Living with uncertainty

We humans love, even crave, predictability. Our brains are constantly scanning the horizon looking for threats or anything that looks unfamiliar, which makes us feel anxious and unsafe. And yet we have always lived in an unpredictable world where random events happen all the time and the future is largely unknowable. Today on The Connection: managing the pros and cons of uncertainty.

Our guests are Kate Sweeny and Dannagal Young. Sweeny is a research psychologist who runs the Life Events Lab at the University of California. Young is a professor of communication and political science at the University of Delaware and an improv comedian.

We’ll talk about why uncertainty is so stressful, why waiting for results is tough, how the unknown can feed conspiracy theories and why accepting uncertainty can be good for our mental and physical health.