Good decision-making is associated with an adaptive cardiovascular response to social competitive stress

Abstract

Competition elicits different psychological and cardiovascular responses depending on a person's skills. Decision-making has been considered a distal factor that influences competition, but there are no studies analyzing this relationship. Our objective was to analyze whether decision-making affects the response to competition. Specifically, we aimed to test whether good performers on a decision-making test, the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), showed an adaptive cardiovascular response to competition. In all, 116 participants (44 women) performed the IGT and were classified into Good or Poor decision-makers. Subsequently, they were exposed to a stress task in two different conditions: a face-to-face competition (winners/losers) or a control condition, while an electrocardiogram was recorded. In the competition group, good decision-makers increased their high-frequency respect to the total heart rate variability (HF/HRV) levels during the task, compared to Poor decision-makers. Again, competition group good decision-makers, showed lower LF and higher HF/HRV reactivity than the control group, which represents lower HRV stress pattern. Moreover, in the group of losers, good decision-makers had a decline in low frequency (LF) during the task and faster recovery than poor decision-makers. In conclusion, good decision-makers have a more adaptive stress response and higher levels of mental effort, based on total HRV interpretation. Decision-making skills could be a factor in a more adaptive cardiovascular response to competition.

Positive emotion induction improves cardiovascular coping with a cognitive task

“…This could have implications in clinical practice, where it might be useful to provide strategies to deal with problems in a healthy way and not only focus on achieving a certain result, which may depend on multiple contextual factors that are beyond the control of the patient and therapist. Thus, in line with our second hypothesis, and independently of the result obtained in ToH, it seems that experiencing a positive emotion promoted a better response to difficulties, presenting an adaptive cardiovascular activity that is not only related to better cognitive performance (Grossmann, Sahdra & Ciarrochi, 2016), but also to better coping with stress and threatening situations (Alacreu-Crespo et al, 2018); (Thayer, Julian & Lane, 2009) and better overall health (McCraty & Shaffer, 2015;Thayer, Julian & Lane, 2009). In fact, the opposite, i.e., a low level of HRV, is associated with inadequate response to stress or even chronic stress (McCraty & Shaffer, 2015;Park & Thayer, 2014); with psychopathological disorders such as major depression, generalized anxiety, panic or schizophrenia (Park & Thayer, 2014); with health problems such as hypertension, diabetes, obesity, arthritis and some types of cancer (Park & Thayer, 2014;Thayer & Friedman, 2004;Thayer, Julian & Lane, 2009); and increased risk of heart attack and death (Grossmann, Sahdra & Ciarrochi, 2016).…”

Decision making and heart rate variability: A systematic review

“…All the studies were cross‐sectional, except Serra et al (2019) that assessed participants in two separate sessions 15 days apart. Most of the selected studies (Brunborg et al, 2010; Dulleck et al, 2011; Sütterlin et al, 2011a; Sütterlin et al, 2011b; Dunn et al, 2012; Fooken & Schaffner, 2016; Park et al, 2016, Alacreu‐Crespo et al, 2018; Steenbergen et al, 2020; Forte, Favieri, et al, 2021; Forte, Morelli, & Casagrande, 2021; Drucaroff et al, 2011) controlled confounding variables (age, gender, years of education, neurological, psychiatric and cardiovascular diseases, gastrointestinal diseases, pregnancy, IQ, global cognitive functioning, drug and alcohol use, gambling disorder, medication affecting the central nervous or cardiovascular system, hours of physical exercise per week, smoking, caffeine, social desirability, blood pressure, and body mass index).…”

“…All studies performed HRV measurement by continuous ECG recording of a minimum of 5 min, according to the European and North American cardiology societies (Malik, 1996), except for Laborde and Raab's study (2013) that reported 3‐min recordings. Seven studies (Drucaroff et al, 2011; Sütterlin et al, 2011a, 2011b; Dunn et al, 2012; Ramírez et al, 2015; Park et al, 2016; Steenbergen et al, 2020) evaluated resting HRV, four studies (Dulleck et al, 2011; Fooken & Schaffner, 2016; Fung et al, 2017; Serra et al, 2019) evaluated only reactivity HRV (i.e., during the task), three studies (Alacreu‐Crespo et al, 2018; Brunborg et al, 2010; Forte, Favieri, et al, 2021; Forte, Morelli, & Casagrande, 2021) evaluated resting, reactivity and recovery HRV. Finally, the study of Laborde and Raab (2013) evaluated resting and reactivity HRV recordings.…”

“…Alacreu‐Crespo et al (2018) split the participants according to their decision‐making performance (i.e., good and bad decision‐makers) in IGT and a competitive task (i.e., winner and loser). The competitive task was “the letters squares” task that measures perceptual and attentive components.…”

Heart rate variability: Can it serve as a marker of mental health resilience?

“…Of the eight studies, three (Abad-Tortosa et al, 2017;A. Alacreu-Crespo et al, 2018;Maier and Hare, 2017) evaluated associations between HRV patterns and the ability to cope with stressful tasks that involved neuropsychological function, particularly attention/perception and decision-making.…”