THE PSYCHOLOGY OF UNCERTAINTY: INTOLERANCE OF THE UNKNOWN AS A MECHANISM OF ANXIETY, OVERCONTROL, AND PSYCHOLOGICAL DISTRESS

Abstract

The present article examines uncertainty as a significant psychological factor involved in the formation and maintenance of anxiety, overcontrol, and psychological distress. The main thesis is that the unknown does not give rise to anxiety merely because of a lack of information, but because, under certain personality and cognitive dispositions, it is experienced as a threat to inner stability, predictability, and the sense of control. In this context, intolerance of uncertainty is considered a central psychological mechanism through which ambiguity and unpredictability become sources of persistent tension, anxious anticipation, and behavioral attempts to reduce perceived risk.
The article is theoretical and analytical in nature and integrates cognitive, metacognitive, and personality perspectives on the problem of uncertainty. It analyzes the relationship between the need for security, the tendency toward control, and chronic psychological tension. A conceptual framework is proposed in which overcontrol is not
interpreted as an expression of genuine psychological stability, but rather as a compensatory response to the difficulty of tolerating uncertainty. The scientific contribution of the article lies in placing uncertainty at the center of the analysis of anxious vulnerability and in outlining its significance as a transdiagnostic mechanism in contemporary psychological functioning.