Acute Psychosocial Stress Increases Cognitive-Effort Avoidance

Adverse effects following acute stress are traditionally thought to reflect functional impairments of central executive-dependent cognitive-control processes. However, recent evidence demonstrates that cognitive-control application is perceived as effortful and aversive, indicating that stress-relat...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Psychological science 2021-09, Vol.32 (9), p.1463-1475
Main Authors: Bogdanov, Mario, Nitschke, Jonas P., LoParco, Sophia, Bartz, Jennifer A., Otto, A. Ross
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Aversive
Bayes Theorem
Bayesian analysis
Cognition
Cognitive ability
Cognitive-behavioral factors
Executive control
Executive function
Female
Humans
Male
Motivation
Perceived control
Psychosocial factors
Robustness
Side effects
Stress
Stress, Psychological
Variants
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Summary:Adverse effects following acute stress are traditionally thought to reflect functional impairments of central executive-dependent cognitive-control processes. However, recent evidence demonstrates that cognitive-control application is perceived as effortful and aversive, indicating that stress-related decrements in cognitive performance could denote decreased motivation to expend effort instead. To investigate this hypothesis, we tested 40 young, healthy individuals (20 female, 20 male) under both stress and control conditions in a 2-day study that had a within-subjects design. Cognitive-effort avoidance was assessed using the demand-selection task, in which participants chose between performing low-demand and high-demand variants of a task-switching paradigm. We found that acute stress indeed increased participants’ preference for less demanding behavior, whereas task-switching performance remained intact. Additional Bayesian and multiverse analyses confirmed the robustness of this effect. Our findings provide novel insights into how stressful experiences shape behavior by modulating our motivation to employ cognitive control.
ISSN:0956-7976
1467-9280
DOI:10.1177/09567976211005465