This study investigates how different kinds of stress affect the way animals learn associations (linking cues with outcomes) and make decisions, and how factors like timing, context, and type of learning influence whether stress has a harmful or helpful effect. They found that stress can both impair and enhance associative learning depending on how intense or persistent it is, where it happens, whether the learner is male or female, and the nature of the task. These findings highlight that stress’s impact on decision-making is not uniformly negative; instead, it’s nuanced, with outcomes shaped by multiple interacting factors.