Feeling Too Much or Too Little: Alexithymia Moderates How Self-Reported Physiological Hyperarousal Shapes Risky Decisions

In 68 healthy young adults, self-reported physiological hyperarousal (DASS-21 anxiety) predicts lower choice consistency and value sensitivity, with alexithymia shaping when these links appear.

• Why it matters: Embodied cognition suggests bodily states influence decisions, but how sustained threat-related hyperarousal and interoceptive differences jointly affect specific Prospect Theory parameters is unclear.
• What they did: Participants completed DASS-21 anxiety and TAS-20, then made 64 mixed-gambles choices; hierarchical Bayesian estimation fit Prospect Theory parameters, and PROCESS moderation with Johnson-Neyman probing tested alexithymia interactions.
• The result: Hyperarousal reduced choice consistency and value sensitivity but not loss aversion; choice consistency effects emerged only when TAS-20 was below 51.05 (67.65% of the sample), while value sensitivity effects appeared within 45.31–66.08 (trend-level, exploratory), implying conditional vulnerability and buffering.

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