Intolerance of Uncertainty and Decisions About Delayed, Probabilistic Rewards

Luhmann, Christian C.; Ishida, Kanako; Hajcak, Greg

doi:10.1016/j.beth.2010.09.002

Cited by 166 publications

(170 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…The manipulations have included tasks such as overt behavioral assessments, a typing task, bead selection tasks, and a cold pressor task. The results have indicated people with higher IU 1) prefer immediately available rewards, even when they are less probable or less valuable (Luhmann, Ishida, & Hajcak, 2011); 2) are less confident about high risk decisions, but also less likely to change their decisions despite receiving new information (Jensen, Kind, Morrison, & Heimberg, 2014); 3) are more likely to seek additional information to increase certainty in nonclinical samples (Jacoby et al, 2014;Jacoby, Abramowitz, Reuman, & Blakey, this issue;Ladouceur, Talbot, & Dugas, 1997;Rosen & Knäuper, 2009), though not consistently in clinical samples (Sternheim, Startup, & Schmidt, 2011); 4) are more likely to increase certainty by behaving, reacting, or deciding more slowly in clinical (Jacoby et al, 2014) and nonclinical samples (Jacoby et al, 2014;Jacoby et al, this issue;Thibodeau et al, 2013); and 5) are more likely to be distressed by uncertainty in clinical (Jacoby et al, 2014) and nonclinical samples (Jacoby et al, this issue). Taken together, these experimental results suggest that manipulating uncertainty may adversely impact behaviors and decision-making, even with relatively low levels of perceived threat.…”

Section: What Is Known?mentioning

confidence: 89%

“…To advance our understanding of the associations between the latent IU construct and a broad range of behaviors, researchers should investigate behaviors characterized by higher-order processes (e.g., probability-based decisionmaking) as well as common daily behaviors (e.g., public speaking). Researchers should address whether behaviors are driven by uncertainty itself or by the emotional consequences associated with uncertainty (Luhmann et al, 2011), as well as understanding the compounding influence of anticipated reinforcers (e.g., threat, reward). Moreover, a variety of experimental studies should be designed to elucidate whether uncertainty and the latent IU construct are associated with WHAT UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN?…”

Section: What Is Unknown?mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 1 more Smart Citation

Intolerance of uncertainty in emotional disorders: What uncertainties remain?

Shihata

McEvoy

Mullan

et al. 2016

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

240

189

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The current paper presents a future research agenda for intolerance of uncertainty (IU), which is a transdiagnostic risk and maintaining factor for emotional disorders. In light of the accumulating interest and promising research on IU, it is timely to emphasize the theoretical and therapeutic significance of IU, as well as to highlight what remains unknown about IU across areas such as development, assessment, behavior, and relationships to emotional disorders. The present paper was designed to provide a synthesis of what is known and unknown about IU, and, in doing so, proposes broad and novel directions for future research to address the remaining uncertainties in the literature.Keywords: intolerance of uncertainty, review, emotional disorders, transdiagnostic, disorder-specific, research agenda WHAT UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN? 3 Intolerance of Uncertainty in Emotional Disorders: What Uncertainties Remain?The current paper briefly reviews what is known about intolerance of uncertainty (IU) before highlighting what remains unknown. Due to rapidly increasing interest and research focus on IU, culminating in the current special issue, a review is both timely and necessary to set a future research agenda. This paper will review IU with respect to conceptual foundations and definitional issues, development, assessment, behavioral consequences, associations to threat and risk, other cognitive vulnerability factors, emotional disorders, as well as clinical applications.Within each of these domains, what is currently known will first be briefly reviewed followed by what remains unknown. The major contribution of the current paper is the description of future research avenues to address the known unknowns. Conceptual Foundations of Intolerance of Uncertainty What is known?Models of psychopathology posit that uncertainty is a central feature in anxiety-related experience (Carleton, 2016) and the incapacity to endure unknowns appears to be a robust vulnerability factor associated with a range of psychological disorders (Grupe & Nitschke, 2013;Hong & Cheung, 2015). IU was originally defined as a broad construct that reflects "cognitive, emotional, and behavioral reactions to uncertainty in everyday life situations" (Freeston, Rhéaume, Letarte, Dugas, & Ladouceur, 1994, p. 792). Freeston and colleagues (1994) speculated that people with IU may engage in worry to increase their sense of certainty and control when faced with ambiguity. The definition of IU evolved as research on IU shifted from an initial focus on generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) to other disorders. A revised and broader definition described IU as a predisposition to negatively perceive and respond to uncertain information and situations irrespective of its probability and outcomes (Ladouceur, Blais, WHAT UNCERTAINTIES REMAIN? 4 Freeston, & Dugas, 1998;Ladouceur, Gosselin, & Dugas, 2000). IU has also been conceptualized as a cognitive filter and as the excessive tendency to perceive and interpret negative events as unacceptable (Buhr & Dugas...

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Section: What Is Known?mentioning

confidence: 89%

Section: What Is Unknown?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Intolerance of uncertainty in emotional disorders: What uncertainties remain?

Shihata

McEvoy

Mullan

et al. 2016

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

240

189

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…Strong empirical findings link high IU (and high IA to a lesser extent) with affective, cognitive, and behavioral outcomes such as clinically-significant anxiety and depression, increased stress, maladaptive coping, lower quality of life, avoidance of novel situations, information processing and recall biases (favoring absolutists interpretations and recall of uncertainty-marked information), diminished behavioral performance, and impulsive decisionmaking (Birrell, Meares, Wilkinson, & Freeston, 2011;Dugas et al, 2005;Erez & Nouri, 2010;Kornilova & Kornilov, 2010;Luhmann, Ishida, & Hajcak, 2011;Rosen et al, 2014). Some studies have also shown that a high tolerance for uncertainty is associated with greater creativity (Kornilova & Kornilov, 2010;Erez & Nouri, 2010).…”

Section: Responses Within the Uncertain Statementioning

confidence: 99%

Uncertainty, reflection, and designer identity development

Tracey

Hutchinson

2016

Design Studies

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Uncertainty is a defining quality of the design space and it stands to reason that designers' personal attitudes toward uncertainty may influence design processes and outcomes via cognitive, affective, and/or behavioral channels. Individual attitudes and behavior patterns related to uncertainty may constitute a critical element of designer identity, which represents the synthesis of knowledge, action, and being. This qualitative study examined how graduate students in an instructional design course reflected on their experiences and beliefs regarding uncertainty.Participants were more reflective when discussing a general experience with uncertainty than their current attitudes toward uncertainty in design. Findings support the use of narrated reflection in design education related to uncertainty and identity. Implications for design education interventions and design are discussed.Keywords: professional identity; design education; design processes; reflective practice; design research Highlights:1. This study positions uncertainty orientation as an element of designer identity.2. The study examines reflection for identity development in relation to uncertainty.3. Participants achieved higher levels of reflection when discussing a general experience.4. Participants consistently failed to attend to emotional aspects of uncertainty.5. Some participants altered their uncertainty orientation when reconsidering the topic later. UNCERTAINTY AND IDENTITY 3Professional identity has been conceptualized as the synthesis of knowledge, action, and self, requiring not only the acquisition of expertise and skills but also professional ways of being (Dall'Alba, 2009; Tovey, Bull, & Osmund, 2010). From this perspective, students in professional education programs need to establish a sense of who they are becoming as a professional -and imagine who they might be -as the context for the development of the knowledge and behaviors that are manifested via the professional self (Dall'Alba, 2009). For design students, this means that foundational learning (i.e., what design is and what designers do, both in general and discipline-specific) should not be seen as an end in itself but should instead be used to facilitate the establishment of a preliminary and personal sense of what it means to be a designer. For design educators, this raises provocative questions: What designerly ways of being might be most useful for the initial cultivation of designer selves? And what instructional strategies and experiences might be effective in giving students the space and resources to explore these ways of being in service of identity development?As part of a long-term, design-based research project on design education, reflection, and professional identity, this study seeks to address these questions and contribute to emerging discourse on identity development in design by examining how graduate students in instructional design explored experiences with uncertainty using reflective writing. As a ground for our findings, we will first discus...

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“…IU may also lead people to behave in ways that reduce the time spent in uncertainty, which they find difficult. Luhmann et al (2011) found that those with higher IU were 5 more likely to repeatedly choose smaller and fewer probable awards if they were immediately made aware of the outcome, than larger and more probable rewards that would require a longer period of uncertainty before outcomes.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Although IU is thought to be associated with particular cognitive, affective, and behavioral responses to uncertain situations (Dugas, Schwartz, & Francis, 2004), few studies have explored specific behaviors in relation to IU or its two subfactors (Luhmann, Ishida, Hajcak, 2011;Thibodeau et al, 2013). There is some evidence that IU shapes people's behavior.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Cognitive factors predicting checking, procrastination and other maladaptive behaviours: Prospective versus Inhibitory Intolerance of Uncertainty

Fourtounas

Thomas

2016

Journal of Obsessive-Compulsive and Related Disorders

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Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) is a cognitive construct which is strongly linked to psychopathology, particularly anxiety and obsessive-compulsive symptoms. IU has also been proposed to be linked to maladaptive behaviours such as checking and procrastination in uncertain situations. Additionally, two subfactors of IU have recently been identified, Prospective IU (Desire for Predictability) and Inhibitory IU (Uncertainty Paralysis). These factors may differentially predict approach and avoidance behaviours respectively, however research is lacking. This study investigated associations between IU subfactors and selfreported maladaptive behaviours. University students (n=110; 74.3% female) completed self-report measures of behaviours including checking, procrastination, general avoidance and controlling behaviours. We hypothesised that Prospective IU would be associated with checking behaviours while Inhibitory IU would be associated with procrastination. Procrastination was predicted only by Inhibitory IU, however Checking was predicted equally by Inhibitory IU and Prospective IU. The results provide the first evidence of a differentiation between the two IU subfactors in predicting maladaptive behaviours. Uncertainty Paralysis may be an important cognitive factor reflecting tendencies to freeze during uncertainty, which predicts both checking and procrastination. Checking behaviours may be associated with additional unwillingness to leave outcomes to chance. This research provides new information about specific cognitive factors associated with checking and procrastination and other maladaptive behaviours, which could potentially be targeted in interventions. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 38 39 40 41 42 43 44 45 46 47 48 49 50 51 52 53 54 55 56 57 58 59 60 61 62 63 64 65 2 Highlights:Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) is a cognitive construct strongly linked to anxiety.We investigated its role in maladaptive behaviors including checking and procrastination.Two subcomponents of IU differentially predicted maladaptive behaviors.Procrastination was predicted only by Inhibitory IU.Checking behavior was predicted both by Inhibitory and Prospective IU.

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Intolerance of Uncertainty and Decisions About Delayed, Probabilistic Rewards

Cited by 166 publications

References 38 publications

Intolerance of uncertainty in emotional disorders: What uncertainties remain?

Intolerance of uncertainty in emotional disorders: What uncertainties remain?

Uncertainty, reflection, and designer identity development

Cognitive factors predicting checking, procrastination and other maladaptive behaviours: Prospective versus Inhibitory Intolerance of Uncertainty

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