The study found that in a healthy adult population, modifications in mood do not impact ones self-confidence in making decisions.
Research study in this field has the potential to improve our understanding of affective states disorder.
For the very first time, a study has actually assessed the connection between everyday variations in mood and associated factors (such as stress or sleep) and changes in metacognitive states (such as self-confidence or action energy). The findings showed that in healthy grownups, changes in mood do not affect their self-confidence in decision-making.
In the well-known book “Descartes Error” (2008 ), Portuguese neuroscientist António Damásio takes a look at the crucial role of feelings in human reasonable behavior and supports the longstanding connection between emotions and cognition. Regardless of emotions and state of mind changes being a natural part of human life, there are still minimal research studies on how these state of mind changes connect with metacognition and, specifically, with confidence in decision-making.
Considering this advanced, scientists María da Fonseca, Giovanni Maffei, Rubén Moreno-Bote, and Alexandre Hyafil from the University of Pompeu Fabra (Spain), Koa Health B.V. (Spain), Center de Recerca Matemàtica (Spain) and University of Buenos Aires (Argentina) started a longitudinal research study based on two online experiments to assess whether implicit confidence markers can be related to state of mind states in healthy adults.
In the short article, which was published in the journal Cognitive, Affective, & & Behavioral Neuroscience, the researchers explain that they used a sample of 50 participants, generally among students from University of Pompeu Fabra, to track topics state of minds and decision-making over a period of 10 successive days in daily life settings.
The results showed that there is no considerable connection between day-to-day variations of mood and session-confidence markers, that is, mood and associated variables, such as sleep quality, food pleasure, and stress level, are not regularly combined with implicit self-confidence markers. Mood-related states and confidence levels have actually been found to fluctuate at various time scales, with mood-related states showing quicker changes (over one day or half a day) than confidence levels (two-and-a-half days).
Rubén Moreno Bote, supported by the BIAL Foundation, finds it surprising to see that “spontaneous fluctuations in state of mind and self-confidence were not combined, as expected in the original hypothesis of this study, however evolved on various time scales”. For the scientist from the University of Pompeu Fabra, “findings in this area are crucial as they might add to a better understanding of affective states conditions.”
Recommendation: “Mood and implicit self-confidence independently vary at different time scales” by María da Fonseca, Giovanni Maffei, Rubén Moreno-Bote and Alexandre Hyafil, 26 October 2022, Cognitive Affective & & Behavioral Neuroscience.DOI: 10.3758/ s13415-022-01038-4.
The research study was moneyed by the BIAL Foundation.