Natural Disaster Trauma Disrupts Brain’s Decision Circuits

Summary: Survivors of the 2018 Camp Fire in California exhibit long-term cognitive changes, particularly in decision-making. Participants directly exposed to the wildfire showed reduced ability to choose long-term rewards and…

Brain Scans Reveal Political Leanings During Grocery Shopping

Summary: Researchers have discovered that people’s political affiliation can be identified with nearly 80% accuracy based on brain activity while making routine decisions like buying milk and eggs. Although actual…

Anxiety and Apathy Affect Decision-Making in Opposite Ways

Summary: A new study reveals that anxiety and apathy lead to fundamentally different patterns in decision-making under uncertainty. Anxious individuals perceive their environment as highly volatile, leading them to explore…

How We Make Life’s Toughest Choices

Summary: A new study presents a novel framework for understanding transformative life decisions, focusing on their complexity and emotional impact. Researchers identified five key dimensions—conflicting cues, change of self, uncertain…

Emotional News Alters Men’s Financial Choices

Summary: New research reveals that men are more likely than women to let emotions from unrelated situations affect their financial decisions. After watching emotional news stories, men opted for safer…

Older Adults Are Risk-Takers Who Learn and Adapt Quickly

Summary: New research challenges stereotypes about older adults, revealing that they are more willing to take risks than younger individuals and are equally adept at resisting manipulation. Using gambling tasks,…

How Memories Shape Decisions and Future Well-Being

Summary: A new framework integrates psychology and economics to show how memorable experiences influence long-term decision-making. Their model separates the immediate utility of consumption from the lasting “remembered utility” derived…

How Decision-Making Improves with Age

Summary: Adolescents are known for making less optimal, noisy decisions, but a recent study reveals that these tendencies decrease with age and are linked to improvements in complex decision-making skills.…

Brain Struggle with Conflicting Information in Schizophrenia

Summary: Researchers have developed a potential diagnostic tool for schizophrenia by observing how patients process conflicting information. By analyzing neural activity between the cortex and thalamus, they found distinct patterns…

How Social Learning Guides Decisions When Preferences Differ

Summary: A new study shows that humans use social information to guide their decisions, even when others’ preferences differ from their own. Researchers found that people treat social cues as…