Poorer decision making among college students during the COVID-19 pandemic: Evidence for “pandemic-brain”

OBJECTIVE: Did living through the COVID-19 pandemic cause healthy college students to experience "pandemic-brain," a phenomenon characterized by difficulties with various cognitive abilities? Did students shift from deliberative to more impulsive decision making? PARTICIPANTS: We compared a pre-pandemic sample of 722 undergraduate students to 161 undergraduate students recruited in Fall 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic. METHOD: We compared scores on the Adult Decision Making Competence scale among participants who completed the task pre-pandemic or across two time points in Fall 2020, during the pandemic. RESULTS: Decision making was less consistent and more reliant on gain/loss framing during the pandemic compared to pre-pandemic, but college students were no less confident in their decisions. No significant changes in decision making occurred during the pandemic. CONCLUSIONS: These decision making changes could increase the risk of making an impulsive choice with negative health consequences affecting demands on student health centers and imperiling learning environments.