Seeking information when anxious may help reduce the aversive feeling of uncertainty and guide decision-making. If information is negative or confusing, however, this may increase anxiety further. Information gathered under anxiety can thus be beneficial and/or damaging. Here, we examine whether anxiety leads to a general increase in information-seeking, or rather to changes in the type of information and/or situations in which it is sought. In two controlled laboratory studies, we show that both trait anxiety and induced anxiety lead to a selective alteration in information-seeking. In particular, anxiety did not enhance the general tendency to seek information, nor did it alter the valence of the information gathered. Rather, anxiety amplified the tendency to seek information more in response to large changes in the environment. This was true even when the cause of the anxiety was not directly related to the information sought. As anxious individuals have been shown to have problems learning in changing environments, greater information-seeking in such environments may be an adaptive compensatory mechanism.

When faced with a threat, peoples’ estimate of risk guides their response. When danger is to the self as well as to others two estimates are generated: the risk to oneself and the risk to others. As these estimates likely differ, it is unclear how exactly they drive a response. To answer this question, we studied a large representative sample of Americans facing the COVID-19 pandemic at two time points (N1=1145, N2=683). We discover a paradoxical duality: a tendency to be optimistic about one’s own risk of infection (private optimism) while at the same time to be pessimistic about the risk to others (public pessimism). These two estimates were found to be differentially related to affect and choice. First, private optimism, but not public pessimism, was associated with people’s positive feelings. The association between private optimism and positive affect was mediated by people’s sense of agency over their future. However, negative affect was related to both private risk perception and public risk perception. Second, people predominantly engaged in protective behaviors based on their estimated risk to the population rather than to themselves. This suggests that people were predominantly engaging in protective behaviors for the benefit of others. The findings are important for understanding how people’s beliefs about their own future and that of others are related to protective behaviors and well-being.

The powerful allure of social media platforms has been attributed to the human need for social rewards. Here we demonstrate that the spread of misinformation on such platforms is facilitated by existing social ‘carrots’ (e.g., ‘likes’) and ‘sticks’ (e.g., ‘dislikes’) that are dissociated from the veracity of the information shared. Testing 951 participants over six experiments, we show that a slight change to the incentive structure of social media platforms, such that social rewards and punishments are contingent on information veracity, produces a considerable increase in the discernment of shared information and increases belief accuracy. Computational modeling revealed the underlying mechanism of this effect is associated with an increase in the weight participants assign to evidence consistent with discerning behavior. The results offer evidence for an intervention that could be adopted to reduce misinformation spread, which in turn could reduce violence, vaccine hesitancy and political polarization, without reducing engagement.

Critical decisions, such as in domains ranging from medicine to finance, are often made under threatening circumstances that elicit stress and anxiety. The negative effects of such reactions on learning and decision-making have been repeatedly underscored. In contrast, here we show that perceived threat alters the process by which evidence is accumulated in a way that may be adaptive. Participants ( n = 91) completed a sequential evidence sampling task in which they were incentivized to accurately judge whether they were in a desirable state, which was associated with greater rewards than losses, or an undesirable state, which was associated with greater losses than rewards. Before the task participants in the “threat group” experienced a social-threat manipulation. Results show that perceived threat led to a reduction in the strength of evidence required to reach an undesirable judgment. Computational modeling revealed this was because of an increase in the relative rate by which negative information was accumulated. The effect of the threat manipulation was global, as the alteration to evidence accumulation was observed for information which was not directly related to the cause of the threat. Requiring weaker evidence to reach undesirable conclusions in threatening environments may be adaptive as it can lead to increased precautionary action. SIGNIFICANCE STATEMENT To make good judgments, people gather information. As information is often unlimited, a decision has to be made as to when the data are sufficiently strong to reach a conclusion. Here, we show that this decision is significantly influenced by perceived threat. In particular, under threat, the rate of negative information accumulation increased, such that weaker evidence was required to reach an undesirable conclusion. Such modulation could be adaptive as it can result in enhanced cautious behavior in dangerous environments.