Anxiety manifests when an individual perceives an immediate threat. Despite evidence that on average, holding all things equal, the world has never been safer for most people, anxiety has continued to rise in the general population. Anxiety is often driven by difficulties tolerating the inevitable uncertainties that make up our …
Read More »A transdiagnostic examination of decreased intolerance of uncertainty and treatment outcome
Intolerance of uncertainty, also termed fear of the unknown, may be an important tool to address in therapy. The present study tested for diagnostic differences in two forms of intolerance of uncertainty and examined if changes in the forms of intolerance of uncertainty contribute to improved treatment outcomes. Participants were …
Read More »The interaction of distress tolerance and intolerance of uncertainty in the prediction of symptom reduction across CBT for social anxiety disorder
Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for anxiety disorders typically involves clients confronting the anxiety-inducing objects and situations they would typically wish to avoid. Through repeated exposure to anxiety, clients increasingly learn to question, review and correct their anxious appraisals and beliefs and gradually experience less anxiety over time. However, certain individual characteristics …
Read More »Are we certain about which measure of intolerance of uncertainty to use yet?
Intolerance of Uncertainty (IU) has been understood as a dispositional tendency to view the presence of negative events as unacceptable and threatening, regardless of the likelihood of those events occurring. The preference over the 12-item vs. 27-item of the IUS has been central to debate. The goals of the present …
Read More »Cognitive risk factors explain the relations between neuroticism and social anxiety for males and females
The hierarchical model of vulnerabilities to emotional distress contextualizes the relation between neuroticism and social anxiety as occurring indirectly through cognitive risk factors. In particular, inhibitory intolerance of uncertainty (IU; difficulty in uncertain circumstances), fear of negative evaluation (FNE; fear of being judged negatively), and anxiety sensitivity (AS) social concerns …
Read More »Examining the specific dimensions of distress tolerance that prospectively predict perceived stress
We examined five dimensions of distress tolerance (i.e. uncertainty, ambiguity, frustration, negative emotion, physical discomfort) as prospective predictors of perceived stress. Undergraduate students (N = 135) completed self-report questionnaires over the course of two assessment sessions (T1 and T2). Results of a linear regression in which the five dimensions of …
Read More »What’s in a name? Intolerance of uncertainty, other uncertainty-relevant constructs, and their differential relations to worry and generalized anxiety disorder
A number of studies have examined the association of intolerance of uncertainty (IU) to trait worry and generalized anxiety disorder (GAD). However, few studies have examined the extent of overlap between IU and other psychological constructs that bear conceptual resemblance to IU, despite the fact that IU-type constructs have been …
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