Department of Psychology, William Paterson University, 300 Pompton Road, Science Hall East, Wayne, NJ, 07470, USA.
Department of Psychology, University of Illinois at Chicago, 1007 West Harrison Street, Chicago, IL, 60607, USA; Sierra Pacific (VISN 21) VA San Francisco Health Care System, and University of California, San Francisco School of Medicine, USA.
Behav Res Ther. 2022 Jul;154:104125. doi: 10.1016/j.brat.2022.104125. Epub 2022 May 20.
Prospective intolerance of uncertainty (IU) involves fear and anxiety in anticipation of future uncertainty and is especially related to worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). Individuals high in IU appraise uncertain situations as threatening and thus may engage in excessive information-seeking behavior to decrease uncertainty. This study aimed to examine the links between prospective IU and information-seeking. Participants (N = 174) high and low in prospective IU completed an ostensible aptitude test (threat stimulus), which was supposedly either excellent (high relevance condition) or poor (low relevance condition) at predicting future outcomes. Thus, the test itself presented an immediate threat, and the awaited test results generated uncertainty. Following the relevance manipulation, participants were given the opportunity to engage in information-seeking behavior by asking questions about the ostensible test and by requesting feedback about the test results. Results indicated that in the high-relevance condition, individuals high and low in IU evidenced similar levels of information-seeking behavior. Conversely, in the low-relevance condition, individuals low in IU evidenced less information-seeking than did individuals high in IU. Furthermore, cognitive appraisals of ambiguous situations were associated with the extent of information-seeking behavior. The implications of these findings for the treatment of GAD are discussed.
前瞻性不确定性容忍度（IU）涉及对未来不确定性的恐惧和焦虑，尤其与担忧和广泛性焦虑障碍（GAD）有关。IU 较高的个体将不确定的情况评估为威胁，因此可能会过度寻求信息以减少不确定性。本研究旨在探讨前瞻性 IU 与信息寻求之间的联系。参与者（N=174）在 IU 方面表现出高或低的前瞻性 IU，完成了一个看似有能力的测试（威胁刺激），该测试据称在预测未来结果方面非常出色（高相关性条件）或很差（低相关性条件）。因此，测试本身就构成了直接的威胁，而等待测试结果则产生了不确定性。在相关性操作之后，参与者有机会通过询问关于表面测试的问题和请求有关测试结果的反馈来进行信息寻求行为。结果表明，在高相关性条件下，IU 高和低的个体表现出相似水平的信息寻求行为。相反，在低相关性条件下，IU 较低的个体比 IU 较高的个体表现出较少的信息寻求行为。此外，对模棱两可情况的认知评估与信息寻求行为的程度有关。讨论了这些发现对 GAD 治疗的意义。
