The role of emotions and physiological arousal in modulating impulsive behaviour

Abstract

Impulsivity received considerable attention in the context of drug misuse and certain neuropsychiatric conditions. Because of its great health and well-being importance, it is crucial to understand factors which modulate impulsive behaviour. As a growing body of literature indicates the role of emotional and physiological states in guiding our actions and decisions, we argue that current affective state and physiological arousal exert a significant influence on behavioural impulsivity. As 'impulsivity' is a heterogeneous concept, in this paper, we review key theories of the topic and summarise information about distinct impulsivity subtypes and their methods of assessment, pointing out to the differences between the various components of the construct. Moreover, we review existing literature on the relationship between emotional states, arousal and impulsive behaviour and suggest directions for future research.

Interoceptive accuracy predicts nonplanning trait impulsivity

“…Importantly, both impulsivity and interoception are multidimensional constructs (Caswell, Bond, Duka, & Morgan, ; Garfinkel, Seth, Barrett, Suzuki, & Critchley, ; Herman, Critchley, & Duka, ; Khalsa et al, ). Various measures of trait impulsivity exist with the Barratt Impulsivity Scale (BIS; Patton, Stanford, & Barratt, ) and UPPS‐P Impulsive Behavior Scale (Cyders et al, ; Whiteside & Lynam, ) among the most commonly used ones.…”

Risk-Taking and Impulsivity: The Role of Mood States and Interoception

“…It is, therefore, crucial to understand the factors that underlie impulsive behavior and its expression. Moreover, impulsivity is a multidimensional construct (Whiteside and Lynam, 2001; Caswell et al, 2015; Herman et al, 2018), so it is also vital to investigate what factors might differentially influence distinct impulsivity subtypes. Ultimately, improved understanding of modulators of impulsive behavior can enable us to develop better-coping strategies to help impulsive individuals and promote more advantageous decision-making in everyday life.…”

“…One likely modulator of impulsive behavior is affective state (for discussion see Herman et al, 2018). Indeed, people show diminished impulse control (i.e., behave more impulsively) when experiencing negative affect (NA) (Tice et al, 2001).…”

“…In addition, more recently, good interoceptive ability was found to be associated with more advantageous choices in the Iowa Gambling Task (Werner et al, 2009) and predicted profitable decisions in London financial traders (Kandasamy et al, 2016). Since disadvantageous decision-making is considered a part of impulsivity construct (Winstanley, 2011; Herman et al, 2018), this evidence could suggest that more impulsive individuals may lack interoceptive sensitivity. Alternatively, since highly impulsive individuals appear also to have lower resting levels of arousal compared to peers (Fowles, 2000; Mathias and Stanford, 2003; Puttonen et al, 2008; Schmidt et al, 2013), and engagement in impulsive or risky actions may be a maladaptive way of reaching an “optimal” level of arousal (Zuckerman, 1969; Barratt, 1985; Eysenck and Eysenck, 1985), impulsive individuals may have normal interoceptive sensitivity to changes in their internal state, yet engage in impulsive actions as a means of regulating their arousal level.…”

“…Since impulsivity is a term which encompasses a wide range of behaviors (Herman et al, 2018), we hypothesized that distinct behavioral dimensions would be predicted by distinct factors. First, as interoception is linked to risk-taking and advantageous decision-making (Werner et al, 2009; Kandasamy et al, 2016), we predicted that individual differences in interoceptive sensibility would predict risk-taking.…”