Trait behavioural tendency modulates risky decision making under chronic stress

Abstract

Chronic stress significantly threatens mental health and decision-making, biassing individuals toward immediate rewards over long-term benefits. This can lead to suboptimal outcomes in life decisions. Individual differences in traits and motivations could vary stress response, decision making, and resilience, such as those measured by the Behavioural Activation System (BAS) scales. However, the interplay of chronic stress and behavioural trait difference on risky decision making is unclear. This study aimed to examine how BAS-fun seeking moderates the relationship between perceived stress and risky decision-making behaviours. To investigate these dynamics, adolescent participants (N=70, 38 females) were recruited and completed the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS) to measure chronic perceived stress, the BIS/BAS scales to measure behavioural motivation tendencies particularly fun-seeking, and the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT) which assesses individuals’ risky decision making based on a history of learning about positive and negative action outcomes. To test the a priori hypothesis that the relationship between chronic stress and risky decision making is further dependent on individual differences in behavioural motivation particularly the fun-seeking tendency, we conducted a moderation analysis on these variables using the SPSS PROCESS Macro. This analysis indicated that BAS-fun seeking indeed significantly moderated the relationship between perceived chronic stress as indicated by PSS score, and risky decision making as measured by the IGT (β = 0.3948, t = 2.2220, p = 0.0298*). Specifically, while individuals with a high BAS fun-seeking tendency exhibited a positive relationship between chronic stress level and IGT performance score (p = 0.028*), those with low BAS fun-seeking tendency showed marginal negative relationship (p = 0.083). These findings underscore the importance of understanding how individual differences in reward-based motivation and positive emotion processing modulate the impact of chronic stress on decision-making in risky contexts. This study contributes to a nuanced understanding of how chronic stress impacts decision-making and coping mechanisms, emphasising the role of trait behavioural tendencies. The interaction between stress, individual differences in trait tendencies, and reward-driven motivation offers valuable insights for individual-tailored interventions aimed at reducing the adverse effects of chronic stress on decision-making. This research highlights the need for personalised strategies that consider individual differences in behavioural tendencies to enhance resilience and promote healthier decision-making under stress.