Emotional process of decision making in university students

Abstract

Following what is marked by Bologna Plan, Spanish universities encourage the student to have greater autonomy for the acquisition of knowledge and its practical application and however, it does not analyze the neuropsychological processes of executive functions (EE.FF.), such as decision making (DM), which are necessary to direct said formative autonomy. The objective of this study is to analyze the DM process in a sample of students of University of Huelva, through the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT), which evaluates the emotional and motivational processes of DM. 101 students of Psychology and of Work Sciences participated with an average age of 21.44 years (SD = 2.879), 80% being women, without significant differences between groups in sex (X2 = .123, p = .725), age (t = .804, p = .423), or socioeconomic level (U = 1151,000, p = .335). The results showed a negative Gambling Index (GI), or risky decisions, being less disadvantageous in Psychology (GI = -.416) than in CC. Work (GI = -1.077). In the evolution of IGT learning this trend is also maintained, especially in penultimate block (partial GI: b4) when the objective of the task has already been understood, being the students of CC. Work are more resistant to abandon risk choices for short-medium term, instead of taking more advantageous long-term elections. We conclude that these results are compatible with what exists in literature referring to Hypothesis of Somatic Marker (HSM) of Damasio (1994-1996) and the maturation of the prefrontal cortex, especially involved in complex thinking and emotional processes of decision making, therefore, together with the promotion of student autonomy indicated by Bologna, universities should teach them about these processes.

Keywords

• iowa gambling task (igt)
• toma de decisiones (td)
• funciones ejecutivas (ff.ee.)
• estudiantes universitarios