Matthias Michalik

Full member: January 2008 - March 2010 (died March 19, 2010)

Dissertation title: How (Un)certainty influences Affect and Emotion.
Abstract: Normally, uncertainty is thought to be an unpleasant state that organisms try to reduce. But when someone is reading a crime or a scary book he normally doesn't read the last pages first to reduce it’s uncertainty - the uncertainty about the outcome is part of the  enjoyable reading experience. When parents decide not to know what gender their yet unborn child will have - they choose uncertainty over certainty. The present project focuses on the relationship between affect, emotion or mood and the state of uncertainty.
Wilson Centerbar, Kermer and Gilbert (2005) demonstrated that uncertainty about some aspects of a past positive event prolongs the positive feelings evoked by this event.
Pennebaker (1997) reviewed evidence suggesting that writing and talking about traumatic events and “making sense out of it” (reducing uncertainty) reduces negative feelings and improves overall life satisfaction and health.
Despite numerous empirical demonstrations, knowledge about the mechanisms underlying the effects of uncertainty on emotions is still sparse. Wilson et al. (2005) speculate that the accessibility of emotion concepts in memory may be reduced after knowing what exactly or why something happened.
Additionally, arousal may be reduced after knowing what exactly or why something happened whereas accessibility stays the same. The present project aims at testing the potential causal role of these (and perhaps alternative) mechanisms for effects of uncertainty on emotions.

Principal investigator:

Prof. Dr. Fritz Strack

http://wy2x05.psychologie.uni-wuerzburg.de/