I can’t stand not knowing! All about uncertainty.

The fact that we will experience uncertainty is one of the most certain things in life, along with death and taxes, as the saying goes.

Most people don’t like when situations are uncertain and in contrast, predictability tends to help people feel comfortable and safe. It’s understandable why people pursue things like fortune-telling and guarantees – we don’t feel very at ease when confronted with question marks in regards to our futures. However, most people go about their lives tolerating the more common, everyday unknowns, and only come up against discomfort when the stakes of uncertainty are higher.

But for a subset of people, not knowing and not being able to predict outcomes can feel unbearable. Uncertainty can feel like an allergy, such that even a small amount of it can produce a strong, unpleasant reaction. This reaction can take different forms, including worry and anxiety, or irritability. And some people experience such a strong intolerance of uncertainty that it might be a sign they are experiencing a diagnosable disorder like Generalized Anxiety Disorder or Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder.

Situations can be uncertain in different ways. Michel Dugas has identified 3 types of uncertain situations. First, an experience can be novel. For example, you are going to your first university class, or to a new doctor’s office. Second, an experience might be unpredictable. For example, you are waiting to find out if you got the job you applied for, or to get a grade back after an exam. Finally, situations can be ambivalent, meaning that the outcome could be good, bad, or neutral in some way. An example of this is if your high school teacher asked you to stay back for a chat at the end of the class. This last example tends to cause a shudder from my clients, which highlights how people often assume an outcome will be negative!

Those who become particularly anxious or irritable in novel, unpredictable, or ambivalent situations tend to discover ways to manage these feelings, at least in the short term. These strategies can look like avoidance or procrastination. They can also look like safety behaviours. These behaviours include seeking reassurance from others, excessively seeking information, checking, and over-preparing, all with the intention of reducing uncertainty or feeling more sure.

For example, if you need to drive to a new store and don’t know where to park, you might be tempted to look up parking beforehand, possibly looking at a map, calling the store, and/or reading reviews online for relevant information. You might also procrastinate the errand, ask someone to come with you for support, or even give up on going to the store altogether, opting for somewhere more familiar.

Although these behaviours (i.e., avoidance, procrastination, and safety behaviours) can help reduce discomfort in the moment, they also come with many costs. First, it is important to consider the practical costs of these actions. For instance, they can be time-consuming, financially expensive, and cause conflict with others, and lead people to miss out on important experiences. Second, these behaviours rob people of the chance to find out what might have actually happened if they had not used them.

In the next post, I’ll talk more about reducing safety behaviours and avoidance and learning to tolerate uncertainty.

This post is for informational purposes only.

Robichaud, M., Koerner, N., & Dugas, M. J. (2019). Cognitive behavioral treatment for Generalized Anxiety Disorder: From science to practice. Routledge.