Date of Award

5-2024

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts (MA)

College/School

College of Humanities and Social Sciences

Department/Program

Psychology

Thesis Sponsor/Dissertation Chair/Project Chair

Michael Bixter

Committee Member

Manuel Gonzalez

Committee Member

Akina Umemoto

Abstract

The purpose of the present study was to better understand the influence of state anxiety on decision making, including how constructs such as trait anxiety and emotional intelligence may moderate this relationship. Participants were randomly assigned to a state anxiety-inducing condition or a control condition. They were then prompted to complete a computerized dynamic decision-making task in which optimal performance requires exploring a novel decision environment and learning reward contingencies of the task. Prior to the experimental manipulation, participants also completed self-report measures of trait anxiety and emotional intelligence. Independent sample t tests were employed to measure differences between the experimental and control conditions in decision-making performance, and moderation analyses investigated the influence of trait anxiety and emotional intelligence on this relationship. Unexpectedly, results of this study revealed better decision-making performance among participants in the state-anxious condition (but only marginally significant), with no significant moderating effects of trait anxiety or emotional intelligence. These findings can be helpful in elucidating the impact of state anxiety on decision outcomes, highlighting both positive and negative contributions to decision making performance.

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