So even though opting for a small reward when a bigger one is available is generally regarded as self-control failure, many people do it. But a new study reviewing three social experiments revealed that surprisingly, people can be better at taking decisions when they are hungry.

Studies 1 and 2 demonstrated that participants with more hunger or greater appetite made more advantageous choices in the Iowa Gambling Task compared to sated participants or participants with a smaller appetite. The Iowa gambling task or (IGT) is a psychological task thought to simulate real-life decision making. It was introduced by researchers at the University of Iowa. Participants are presented with 4 virtual decks of cards on a computer screen. They are told that each time they choose a card they will win some game money. Every so often, however, choosing a card causes them to lose some money. The goal of the game is to win as much money as possible.

In these studies, the Iowa Gambling Task took a slightly different form. 30 students (9 male, 21 female, average age 22) were instructed to refrain from eating and drinking (except water) from 11 pm in the evening prior to their session. Upon arriving at the lab the next morning, they were given a 200 ml yogurt to ensure minimum satiation, and were then asked to play the game. The second and third experiment replicated the first one, also working on eliminating possible sources of error or mislead.

The results were pretty clear – when participants were hungry (rated their hunger 5 out of 5), they tended to make better decisions.

“This series of studies set out to test the hypothesis that hot states may benefit, rather than compromise, advantageous decision making insofar it concerns complex decisions with uncertain outcomes. Based on the notion that intuition and emotions may improve this specific category of decisions, we argued that hot states, which are known to make people more reliant on their feelings, improve their decisions”.

Another intriguing result of the study was that people in a hot state do not only perceive those objects as bigger that are generally (money) or specifically (food when one is hungry) regarded as rewarding, but also the neutral object of a circle. It seems likely that hot state like hunger affects the perception of all kinds of objects and makes us better at seeing how we can use objects to achieve our goals. In the end, hunger may make us more impulsive, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing.

Source:  zmescience.com; blogs.discovermagazine.com; disclose.tv