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Decision-making under Stress
A new review based on a research shows that acute stress affects the way the brain considers the
advantages and disadvantages, causing it to focus on pleasure and ignore the possible negative (负面的)
consequences of a decision.
The research suggests that stress may change the way people make choices in predictable ways.
"Stress affects how people learn," says Professor Mara Mather. "People learn better about positive
than negative outcomes under stress."
For example, two recent studies looked at how people learned to connect images(影像) with either
rewards or punishments. In one experiment, some of the participants were first stressed by having to give
a speech and do difficult math problems in front of an audience; in the other, some were stressed by
having to keep their hands in ice water. In both cases, the stressed participants remembered the
rewarded material more accurately and the punished material less accurately than those who hadn't gone
through the stress.
This phenomenon is likely not surprising to anyone who has tried to resist eating cookies or smoking
a cigarette while under stress -at those moments, only the pleasure associated with such activities comes
to mind. But the findings further suggest that stress may bring about a double effect. Not only are
rewarding experiences remembered better, but negative consequences are also easily recalled.
The research also found that stress appears to affect decision-making differently in men and women.
While both men and women tend to focus on rewards and less on consequences under stress, their
responses to risk turn out to be different.
Men who had been stressed by the cold-water task tended to take more risks in the experiment
while women responded in the opposite way. In stressful situations in which risk-taking can pay off big,
men may tend to do better, when caution weighs more, however, women will win.
This tendency to slow down and become more cautious when decisions are risky might also help
explain why women are less likely to become addicted than men: they may more often avoid making the
risky choices that eventually harden into addiction.
1. We can learn from the passage that people under pressure tend to ______.
A. keep rewards better in their memory
B. recall consequences more effortlessly
C. make risky decisions more frequently
D. learn a subject more effectively
2. According to the research, stress affects people most probably in their ______.
A. ways of making choices
B. preference for pleasure
C. tolerance of punishments
D. responses to suggestions
3.The research has proved that in a stressful situation, ______.
A. women find it easier to fall into certain habits
B. men have a greater tendency to slow down
C. women focus more on outcomes
D. men are more likely to take risks
