Which Is Worse?
Knowing that something bad will occur? Or that it might occur? Turns out, the latter is worse:
Consider an experiment by researchers at Maastricht University in the Netherlands who gave subjects a series of 20 electric shocks. Some subjects knew they would receive an intense shock on every trial. Others knew they would receive 17 mild shocks and 3 intense shocks, but they didn't know on which of the 20 trials the intense shocks would come. The results showed that subjects who thought there was a small chance of receiving an intense shock were more afraid – they sweated more profusely, their hearts beat faster – than subjects who knew for sure that they'd receive an intense shock.
Intuitively makes sense, but I don’t know why. What is the evolutionary survival value of theis reaction?
Ken, it means people don’t lilke uncertainty, and efforts to reduce uncertainty probably had survival value eons ago. For that matter, they may have survival value even today.