title: Exogenous cortisol causes a shift from deliberative to intuitive thinking.
abstract: People often rely on intuitive judgments at the expense of deliberate reasoning, but what determines the dominance of intuition over deliberation is not well understood. Here, we employed a psychopharmacological approach to unravel the role of two major endocrine stress mediators, cortisol and noradrenaline, in cognitive reasoning. Healthy participants received placebo, cortisol (hydrocortisone) and/or yohimbine, a drug that increases noradrenergic stimulation, before performing the cognitive reflection test (CRT). We found that cortisol impaired performance in the CRT by biasing responses toward intuitive, but incorrect answers. Elevated stimulation of the noradrenergic system, however, had no effect. We interpret our results in the context of the dual systems theory of judgment and decision making. We propose that cortisol causes a shift from deliberate, reflective cognition toward automatic, reflexive information processing.
authors.affiliation: Comparative Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany. Electronic address: Zsofia.Margittai@hhu.de.
authors.forename: Zsofia
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Margittai
authors.affiliation: Computation & Neural Systems, Caltech 228-77, Pasadena 91125, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Gideon
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Nave
authors.affiliation: Comparative Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany; Chair of Marketing, Heinrich Heine University, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Tina
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Strombach
authors.affiliation: Comparative Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Marijn
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van Wingerden
authors.affiliation: Department of Cognitive Psychology, Institute for Psychology, University of Hamburg, 20146 Hamburg, Germany.
authors.forename: Lars
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Schwabe
authors.affiliation: Comparative Psychology, Heinrich Heine University, 40225 Düsseldorf, Germany.
authors.forename: Tobias
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Kalenscher
mesh_terms: D058669:Adrenergic alpha-2 Receptor Antagonists / Q000494:pharmacology; D001794:Blood Pressure / Q000187:drug effects; D004311:Double-Blind Method; D006801:Humans; D006854:Hydrocortisone / Q000008:administration & dosage / Q000494:pharmacology*; D019545:Intuition / Q000187:drug effects*; D008297:Male; D012463:Saliva / Q000378:metabolism; D013315:Stress, Psychological / Q000175:diagnosis / Q000378:metabolism; D013850:Thinking / Q000187:drug effects*; D015016:Yohimbine / Q000494:pharmacology; D055815:Young Adult; D000516:alpha-Amylases / Q000378:metabolism
chemical_list: D058669:Adrenergic alpha-2 Receptor Antagonists; D015016:Yohimbine; D000516:alpha-Amylases; D006854:Hydrocortisone
keywords: CRT; Cognitive reflection; Cortisol; Decision biases; Deliberate; Intuitive; Stress