Uncertainty Bias and How
to Cope (Part 1)
I think that when we know that we actually do live in
uncertainty, then we ought to admit it; it is of great value to realize that we
do not know the answers to different questions. This attitude of mind - this
attitude of uncertainty - is vital to the scientist, and it is this attitude of
mind which the student must first acquire.
-- Richard P. Feynman, physicist
What is psychological
uncertainty?
Uncertainty is the inability to make sense of, assign value to, or predict the outcomes of events (Charles Berger, about Uncertainty Reduction Theory). Uncertainty takes away assurance, confidence, optimism, timely decision-making, and faith in the future. It reduces ability to invest in a future that can’t be determined, well defined, or trusted. Berger’s work centers around mitigating these effects in order to allow a stable functioning life without chronic anxiety as the emotional theme.
All self-management is an effort
to prevent or stem uncertain outcomes, as all planning is intended to make life
less uncertain. Most of our time is
spent anticipating, mitigating, managing, fearing, and combating our collective
bias against being unable to predict the future.
The late Dale E. Brashers, who developed Uncertainty Management Theory (2001) describes how uncertainty exists ”When details of situations are ambiguous, complex, unpredictable, or probabilistic; when information is unavailable or inconsistent; and when people feel insecure in their own state of knowledge or state of knowledge in general” Still, Brashers’ work took the theme that this condition is still manageable, using a “management by objective” approach to customize behaviors like avoidance, adapting, and support-seeking to individual needs – especially in the arena of uncertain health outcomes and their psychological dynamics.
Chronic anxiety disorders are the most common mental illness in the US today, affecting over 40 million adults, and more women than men. The largest growth cohort is now the 15% of 18–25-year-olds, which doubled during the pandemic and is considered a public health crisis that must be addressed as such. Cultural commentator David Brooks describes anxiety as “an unfocused form of fear,” manifested by worry and stress, anticipation of fearful events and situations that will prove beyond one’s coping ability. The worldview stretches out into a future that is uncertain, unpredictable, unsure, insecure, and scary.
The racing rate of change in events, understandings, and
social relationships has increased the sensation of uncertainty in the past
decades, creating a steady state of anxiety shared across generations, the age
averaging younger by the year. For the cohort 21 to 60 years, work is an
especially stressed environment, in competitive industries in particular, since
employees spend the main part of their life as colleagues—even more time than
is spent with friends and family.
There is survival value, however, in concern about potential
problems—we have an inbuilt alarm system, fueled by an anxious imagination,
that does prevent harm by making us naturally cautious about situations and
decisions. In short-term bursts, this
mind-set protects us by making us vigilant.
But for many individuals, the price is an ongoing state of dread that
saps our energy, growth, and ability to carry on in a sane and safe mode of
operation. The sad joke is that the overanxious
woman tells her friends that her constant worrying actually prevents bad
outcomes from happening. “Worrying
works! More than 90% of the things I
worry about never happen.” And as a
commentor on that claim could say, “Try telling my brain that!”
Certainty is an uncertain thing, but humans definitely need
it. We rely on our sense of certainty in
every area: from global affairs to our relationships to our abilities to take
on entirely new ways of thinking, or, with luck, and beat the house in Las
Vegas. Overconfidence in what we think
we can be sure of is the core thinking and intuition bias, the one that drives
all others. We are so fixed on it that
we risk making all sorts of errors in the name of the security of feeling
sure. We need a sense of certainty to
make decisions – thousands of them in a month, major to minor. Never mind that many will be unsuitable,
unsafe, unsuccessful; we can always justify our thinking in hindsight. It has even been shown that people prefer to
receive bad news over no news because even unwelcome news can give the security
of knowing where we stand, thus reducing anxiety. Doomscrolling, the act of consuming negative
news continuously, is an example of dopamine-seeking by confronting disturbing
information.
The problem is that we don’t just occasionally procrastinate,
lash out, feel the loss of self-esteem, and realize we’re under too much
control of the amygdala, the stress response center. Rather than reset the brain once a direct threat
has subsided, uncertainty anxiety becomes a chronic state, making the
prefrontal cortex’s job, that of our higher brain function, more
difficult. Coping is compromised when so
much energy and attention is pulled down to the more basic levels that deal
with fear, focused on fear of an unknowable future state. This endemic stress response is always “on,”
and this mood is infectious, spreading through groups who begin to react
anxiously to a wide radius of perceived threats with negative thinking, conflict
acting, and toxic relating (see the latest gun news). Very soon this begins to look like
broad-based burnout, seen first in the workplace and home office where the best
part of our time is spent.
