| Summary: | During pregnancy, a
variety of psychological and physical changes occur in women, which may have
different impacts on risk decision-making involving different processes
systems. Based on the dual-process theories of decision-making, using the
Columbia Card Task (CCT) as the experimental paradigm, which can trigger
deliberative versus affective decision-makings respectively, this study
recruited 240 pregnant women and non-pregnant women aged 20-40 as the
experimental group and control group respectively, investigated how pregnancy
impacted on women’s risk decision-making, as well as the possible roles played
by a series of psychological factors (impulsivity; sensation seeking; emotional
state) and physiological factors (gestational age; human Chorionic
Gonadotropin, hCG; progesterone) in the above process. The results were as
follows: (a) Compared with non-pregnant women, pregnant women tended to choose
fewer cards, indicating a higher risk aversion consistent with a more
conservative strategy, both in cold and hot CCTs; in both cold and hot CCTs,
compared with pregnant women in the second trimester of pregnancy, pregnant
women in the first and the third trimesters of pregnancy had a higher risk
aversion tendency. (b) Pregnant women had lower levels of all dimensions of
sensation seeking than did non-pregnant women, pregnant women in the third
trimester of pregnancy had lower levels of Disinhibition (DIS) and Boredom
Susceptibility (BS) of sensation seeking than pregnant women in the first and
the second trimesters of pregnancy, but there was no significant difference in
levels of emotional state or impulsivity between pregnant woman and
non-pregnant women. (c) DIS of sensation seeking played a fully mediating role
in the impact of pregnancy on hot CCT performance. (d) Both hCG and
progesterone levels were negatively correlated with pregnant women’s hot CCT
performances. (e) Positive emotion played a partial mediating role in the
effect of progesterone on hot CCT performance of pregnant women.
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