The Association Between the Stress Hormone Cortisol and Decision-making

Stress-induced Cortisol Clouds the Gut Feeling in Decision-making: A Randomized Controlled Study

The goal of this study is to learn how acute psychosocial stress influences decision-making in healthy young adults. It will also examine whether cortisol reactivity, a biological stress response, changes the influence of physiological emotional signals on decision-making (i.e., the gut feeling indicating risks).

The main questions it aims to answer are:

1. Does exposure to an acute psychosocial stressor affect the development of physiological emotional signals during decision-making?
2. Does cortisol reactivity moderate the relationship between physiological emotional signals and decision-making?
3. Are there sex differences in these relationships?

Researchers will compare participants exposed to a standardized psychosocial stress procedure, with participants exposed to a non-stressful control condition.

Participants will:

1. Be randomly assigned to either a psychosocial stress condition or a control condition.
2. Complete a gambling decision-making task following the experimental manipulation.
3. Provide multiple saliva samples and subjective stress ratings throughout the session to assess stress reactivity.
4. Undergo continuous electrodermal activity recording during the decision-making task to measure physiological emotional signals.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Healthy Young Adults
• Intervention / Treatment: Other: Trier Social Stress Test

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 116
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Quebec
    • Montreal, Quebec, Canada, H1N3M5
      • Centre de recherche de l'Institut universitaire en santé mentale de Montréal

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Adult aged 18-35 years old.

Exclusion Criteria:

• Current or past psychiatric/neurodevelopmental disorders
• Physical illness
• Medication use (except hormonal contraception)
• Alcohol consumption exceeding Health Canada guidelines (>10 drinks/week for women, >15 for men)
• Smoking more than 7 cigarettes/day.

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Stress condition; Participants completed a slightly modified version of the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST), a validated psychosocial stress induction protocol. The protocol involved a 10-minute anticipation period followed by a 10-minute test phase: a 5-minute mock job interview and a 5-minute surprise mental arithmetic task. During the test phase, participants stood in front of a one-way mirror ("Panel-out" version) and were told they were being observed by behavioral analysts and recorded via camera, although no recording took place and the analysts were lab confederates.	Other: Trier Social Stress Test; Participants completed a slightly modified version of the Trier Social Stress Task (TSST), a validated psychosocial stress induction protocol. The protocol involved a 10-minute anticipation period followed by a 10-minute test phase: a 5-minute mock job interview and a 5-minute surprise mental arithmetic task. During the test phase, participants stood in front of a one-way mirror ("Panel-out" version) and were told they were being observed by behavioral analysts and recorded via camera, although no recording took place and the analysts were lab confederates.
No Intervention: Control condition; In the control condition, participants read magazines for an equivalent period of time to the Stress condition.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Decision-making as assessed by the Iowa Gambling Task (probability of drawing from the risky decks vs safe decks)	Decision-making was assessed using the Iowa Gambling Task. In this task, participants need to draw 100 cards among 4 decks offering different win-loss contingencies. Some card decks are risky (large gains and losses), whereas some are safe (small gains and losses). The dependent variable was a binary variable indicating whether the participant drew a card from the risky (coded as 1) or the safe decks (coded as 0).	Immediately after completing the experimental condition (Stress or control condition)

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Difference in cortisol levels between the two conditions.	Cortisol (ug/dL) was quantified for six saliva samples in each condition (Stress or control).	Baseline (just before the experimental condition is conducted), 10, 20, 50, 60, 70 minutes after the beginning of the experimental condition.

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Marie-France Marin

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): September 13, 2021
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 7, 2024
• Study Completion (Actual): November 7, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 1, 2026
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 9, 2026
• First Posted (Actual): July 14, 2026

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): July 14, 2026
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 9, 2026
• Last Verified: July 1, 2026

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Stress; Decision-making
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Behavioral Disciplines and Activities; Psychological Tests
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2021-2508

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: YES
• IPD Plan Description: The anonymized dataset used for the present study will be shared on the public repository Open Science Framework.
• IPD Sharing Time Frame: Beginning at the publication of the results with no end date.
• IPD Sharing Access Criteria: The IPD and supporting information will be freely accessible to the public on the OSF project associated with the study.
• IPD Sharing Supporting Information Type: SAP; ANALYTIC_CODE

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No