Sometimes I feel the fear of uncertainty: How intolerance of uncertainty and trait anxiety impact fear acquisition, extinction and the return of fear

Trait-Anxiety and Belief Updating: Exploring the predictions of the negativity bias and contrast avoidance model.

“…On the other hand, the trait-intolerance of uncertainty (IU) was not associated with the update behavior. These results are aligned with the idea that the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale (IUS) overlaps with more cognitive aspects of anxiety such as the need for controllability and fear of the unknown, while the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory (STAI) captures more affective aspects of dispositional anxiety such as the tendency to experience negative affect (Chen et al, 2018;Llera & Newman, 2023;Wroblewski et al, 2022). While anxiety is characterized by overestimating the probability of threats, optimism is characterized by underestimating them (Sweeny et al, 2006;Sweeny & Dooley, 2017).…”

Neural and psychophysiological markers of intolerance of uncertainty

“…However, this association was not found with startle or skin conductance responses. Furthermore, Wroblewski et al (2022) did not find reliable associations with intolerance of uncertainty and either subjective ratings or psychophysiological measures during the reinstatement test. Nonetheless, Wroblewski et al (2022) did find individuals with low intolerance of uncertainty to exhibit increased neural activation in regions related to the salience network to the threat cue during reinstatement test.…”

“…visual stimulus) and an aversive outcome (e.g. electric shock)), regardless of whether the phase was uninstructed or instructed, no significant relationships were observed between intolerance of uncertainty and psychophysiological (Klingelhöfer-Jens et al, 2022;Mertens et al, 2022) or neural measures (Wendt & Morriss, 2022;Wroblewski et al, 2022). However, during uninstructed acquisition, Lipp et al, (2022) observed in a large sample (n = 217) that higher intolerance of uncertainty was associated with greater skin conductance response to omitted unconditioned stimuli (i.e., electric shock).…”

“…For uninstructed extinction learning (updating a learned threat association to a safe association), Wroblewski et al (2022) found that higher intolerance of uncertainty was associated with: (1) reduced neural responses (e.g. in the thalamus, Running Head: Editorial for SI putamen, dorsal anterior cingulate cortex, and ventrolateral prefrontal cortex), (2) larger discriminatory startle response to the threat vs. safety cue throughout the phase, and (3) larger discriminatory skin conductance response to the threat vs. safety cue at the beginning of the phase.…”

Neural and psychophysiological markers of intolerance of uncertainty

“…visual stimulus) and an aversive outcome (e.g. electric shock)), regardless of whether the phase was uninstructed or instructed, no significant relationships were observed between intolerance of uncertainty and psychophysiological (Klingelhöfer-Jens et al, 2022;Mertens et al, 2022) or neural measures (Wendt & Morriss, 2022;Wroblewski et al, 2022). However, during uninstructed acquisition, Lipp et al, (2022) observed in a large sample (n = 217) that higher intolerance of uncertainty was associated with greater skin conductance response to omitted unconditioned stimuli (i.e., electric shock).…”