Cognitive reflection and Acute Stress: an experimental study with metacognitive difficulty

Abstract

The purpose of this study was to know the effect of Acute Stress (EA) on Cognitive Reflection (CR) based on the modified cognitive reflection test (CRT-M). The gathered data were compared between experimental and control groups through an ANOVA and between sexes by a t-test, comparing in all cases intuitive, reflexive-correct and reflexive-incorrect answers. Results indicated that the control group stood out with respect to the experimental groups, in which there was an improvement in the CR before the effect of sensory and psychosocial stress, and differences were found between men and women in terms of CR. However, there were no significant differences among the experimental groups. A possible explanation for these results is that the effect of disfluency to which the CRT-M was exposed to may have intervened. Consequently, future research should study this effect more deeply.