Explored the effect of repeating a laboratory stressor and a real-life stress exposure on the correlation of the reactivity to both types of stressors. 49 male university students’ HRs were monitored during exposure to the same stressful lab task 3 times, with 1-wk intervals. Ss’ HRs were also monitored during 2 examinations. Despite the repeated exposures, the relationship between the average response to the repeated lab task and to the exams remained small and insignificant. The moderate association between reactivity to lab tasks and to real-life stress is not primarily a problem of reliability, but rather of the difference in the nature of the 2 stress situations. The difference in time scale may frustrate a real-life to lab comparison, and different physiological mechanisms may be operating during short and prolonged exposure to stress. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2016 APA, all rights reserved)

Background: Decision-making and reinforcement sensitivity were investigated in 23 children with ADHD and 20 healthy controls using a gambling paradigm. Methods: Children were required to choose between three alternatives that carried (A) small rewards and small penalties (advantageous), (B) large rewards and increasing penalties and (C) small rewards and increasing penalties (both disadvantageous). Penalties increased either in frequency or magnitude in two independent conditions. Heart rate (HR) and skin conductance (SC) were measured to examine whether impaired decision-making was accompanied by autonomic abnormalities. Results: Children with ADHD showed a maladaptive response style compared to controls by demonstrating a smaller preference for the advantageous alternative, when penalties increased in magnitude. When penalties increased in frequency, children with ADHD performed like controls. Group differences in decision-making attenuated after the task was administered twice. Compared to controls, performance of children with ADHD in the magnitude condition was accompanied by increased HR acceleration following reward. In this condition, the post-selection SC of children with ADHD was larger for advantageous than for disadvantageous alternatives, in contrast to controls who showed an opposite SC pattern. Conclusions: The current findings suggest that during decision-making, children with ADHD may be sensitive to the frequency but blind to the magnitude of penalty.

Background
When making decisions, children with oppositional defiant disorder (ODD) are thought to focus on reward and ignore penalty. This is suggested to be associated with a state of low psychophysiological arousal.
Methods
This study investigates decision making in 18 children with oppositional defiant disorder and 24 typically developing control subjects. Children were required to choose between three alternatives that carried either frequent small rewards and occasional small penalties (advantageous), frequent large rewards and increasing penalties (seductive), or frequent small rewards and increasing penalties (disadvantageous). Penalties in the seductive and disadvantageous alternatives increased either in frequency or magnitude in two conditions. Heart rate (HR) and skin conductance responses to reinforcement were obtained.
Results
In the magnitude condition, children with ODD showed an increased preference for the seductive alternative (carrying large rewards); this was not observed in the frequency condition. Children with ODD, compared with typically developing children, displayed greater HR reactivity to reward (more HR deceleration) and smaller HR reactivity to penalty. Correlation analyses showed that decreased HR responses to penalty were related to an increased preference for large rewards. No group differences were observed in skin conductance responses to reward or penalty.
Conclusions
The findings suggest that an increased preference for large rewards in children with ODD is related to a reduced cardiac reactivity to aversive stimuli. This confirms notions of impaired decision making and altered reinforcement sensitivity in children with ODD and adds to the literature linking altered autonomic control to antisocial behavior.