About half of U.S. adults say that the uncertainty of the pandemic has made planning for their future feel impossible, according to APA’s 2021 Stress in America survey, while nearly a third say their stress levels are so high that they sometimes struggle with even basic decisions, such as what to wear or what to eat. On top of pandemic-related stress, the vast majority of U.S. adults are reporting new stress related to the war in Ukraine, including worries about inflation and global uncertainty.
This stress around decision-making—both big and small—has been particularly tough for young adults, parents, and people of color.
“People have the same number of decisions to make, or more, with fewer resources,” compared with before the pandemic, said Effua Sosoo, PhD, a clinical psychology postdoctoral fellow at the Durham Veterans Affairs Health Care System in North Carolina who studies the effects of race-related stress on mood and physiological responses.
Diminished resources can come in the form of financial hardship: Survey respondents listed housing costs and the economy as two of their biggest stressors. For others, personal safety and discrimination were primary concerns. Many faced a seemingly endless stream of decisions about whether to gather with others—an activity known to boost mental well-being yet potentially harmful to physical health because of the risk of COVID-19 exposure. Meanwhile, nearly everyone has faced upended routines, shifting public health guidance, and an ongoing need for risk assessment, leaving many U.S. adults feeling overwhelmed when faced with making choices.
“Stress depletes some of the psychological resources, such as willpower, that we use for decision-making,” said social psychologist Roy F. Baumeister, PhD, of the University of Queensland in Australia. “When people have less energy to put towards decision-making, they start making decisions in different ways.”
Psychological research points to cognitive and emotional roots of the challenges people are facing, as well as some possible solutions.
How stress alters decision-making
Decision-making, willpower, and self-control draw on a finite pool of mental resources, which can be temporarily reduced because of stress or overuse, according to the psychological concept of ego depletion.
When faced with a decision, people who are stressed are more likely to postpone choices or stick with the status quo, less likely to plan ahead, and more likely to be distracted by irrelevant information. They’re also more likely to use lower-effort styles of decision-making (Vonasch, A. J., et al., Motivation Science Vol. 3, No. 4, 2017; Yu, R., Neurobiology of Stress, Vol. 3, 2016opens in new window).
“In their natural state, people make compromises very effectively,” Baumeister said. “But when resources are low, they stop compromising.”
Compromise involves weighing the costs and benefits of various options and finding a sweet spot—a task that is mentally taxing. In the lab, when people in an ego-depleted state are asked to choose from a series of items that vary in price and quality, they are more likely to pick the lowest-cost or highest-quality option rather than searching for a nexus of best value. In the real world, ego depletion may predict less thoughtful choices around spending, parenting, and more (Baumeister, R. F., & Vohs, K. D., Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, Vol. 54, 2016opens in new window).
Adults, particularly millennials and parents with children under 18, said even minor daily decisions have become overwhelming—a phenomenon Baumeister has dubbed “decision fatigue.” When we make a series of small choices, we tend to approach the later ones less carefully. In a series of studies, researchers who manipulated the order in which customers made choices about a customizable purchase—such as the attributes of a new car or tailored suit—found that people were more likely to accept the default option for later questions, even if that meant paying more (Levav, J., et al., Journal of Political Economy, Vol. 118, No. 2, 2010opens in new window).
The brain’s response to stress helps explain some of these cognitive changes. Research by Mauricio Delgado, PhD, a professor and chair of the Psychology Department at Rutgers University–Newark, and others have shown that stress tends to have an inhibitory effect on the prefrontal cortex, which helps with tasks like planning, evaluation, and emotion regulation—all crucial for clear decision-making.
“Stress tends to inhibit goal-directed thinking and gives way to more habitual or impulsive types of behaviors,” Delgado said.
The role of race-related stress
Amid a parallel pandemic of racial inequities, Hispanic, Black, and Asian American adults unsurprisingly reported more COVID-related stress than non-Hispanic White adults. Hispanic adults were most likely to say they struggled with the pandemic’s ups and downs and felt unable to manage the stress they were facing.
“Race-related stress is a cognitively taxing experience,” said Donte Bernard, PhD, an assistant professor of clinical psychology at the University of Missouri–Columbia. “It depletes cognitive resources, making adaptive decision-making more difficult.”
In addition to the cognitive costs of racism, race-related stressors—such as experiences of direct discrimination, vicarious discrimination, and microaggressions—can make it harder to regulate emotions (Salvatore, J., & Shelton, J. N., Psychological Science, Vol. 18, No. 9, 2007opens in new window; Mekawi, Y., et al., European Journal of Psychotraumatology, Vol. 11, No. 1, 2020opens in new window). On top of that, experiencing racism can lead to self-esteem issues, anxiety, depression, and even trauma on par with the effects of physical or sexual abuse, according to research by Bernard and others (Bernard, D. L., et al., Journal of Traumatic Stress, online first publication, 2021; Paradies, Y., et al., PLOS ONE, Vol. 10, No. 9, 2015opens in new window).
“It’s not difficult to imagine how these stressors can influence many of our life decisions,” Bernard said. “Who is it safe to be around? What areas do I want to avoid? Where do I want to send my kids to college? Where do I want to work?”
Such stressors can even hinder decision-making over the long term. Allostatic load, which refers to the cumulative burden of chronic stress, disproportionally affects people of color (Guidi, J., et al., Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics, Vol. 90, No. 1, 2021opens in new window). A 2020 meta-analysis found a small but significant link between allostatic load and executive function (D’Amico, D., et al., Psychoneuroendocrinology, Vol. 121, 2020).
“This chronic stress is not just impacting the decisions you’re making now but also the decisions you’re making later, because it can harm overall cognitive functioning,” Sosoo said.
On top of the effects of racism, people of color have faced inequities throughout the pandemic, including worse health outcomes if they contract COVID-19 and less protection and flexibility from their employers. The Stress in America survey found that Hispanic adults, in particular, were much more likely than non-Hispanic White adults to know someone who had died of COVID-19 (42% versus 25%).
But long-standing disparities in mental health care access also mean that relatively few Black, Hispanic, and Asian American adults will receive support from mental health professionals as they tackle these challenges (Racial/Ethnic Differences in Mental Health Service Use Among Adults and Adolescents [2015–2019] [PDF, 2.58MB]opens in new window), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 2019).
“We know that people who are White are more likely than people of color to utilize mental health services when they are in mental distress,” said HaeDong Shawn Kim, PhD, an assistant professor of family studies and community development at Towson University in Maryland.
Now, in a time of crisis, “you have one group who’s used to seeking those resources, so they know where to go and who to call—and one group who isn’t,” he said.
A burden for young adults and families
Compared with other generations, millennial and Generation Z adults reported the highest stress levels, the lowest ability to manage that stress, and the most difficulty with both day-to-day and major decisions.
“Young adulthood is a prime time for making decisions that will shape your future, both in terms of career and social relationships,” Delgado said. “That makes the uncertainty of this moment feel very stressful.”
Young adults were also more likely to report physical health impacts of stress, such as headaches, fatigue, and sleep changes, as well as behavior changes, including avoiding social situations or changing their exercise habits.
Parents also said they had more stress around both basic and major decisions than adults without children, perhaps because they often bear the responsibility for even more choices. That includes juggling different rules and vaccination policies for adults and children of different ages, as well as ongoing changes related to work, school, and extracurricular activities.
Compared with 2020, parents were also more likely to say that they are having a hard time with family responsibilities, relationships, and mental health, suggesting a cumulative burden as the pandemic drags on.
Resilience in the face of those challenges can vary greatly from one family to the next, depending on level of access to resources such as health care, social support, and financial stability (Rosino, M., in The Wiley Blackwell Encyclopedia of Family Studiesopens in new window, John Wiley & Sons, 2016).
“Just because two families experience the same stressor, it doesn’t mean that the degree of stress that they’ll experience is the same,” Kim said.
Making decisions more manageable
For those facing ongoing stress around decision-making, including parents, young adults, and people of color, psychological research points to some strategies that may help make choices feel more manageable.
Delgado and psychologist Megan Speer, PhD, of Columbia University, have found that when people experience positive emotions by reminiscing about past memories, their stress response decreases—cortisol levels lower and brain activity increases in areas responsible for emotion regulation and reward processing (Nature Human Behaviour, Vol. 1, 2017opens in new window). Those effects are particularly pronounced if the memories involve relational connectedness, highlighting the crucial role of social support in coping with stress.
“We know from the literature that emotional support and human connection are some of the best ways to cope with stress,” Delgado said.
Having a sense of control can also buffer feelings of stress and improve the quality of decision-making, according to research in Delgado’s lab led by psychologist Jamil Bhanji, PhD. Participants performing a task who felt that setbacks were controllable were more likely to persist in the face of stress than those who felt that setbacks were uncontrollable (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, Vol. 145, No. 3, 2016). Outside the lab, that could translate to tackling an overwhelming decision in smaller chunks, starting with the parts that feel most manageable.
Despite the persistent stress levels and their impacts on decision-making, most U.S. adults were optimistic about the future. Seventy percent of those surveyed said they were confident that things would work out once the pandemic ends.
In the meantime, Kim said, “making sure we connect some of the more vulnerable groups with basic resources, including mental health services and childcare, can increase their resilience to cope with stressors.”
