Sleep and decision-making

Recent data indicates that roughly 1/3 of adults suffer from insufficient sleep. Poor sleep, in general, impacts not only physical but also behavioral health via the type of thought process used during decision making. This chapter surveys the research on sleep and decision making with a focus on decision paradigms that use rigorous and incentivized methods common to the field of experimental economics. After conceptualizing the brain’s decision problem using production theory, the variety of different methodologies used to study sleepiness are discussed (e.g., sleep deprivation/restriction, circadian timing, observational studies). I then review the research on adverse sleep states and high-level decision making, which covers both individual and social/interactive decisions. The surveyed research highlights how the relative use of deliberative versus automatic thought processes is affected by sleep and how this translates to important decision outcomes. Poor sleep is commonplace, and so continued research in this area seems worthwhile.