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Decision‐making styles and physiological correlates of negative stress: Is there a relation?
Author(s) -
THUNHOLM PETER
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
scandinavian journal of psychology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.743
H-Index - 72
eISSN - 1467-9450
pISSN - 0036-5564
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9450.2008.00640.x
Subject(s) - psychology , cognitive style , style (visual arts) , social psychology , stress (linguistics) , relation (database) , developmental psychology , cognition , psychiatry , linguistics , philosophy , archaeology , database , computer science , history
There are 5 independent, although not mutually exclusive, styles used by military officers when making decisions: rational, intuitive, dependent, avoidant, and spontaneous (Scott & Bruce, 1995). The rational and intuitive styles are part of the cognitive style concept, whereas the conceptual foundation of the remaining 3 styles is less clear. The dependent and the avoidant styles were expected to be accompanied by increased levels of negative stress, while this was not expected of the remaining 3 styles. This hypothesis was put to test. Twenty‐three male Swedish Army majors were asked to make decisions in 2 different military situations. Their decision styles were measured by the General Decision Making Style inventory (GDMS; Scott & Bruce, 1995). Saliva cortisol release indicated negative stress and was measured on 4 occasions: twice before, after the first decision, and after the second decision. The avoidant style was related to negative stress, as predicted. There was, however, no difference between the base‐line measurements and the after‐decision measurements, suggesting that officers with an avoidant decision style may, in general, have higher levels of cortisol secretion (i.e., being more of the worrying kind).