Effect of emotions on risk taking, dishonesty and social cognition in college emerging adults

Abstract

The emotional experience can have different effects on the performance of college emerg-ing adults in risky, moral and empathic contexts decision making. The objective was to compare the performance in risk taking, dishonesty and theory of mind in college emerging adults under different dimensional and discrete emotional states. A sample of 153 students from 18 to 26 years old performed the Reading the Mind in the Eyes Test, the Dots Task and the Balloon Analogue Risk Task after being exposed to emotions-inducing film clips. The risky and moral decision making was worse under emotional states of sadness and fear, respectively. In addition, greater difficulties in emotional regulation were associated with a worse performance in theory of mind. These results imply an initial contribution to the knowledge of emotion-cognition interactions, relevant aspects for the application of inter-vention policies in the college student community.