Browsing by Subject "eksekutiiviset toiminnot"

The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of the effects of stress on cognitive flexibility, based on selected recent research. Cognitive flexibility can be defined as the ability to flexibly take different points of view and avoid fixation on unsuitable solution attempts, and as such it is a very important part of human executive functioning. Such a descriptive definition is not sufficiently detailed to be used in research, and thus researchers have used a very wide palette of different operationalizations to measure cognitive flexibility, varying from very simple task switching paradigms to rather open-ended word association tasks. This variation in the choice of methods can be a significant source of variation in the results. Stress is believed to favor a shift from top-down cognitive control to bottom-up processing, favoring automatic and reflexive responses over deliberate and flexible judgment. Generally, the evidence points towards impaired cognitive flexibility under stress, but there is considerable variation in the results. There is also some evidence that the effect of stress varies by gender, so that stress has a bigger impact on cognitive flexibility on men than on women, and in certain task even an opposite effect. Stress creates a rapid physiological response through sympathetic nervous system activation, but also a slower hormonal response. Majority of the research on the mediating mechanisms focuses on the slow hormonal pathway, and the correlation between cortisol response and impairment of cognitive flexibility is strong. On the other hand, with certain tasks the impairment of cognitive flexibility can be observed before the onset of the hormonal response. The impact of stress can be attenuated by blocking the physiological mechanisms with pharmacological means, but also by psychological interventions by reducing the perceived uncontrollability of the situation, and by promoting solution focused approach. The connection between stress and cognitive flexibility is not a widely studied research subject. This is apparent in the variability of the operationalizations being used, and correspondingly also in the variability of the research results. This makes it difficult to combine the results and form an unambiguous overall view, as the research does not share a uniform foundation. The differences in operationalizations, possible gender effects, and the temporal variation of physiological responses all contribute to the challenges. Thus, these are important factors to be considered in future studies. Creative decision making under stress would be an interesting research topic, which could have also major practical implications.