. The primary objective is to assess two forms of decision-making-reward adaptation and emotion prediction errors-differ as a function of stress and anxiety. The secondary objectives are to assess how individual differences measured in our studies relate to these decision variables.

Eligibility

Age range

18–65 years

Sex

All

Healthy volunteers

Yes

Interventions

• Behavioral
  Socially Evaluated Cold Pressor Task (SECPT)

  The SECPT is a validated laboratory stressor that combines physiological stress with social evaluative components; it is widely used to elicit acute stress responses in controlled settings. Participants are asked to submerge their nondominant hand into an ice-cold water (0-4°C) for 3 minutes, while videotaped and observed by one neutral-faced experimenter.

• Behavioral
  Non-Stressful Control Task

  Participants assigned to the warm water control condition will perform a non-evaluative task with warm water.

Location