Feeling Too Much or Too Little: Alexithymia Moderates How Self-Reported Physiological Hyperarousal Shapes Risky Decisions
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Background
Embodied cognition frameworks propose that physiological states shape decision-making, yet the contribution of sustained threat-related hyperarousal and individual differences in interoceptive integration remains poorly understood. This study examined whether self-reported physiological hyperarousal predicted Prospect Theory decision parameters: loss aversion (λ), value sensitivity (ρ), and choice consistency (τ); and whether alexithymia moderated these associations.
Methods
Sixty-eight healthy young adults ( M age = 18.94, SD = 1.46; 85% women) completed the DASS-21 anxiety subscale as a measure of hyperarousal, the TAS-20 as a measure of alexithymia, and a 64-trial Mixed Gambles Task; individual Prospect Theory parameters were estimated via hierarchical Bayesian analysis. Moderation analyses were conducted using Hayes’ PROCESS macro with Johnson-Neyman probing.
Results
Self-reported hyperarousal negatively predicted choice consistency and value sensitivity, but not loss aversion. Alexithymia moderated both effects through distinct conditional patterns: the self-reported hyperarousal–choice consistency association was significant only below a TAS-20 threshold of 51.05 (67.65% of the sample), reflecting monotonic buffering; the self-reported hyperarousal–value sensitivity association was significant within a bounded TAS-20 range (45.31–66.08), suggesting that intermediate alexithymia constitutes a zone of maximal vulnerability, though this model only reached trend significance and should be treated as exploratory. No effects emerged for loss aversion.
Conclusion
These findings indicate that sustained hyperarousal could selectively degrade evaluative precision and decision consistency, while leaving loss aversion intact. Alexithymia may operate as a stage-specific, conditional moderator of the body–decision relationship.
