Summary: New research suggests that psychological resilience may depend more on how the brain mathematically weighs costs against benefits than on an increased appetite for rewards. The study indicates resilient individuals do not necessarily value rewards more; instead, they tend to discount small losses — an “acceptance bias” that affects decision-making.
This acceptance bias appears to be supported by specific patterns of prefrontal cortex activity, which may help resilient people regulate their emotional responses to negative information and maintain more balanced choices under uncertainty.
Key Research Findings
- Valuation Bias in Decisions: In experiments that paired financial gains and losses with visual cues, some participants consistently assigned less weight to negative outcomes. That lower sensitivity to minor losses caused them to accept more mixed offers compared with peers who weighed losses more heavily.
- Not Increased Reward-Seeking: The resilient participants did not value rewards more strongly. Instead, their distinguishing trait was reduced valuation of negative information, not inflated valuation of positive outcomes.
- Neural Signatures: Individuals who down-weighted small losses showed stronger increases in prefrontal cortex activity when processing losses and relatively greater reductions in activity when receiving gains.
- Correlation with Resilience: These neural response patterns were directly associated with higher self-reported psychological resilience, suggesting a neural pathway linking valuation processes to resilient traits.
- Cognitive Control Role: The authors propose that the amplified prefrontal response to negative inputs supports better cognitive control, enabling these individuals to limit the emotional impact of losses on their decisions.
Source: SfN
When deciding whether to buy something or assessing new relationships, people can show systematic biases in how they weigh positive versus negative information.
In a paper published in the Journal of Neuroscience, Ulrike Basten and colleagues at RPTU University Kaiserslautern-Landau and the University of Amsterdam investigated whether individual differences in evaluating benefits and costs relate to psychological resilience.
The study tested 82 adults who viewed compound visual stimuli made from different colored shapes. Each color and shape was associated with a potential monetary gain or loss that translated into real financial outcomes at the experiment’s end. Facing identical visual options, some participants consistently placed less emphasis on small losses and therefore accepted more of the mixed offers.
Basten emphasizes this distinction: “These individuals do not assign more value to rewards; they place less value on negative consequences and are therefore more likely to accept offers that combine gains and losses. Their processing of negative information differs.”
Why does this pattern emerge? Functional MRI data showed that participants who devalued minor losses had stronger increases in prefrontal activation when confronted with losses and showed larger decreases in activation when receiving gains. In other words, their neural responses to negative information were more pronounced in brain areas linked to cognitive control.
Those neural differences statistically mediated the relationship between an acceptance-based decision bias and higher self-reported resilience. The pattern suggests that enhanced prefrontal engagement when encountering negative signals helps regulate emotional reactions to losses, allowing for more adaptive, resilient behavior.
Basten cautions that the study is correlational: “We cannot claim causality from these findings. A logical next step would be to experimentally manipulate the bias — for example, by reinforcing certain choices — to determine whether training a more positive decision bias can increase resilience.”
Key Questions Answered:
A: Not exactly. Optimism generally concerns expectations for future outcomes. This research points to a valuation-based difference: resilient people tend to down-weight the impact of potential negatives. It’s a dampening of the negative, rather than an exaggeration of the positive.
A: Researchers are exploring that possibility. One proposed approach is bias training, in which people are rewarded for certain choices to encourage a more positive decision bias. Future experimental work would be needed to see whether such training improves resilience.
A: The prefrontal cortex functions as an executive control center. Greater activation in response to negative signals suggests the brain is actively regulating emotional responses to losses, preventing those responses from unduly influencing choices.
Editorial Notes:
- This article was edited by a Neuroscience News editor.
- The original journal paper was reviewed in full.
- Additional context was provided by our editorial staff to clarify implications for resilience and decision-making.
About this neuroscience research news
Author: SfN Media
Source: SfN
Contact: SfN Media – SfN
Image: The image is credited to Neuroscience News
Original Research: Closed access.
“Positive Bias in Value-Based Decision-Making: Neurocognitive Associations with Resilience” by Rebecca A. Rammensee, Andrew Heathcote and Ulrike Basten. Journal of Neuroscience
DOI:10.1523/JNEUROSCI.1734-25.2026
Abstract
Positive Bias in Value-Based Decision-Making: Neurocognitive Associations with Resilience
Biased information processing contributes to mental health vulnerabilities. This study examines choice biases in value-based decision-making and investigates how those biases relate to psychological resilience through individual differences in cognitive and neural processing of reward and punishment.
Using a cost–benefit integration task, 82 participants (41 female, 41 male) evaluated gains and losses tied to features (color, shape) of compound visual stimuli.
A positive choice bias—favoring acceptance despite mixed outcomes—was linked to the trait of acceptance within self-reported resilience. Neuroimaging showed that participants with a more positive choice bias and higher trait acceptance exhibited stronger increases in activity to negative information (loss) across multiple prefrontal and parietal regions, and stronger decreases in response to positive information (gain) in the right inferior frontal junction.
Computational modeling indicated that a more positive decision bias corresponded with lower sensitivity to and valuation of negative relative to positive information. Interestingly, greater valuation of positive information was associated with stronger neural responses to negative signals in dACC and insula.
Finally, choice bias and trait acceptance related to functional connectivity among prefrontal regions, midbrain, striatum, and ventromedial prefrontal cortex.
Overall, enhanced activation of cognitive-control brain regions specifically when processing negative information suggests a regulatory mechanism that dampens the impact of negative signals, supporting a positive choice bias that may contribute to psychological resilience.