Anxious people tend to make bad decisions amid uncertainties

A new research has revealed that anxious people are more likely to make bad decisions under uncertainties of life.

The research led by University Of California explained that people prone to high anxiety have a tougher time in making a decision as they struggle to pick up on clues as to whether they are in a stable or changing situation.

The researchers mentioned that brain's higher-order decision-making circuitry was responsible for the bad decisions that could eventually be targeted in the treatment of anxiety disorders.

Sonia Bishop, lead author said that their findings showed that anxiety could be linked to difficulty in using information about whether the situations they face daily, like relationship dynamics, are stable or not, and deciding how to react.

The team of researchers found that probabilistic decision-making requires using logic and probability to handle uncertain situations, drawing conclusions from past events to determine the best choice.

Bishop added that the ability to judge whether an unexpected bad outcome was a chance event or something likely to reoccur if the action that led to the outcome was repeated, was the important skill that's required in everyday decision-making.

The research observed that anxious people's choices indicated that they were worse at figuring out whether they were in a stable or erratic environment and using this to make the best choices possible.

The research is published in the journal Nature Neuroscience.