Anxiety

Uncertainty is a stressful thing for many people. For some people, however, uncertainty is so stressful that they’d rather receive negative feedback than uncertain feedback, a new study finds.

The study was conducted at the University of Toronto, and involved participants’ brains being monitored while they did different tasks. Participants received positive feedback, uncertain feedback, or negative feedback during the study.

The researchers specifically monitored the part of the brain that is responsible for conflict-related and error monitoring, known as the anterior cingulate cortex.

They discovered individuals who scored high in neuroticism responded more strongly to uncertain than negative feedback, indicating highly neurotic individuals would rather receive negative feedback than uncertain feedback. Neuroticism is a personality trait related to anxiety and to negative emotions.

Jacob Hirsh, doctoral student and the lead author in this research stated, “What this study shows is that neurotic individuals are actually more comfortable with clear negative information than they are with uncertainty - even when the outcome of that uncertainty could be positive.”

These are interesting findings and show just how stressful and troubling uncertainty is for some individuals.

Please tell me what you think in the comments section below!

Source:

Psych Central: Negative Feedback Less Stressful Than Ambiguity

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