ArticleScientific reports2017
Cortisol responses enhance negative valence perception for ambiguous facial expressions.
Article in Scientific reports, 2017. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 33 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
33 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The role of trait reappraisal in response to emotional ambiguity: A systematic review and meta-analysis.Emotion (Washington, D.C.) · 2024Pooled it
- App-Based Mindfulness for Attenuation of Subjective and Physiological Stress Reactivity in a Population With Elevated Stress: Randomized Controlled Trial.JMIR mHealth and uHealth · 2023Trial
- Acute stress improves long-term reward maximization in decision-making under uncertainty.Brain and cognition · 2019Trial
- Trial
- Preliminary evidence of kinematic overlap in posed, but not spontaneous, facial expressions of fear and surprise.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Facing ambiguity: What we do in the space between stimulus and response.Current directions in psychological science · 2026Article
- Mechanistic Underpinnings of Emotional Face Processing in Suicide Risk: Exploring the Moderating Effects of Cortisol on Neural Parameters Using Magnetoencephalography.Psychiatric research and clinical practice · 2026Article
- Valence bias arises from both positive and negative responses to ambiguous stimuli.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Intergenerational Transmission of Valence Bias Is Moderated by Attachment.Developmental science · 2025Article
- Chronic Stress May Amplify Gender/Sex Differences in Amygdala Reactivity to Ambiguous Emotional Stimuli.Stress and health : journal of the International Society for the Investigation of Stress · 2025Article
- Proposing a model whereby negative valence bias increases the risk for more severe dysphoric posttraumatic stress disorder and depression symptomology.Emotion (Washington, D.C.) · 2024Article
- In the face of ambiguity: intrinsic brain organization in development predicts one's bias toward positivity or negativity.Cerebral cortex (New York, N.Y. : 1991) · 2024Article
- Emotional, physiological, biochemical, and behavioral responses to acute stress and uncertainty in military personnel.PloS one · 2024Article
- Resting-state functional network segregation of the default mode network predicts valence bias across the lifespan.Imaging neuroscience (Cambridge, Mass.) · 2024Article
- Specialized late cingulo-opercular network activation elucidates the mechanisms underlying decisions about ambiguity.NeuroImage · 2023Article
- Influence of chronic stress on network states governing valence processing: Potential relevance to the risk for psychiatric illnesses.Journal of neuroendocrinology · 2023Review
- Think again: the role of reappraisal in reducing negative valence bias.Cognition & emotion · 2023Article
- Tendency to Share Positive Emotions Buffers Loneliness-Related Negativity in the Context of Shared Adversity.Journal of research in personality · 2023Article
- Implicit Negativity Bias Leads to Greater Loss Aversion and Learning during Decision-Making.International journal of environmental research and public health · 2022Article
- Cumulative lifetime stressor exposure assessed by the STRAIN predicts economic ambiguity aversion.Nature communications · 2022Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Stress exposure elicits a prolonged neuroendocrine response, marked by cortisol release, which can influence important forms of affective decision-making. Identifying how stress reactivity shapes subjective biases in decisions about emotional ambiguity (i.e., valence bias) provides insight into the role stress plays in basic affective processing for healthy and clinical populations alike. Here, we sought to examine how stress reactivity affects valence decisions about emotional ambiguity. Given that stress prioritizes automatic emotional processing which, in the context of valence bias, is associated with increased negativity, we tested how individual differences in acute stress responses influence valence bias and how this decision process evolves over time. Participants provided baseline ratings of clear (happy, angry) and ambiguous (surprised) facial expressions, then re-rated similar stimuli after undergoing an acute stress or control manipulation a week later; salivary cortisol was measured throughout to assay stress reactivity. Elevations in cortisol were associated with more negative ratings of surprised faces, and with more direct response trajectories toward negative ratings (i.e., less response competition). These effects were selectively driven by the stress group, evidencing that increased stress reactivity is associated with a stronger negativity bias during ambiguous affective decision-making.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.