Compared with age-matched employees, university students report higher levels of chronic stress and this may affect their decision-making. The impact of chronic stress and physiological reactivity upon cognitive function is receiving more attention, but few studies have empirically assessed the associations of these variables concurrently. Our aim was to investigate if chronic student stress, as assessed by effort-reward imbalance (ERI) and overcommitment, and physiological reactivity, were related to decision-making. As measures of physiological reactivity, we collected salivary alpha-amylase (sAA) and continuously recorded heart rate variability (HRV) data from male students (n = 79) at pretest and immediately after some computerized decision-making tasks (simple and choice- reaction times). Our findings suggest that students who are higher in overcommitment and who are more physiologically reactive (sAA and HRV indices) at the pretest stage may be more "at-risk" of poor decision-making than others. If others can replicate our findings in more diverse samples, this will contribute to an evidence base for interventions targeted at reducing overcommitment, ERI, and dysregulated autonomic reactivity to improve decision-making.

中文翻译：

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评估大学压力和生理反应性与学生决策之间的关系。

与年龄相称的员工相比，大学生报告的慢性压力水平更高，这可能会影响他们的决策。慢性应激和生理反应性对认知功能的影响受到越来越多的关注，但是很少有研究从经验上同时评估这些变量的关联。我们的目的是调查通过努力奖励失衡（ERI）和过度投入以及生理反应性评估的慢性学生压力是否与决策相关。作为生理反应的量度，我们收集唾液中的α-淀粉酶（sAA），并在预测试时以及在一些计算机决策任务（简单和选择反应）之后立即连续记录男学生（n = 79）的心率变异性（HRV）数据次）。我们的研究结果表明，过度承诺的学生较高，并且在预测试阶段具有较高的生理反应性（sAA和HRV指数）的学生可能比其他人更有“风险”。如果其他人可以在更多不同的样本中复制我们的发现，则将为旨在减少过度承诺，​​ERI和自主反应失调以改善决策的干预措施提供证据。