Your Brain at Work

Using neuroscience to improve daily life.

by Dr. David Rock

A Hunger for Certainty

By David Rock on October 25, 2009 in Your Brain at Work

A sense of uncertainty generates a threat response, reducing your ability to focus on other issues. Certainty on the other hand feels rewarding, and we tend to steer toward it, even when it might be better for us to remain uncertain. Read More

Great article! It seems to go

Submitted by Cris Janzen on October 25, 2009 - 7:53pm.

Great article! It seems to go a long way to explain why a period of unemployment is so terribly unsettling. There are so many variables that can't be predicted or known, like if you will be selected to interview and what will be asked if you are. An unemployed person can do be doing everything they know how to do, yet still can't predict an outcome. Makes me think of the early research with dogs that Martin Seligman referenced in "Learned Optimism" where he observed a link between uncertainty and learned helplessness.
Can't wait to read about the rest of your SCARF model!