Maybe Donald Trump acts childish because no one tells him he needs to go to bed.

Trump, the presumptive Republican presidential nominee, brags about how little sleep he gets.

Paul Whitney
Paul Whitney

“Lack of sleep often affects mood in substantial ways,” Paul Whitney, professor of psychology at WSU, told HuffPost. “There is evidence that lack of sleep decreases the ability to regulate emotion, so sleep-deprived individuals may experience greater emotional reactivity and impulsivity.”

Whitney, who with colleagues has conducted research on the effects of sleep deprivation, explained that lack of sleep profoundly affects tasks that require quick decisions based on feedback from previous tasks.

This cognitive flexibility, as Whitney described it, is required in emergency situations, where events unfold amid conflicting information about the best course of action.
“These are also the kinds of situations in which sleep deprivation has been shown to contribute to catastrophic errors,” such as nuclear accidents and the space shuttle Challenger disaster, Whitney said.

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The Huffington Post