The Relationship Between Individual Tolerance For Uncertainty And Stress And Aggression

From the perspective of evolutionary psychology,aggression is a survival mechanism developed by humans over a long period of evolution.However,with the development and progress of human society,aggression is no longer the only means to solve problems.Nowadays,aggression not only harms individuals’ physical and mental health but also causes serious social disorder.Therefore,it is of great significance to explore the mechanisms of occurrence and interventions of aggression.According to the Social Information Processing Model(SIP),the individual’s interpretation of situational cues is an important reason for the occurrence of aggression.The inability to tolerate uncertainty manifests as a cognitive bias towards uncertain information,which has a significant impact on individuals’ aggression.Individuals who cannot tolerate higher levels of uncertainty are more likely to perceive ambiguous information as threatening stimuli and are therefore more likely to produce aggression.Additionally,according to the CognitiveInterpersonal Model of Stress and SIP model,the occurrence of aggression involves an evaluation process of threat stimuli,which is also a process of forming individual perceived stress.Therefore,intolerance of uncertainty may also affect aggression through perceived stress.However,the following pressing questions remain regarding the current research status of the relationship between the three:Firstly,although some studies have examined the two-by-two static relationship between intolerance of uncertainty,perceived stress,and aggression,no study has examined whether perceived stress mediates the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty and aggression.Secondly,both perceived stress and aggression of individuals change with environmental changes,but previous studies have mostly been limited to cross-sectional research and have not explored the longitudinal relationship among intolerance of uncertainty,perceived stress,and aggression.Furthermore,most of the interventions for aggression in individuals with high intolerance of uncertainty have focused on manipulating uncertain threats,and no studies have examined whether the certainty of the environment and stimuli have an impact on individuals with high intolerance of uncertainty.Therefore,based on the lack of existing research,this study specifically conducted the following three sub-studies:(1)Study 1 used a questionnaire survey to examine the crosssectional relationship among intolerance of uncertainty,perceived stress,and aggression,and the mediating role played by perceived stress.(2)Study 2 examined the longitudinal trajectories of perceived stress and aggression in college freshmen by first employing latent growth modeling in a vague-to-certain natural scenario;then further examined the longitudinal relationships among intolerance of uncertainty,perceived stress,and aggression,and examined the longitudinal mediating role of perceived stress by constructing a mediated latent growth model.(3)Study 3 used a behavioral experiment to examine the differences in changes in perceived stress and aggression of individuals with high intolerance of uncertainty in situations with different levels of structure.Based on the above three sub-studies,the following research findings were obtained:(1)In Study 1,perceived stress played a significant mediating role between intolerance of uncertainty and aggression.(2)In Study 2,firstly,the perceived stress and aggression of college freshmen showed a decreasing trend.Secondly,intolerance of uncertainty significantly predicted the intercept and slope of perceived stress and aggression.Finally,there was a covariate relationship between perceived stress and aggression and a longitudinal mediating effect of perceived stress between intolerance of uncertainty and aggression.(3)In Study 3,both perceived stress and aggression were significantly lower in the high structured task group than in the low structured task group.This article systematically explores the relationship between intolerance of uncertainty,perceived stress,and aggression from different perspectives using a combination of cross-sectional,longitudinal,and behavioral experiments.The research results provide important theoretical and empirical support for understanding the occurrence mechanism of aggression and preventive measures.