Decision-making under Stress
压力下的决策

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 consequences of a decision.
一项最新研究综述表示，突如其来的压力会影响大脑思考优势劣势的方式，导致大脑专注于快乐而忽略了决策可能的负面影响。

The research suggests that stress may change the way people make choices in predictable ways.
研究表明，压力可能会改变人们以可预测的方式做出选择的方式。

“Stress affects how people learn,” says Professor Mara Mather. “People learn better about positive than negative outcomes under stress.”
“压力会影响人们学习，”马拉·马瑟教授说，“人在压力下对积极的结果比消极的结果学习得更好。”

For example, two recent studies looked at how people learned to connect images 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．
例如，最近的两项研究着眼于人们如何学会将图像与奖励或惩罚联系起来。在一个实验中，一些参与者首先通过在听众面前发表演讲和做数学难题感受压力；另一个实验中，一些参与者把手放在冰水里感受压力。在这两种情况下，与那些没有压力的人相比，有压力的参与者可以更准确地记住奖励材料，而忽略惩罚材料。

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．
对于那些在压力下试图抵制吃饼干或抽烟的人来说，这种现象可能并不奇怪——在那些时刻，只有与这些活动相关的快乐才会浮现在脑海中。但研究结果进一步表明，压力可能会带来双重效应。不仅获奖经历会被更好地记住，但负面后果也很容易回忆起来。

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.
研究还发现，压力似乎对男性和女性的决策产生不同的影响。尽管男性和女性都倾向于关注压力下的回报，而较少关注压力下的后果，但他们对风险的反应却不同。

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．
在实验中，受到冷水压力的男性倾向于承担更多的风险，而女性则相反。在有压力的情况下，冒险可以带来巨大的回报，男性可能会做得更好，但当谨慎更重要时，女性会赢。

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．
当做出有风险的决定时，这种放慢速度、变得更加谨慎的倾向也可能有助于解释为什么女性比男性更不容易上瘾：她们可能更经常地避免做出最终变得上瘾的有风险的选择。