Intolerance of Uncertainty and Social Wellbeing: the Mediating Role of Emotional Experiences

Intolerance of uncertainty (IU) is a cognitive bias that affects how a person perceives, interprets, and responds to uncertain situations. The mechanisms through which it can impact social wellbeing (SW), though, are unclear. To bridge this gap, we theorize the positive emotional experience (PE) and negative emotional experience (NE) are involved in such mechanisms. We test these hypotheses with two related samples: (1) n = 844 college students who completed a cross-sectional survey, and (2) a subset of n = 324 college students who also completed a follow-up assessment, forming a two-wave sample. In the initial sample’s cross-sectional model, IU indirectly predicted SW through PE and NE. The two-wave sample supported the half-longitudinal mediating role of positive emotional experience, but not that of negative emotional experience. These findings suggest that emotional experiences can contribute to translation of IU into social wellbeing. These insights can improve the understanding of social well-being and deepen comprehension of the role of emotional experiences.