Numerical cognitive reflection, but not verbal cognitive reflection, moderates the association between trait anxiety and affective decision-making

Affective decision-making is a decision process with significant and strong emotional consequences marked by meaningful rewards and losses. Previous studies found inconsistent results regarding whether trait anxiety hinders affective decision-making. Also, previous studies also proved that people with lower cognitive reflection were less likely to exhibit better performance in decision-making when compared with higher cognition reflection individuals. Using the risk-as-feeling hypothesis, which explicitly postulates an interaction between cognitive and affective processes in people's decision-making, we explore whether cognitive reflection moderates the relationship between trait anxiety and affective decision-making. Participants (N = 261) completed the standardized version of the Iowa Gambling Task, which is widely used to assess affective decision-making, Trait Anxiety Inventory, numerical cognitive reflection test (numerical CRT), and verbal cognitive reflection test (CRT-V). The results showed that cognitive reflection measured by the numerical CRT rather than the CRT-V moderated the relationship between trait anxiety and affective decision-making. Specifically, individuals with lower cognitive reflection exhibited a negative association between trait anxiety and affective decision-making, whereas individuals with higher cognitive reflection did not exhibit a relationship between trait anxiety and cognitive reflection. The present study helps to explain how cognitive reflection and trait anxiety interact in affective decision-making and provides guidance targeting individuals with higher trait anxiety to improve their numerical cognitive reflection ability and better address their affective decision-making.