Decision making under stress: the role of information overload, time pressure, complexity, and uncertainty

Abstract

Studies of human decision making demonstrate that stress exacerbates risk-taking and impacts decision quality. Since most managerial decisions involve some element of stress, decision aids such as decision support systems (DSS) have been proposed to mitigate its effects. However, existing research has largely attended to two key stressors, time pressure and information overload. In this research, we propose that for a holistic understanding of decision making under stress (DMUS) and to improve decision support, a more inclusive set of stressors and psychological experiences underlying stressful decisions must be examined. This article focuses on one class of stressors (of two identified) that we call ‘Decision Stressors’ and define as specific to the decision problem at hand, temporal, and moderated by individual differences. Based on a comprehensive literature review of foundational literature, we identify four Decision Stressors that affect decision quality: information overload, time pressure, complexity and uncertainty.