Thursday, November 20, 2008

Neurotics prefer negativity to uncertainty

ScienceDaily.com - Uncertainty can be more Stressful than clear negative feedback

Confirming what I thought was probably common sense, neurotic individuals became more stressed when they didn't know the outcome of a skill performance rather than when the outcome was negative. This wasn't the uncertainty in waiting for the outcome, but when the outcome itself was ambiguous or not disclosed. If you can generalize to non-neurotic people, we may be less stressed by bad news than by uncertainty.

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