Anxiety Reduction and Adolescents’ Social Information Search Under Risk and Ambiguity: The Moderating Role of Intolerance of Uncertainty

Social information search is an important form of social learning under uncertainty, yet little is known about how state anxiety and intolerance of uncertainty (IU) jointly shape adolescents’ active search behavior. Across two experiments, 180 high school students were assigned to an easy-arithmetic, difficult-arithmetic, or no-task control condition and then completed a social gambling task under risk (Experiment 1) or ambiguity (Experiment 2). Mixed-effects hurdle negative-binomial models separately examined search initiation and search length after initiation. In both experiments, the easy-arithmetic task reduced state anxiety, whereas the difficult-arithmetic task did not significantly increase it; therefore, the findings primarily concern the easy-arithmetic condition. Experimental condition, IU, and their interactions did not reliably predict search initiation. Under risk, the association between IU and search length differed between the easy- and difficult-arithmetic conditions; however, no between-condition differences in search length were significant at either relatively low or high IU. Under ambiguity, participants with relatively low IU in the easy-arithmetic condition searched more than those in the control condition, whereas no comparable difference emerged among participants with relatively high IU. These findings suggest that search initiation and continuation may reflect partly distinct processes and that IU may condition adolescents’ search persistence.