Uncertainty as an anxiety cue at high and low levels of threat

Reuman, Lillian; Jacoby, Ryan J.; Fabricant, Laura E.; Herring, Breanna; Abramowitz, Jonathan S.

doi:10.1016/j.jbtep.2014.12.002

Cited by 66 publications

(57 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Vigilance to uncertainty and overestimating the probability and cost of threat appears to be involved in the development and perpetuation of fear and anxiety and engagement in safety behaviors (Mathews & MacLeod, 1994, 2002Reuman, Jacoby, Fabricant, Herring, & Abramowitz, 2015). A link between high IU and the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of negative events has been documented (Dugas, Buhr, & Ladouceur, 2004;Dugas et al, 2005;Koerner & Dugas, 2008;Ladouceur et al, 1997), with uncertainty itself perceived as threatening.…”

Section: What Is Known?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Relatedly, IU may be sufficiently threatening that it leads to worry Dugas, Buhr, et al, 2004). Scenarios characterized by explicit uncertainty and high threat, instead of implicit or low threat, produced higher anxiety and urges to engage in safety behaviors; moreover, a low threat situation may be perceived as highly threatening when uncertainty is explicit (Reuman et al, 2015).…”

Section: What Is Known?mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A link between high IU and the tendency to overestimate the likelihood of negative events has been documented (Dugas, Buhr, & Ladouceur, 2004;Dugas et al, 2005;Koerner & Dugas, 2008;Ladouceur et al, 1997), with uncertainty itself perceived as threatening. Attending to the uncertain aspects of a situation has been conceptualized as uncertainty-based reasoning (Reuman et al, 2015). Relatedly, IU may be sufficiently threatening that it leads to worry Dugas, Buhr, et al, 2004).…”

Section: What Is Known?mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 2 more Smart Citations

Intolerance of uncertainty in emotional disorders: What uncertainties remain?

Shihata

McEvoy

Mullan

et al. 2016

Journal of Anxiety Disorders

230

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: 99%

Section: What Is Known?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: What Is Known?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

230

189

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…The wide range of motivations for joining a jihadist group means that the problem affects young people of various profiles and backgrounds, even if their common features are their age (12)(13)(14)(15)(16)(17)(18)(19)(20)(21)(22)(23)(24)(25)(26)(27)(28) and some vulnerability (psychological or social) when exposed to the recruiter's pitch. In France, we were surprised to find out that almost as many girls as boys (40%) got hooked, and as many non-Muslims (48%) as Muslims [49].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…It has also been shown that this uncertainty is at the root of a quest for compensatory measures: "Experiencing emotions that reflect uncertainty about the world (e.g., worry, surprise, fear, hope), compared to certain emotions (e.g., anger, happiness, disgust, contentment), would activate the need to imbue the world with order and structure across a wide range of compensatory measures." [26] In other words, "explicit uncertainty significantly increased anxiety and urge to perform a safety behavior at low, but not at high, levels of threat" [27]. With this in mind, exposing young people to conspiracy narratives is, in itself, a stressful situation, which requires one to assess the following two factors: first, the threat itself, and second, the individual capabilities necessary to oppose it [28].…”

Section: An Anxiety-inducing Emotional Approach Adapted To Each Youthmentioning

confidence: 99%

A Novel Motivation-based Conceptual Framework for Disengagement and De-radicalization Programs

Bouzar¹

2017

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From 2014 to 2016, the Centre de Prévention contre les Dérives Sectaires liées à l'Islam (CPDSI) was commissioned by the French Interior Ministry to establish the first indicators of radicalization, to come up with an experimental method for de-radicalization and to train law enforcement teams in France. A qualitative analysis of the data gathered from interviewing 809 young people prevented from joining ISIS, along with the collection of their interactions with the recruiters enabled us to identify the individualization of the recruitment pitches. Indeed, "the new radical discourse" adapts the jihadist ideology to the various emotional and cognitive needs of the young people, thereby pitching motivations tailored to their specific socio-culture and psychological profiles. The process analysis of the radicalization process sheds light on several sequential phases, which include a two-fold emotional-ideological dimension. This papers argues for a novel conceptual framework of the de-radicalizations studies and programs that take into account the link between the emotional and the ideological dimensions.

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When we are worried, what are we thinking? Anxiety, lack of control, and conspiracy beliefs amidst the COVID‐19 pandemic

Šrol

Mikušková

Čavojová

2021

Applied Cognitive Psychology

155

118

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Societal crises and stressful events are associated with an upsurge of conspiracy beliefs that may help people to tackle feelings of lack of control. In our study ( N = 783), we examined whether people with higher feelings of anxiety and lack of control early in the COVID‐19 pandemic endorse more conspiracy theories. Our results show that a higher perception of risk of COVID‐19 and lower trust in institutions' response to the pandemic were related to feelings of anxiety and lack of control. Feeling the lack of control, but not anxiety, independently predicted COVID‐19 conspiracy theory endorsement. Importantly, COVID‐19 conspiracy beliefs were strongly correlated with generic conspiracy and pseudoscientific beliefs, which were likewise associated with the feeling of lack of control and lower trust in institutions. The results highlight that considering people's emotional responses to the COVID‐19 pandemic is crucial for our understanding of the spread of conspiracy and pseudoscientific beliefs.

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Uncertainty as an anxiety cue at high and low levels of threat

Cited by 66 publications

References 32 publications

Intolerance of uncertainty in emotional disorders: What uncertainties remain?

Intolerance of uncertainty in emotional disorders: What uncertainties remain?

A Novel Motivation-based Conceptual Framework for Disengagement and De-radicalization Programs

When we are worried, what are we thinking? Anxiety, lack of control, and conspiracy beliefs amidst the COVID‐19 pandemic

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