The Midterm Murkiness: How Did You Cope With This Week’s Uncertainty?
The climate leading up to the U.S. midterms was charged, emotional, and uncertain.
There was uncertainty about the process.
There was uncertainty about the outcome.
There was uncertainty from both sides of the aisle and both sides of the border.
There was the swirl of the ambient economic uncertainty as the backdrop.
People were bracing themselves, as you would just before receiving a smack to the head, peering out between fingers as you shield your face.
The anticipation was palpable. There was cautious optimism, veiled hope, and held breath, along with a lot of sweaty palms.
This was due to the risk of unfavorable outcomes.
In Berker et al’s famous 2016 study they found that people were more stressed when they had a 50% chance of getting an electric shock vs. a 100% chance. In other words, not knowing something bad was going to happen was even worse than knowing it definitely would. Uncertainty is unnerving.
In the midterms, the “outcome uncertainty” felt more like risk; there were forecasters and analysts offering various probabilities for who would end up in control of the House and Senate. But “risk” is different than “uncertainty”. Risk involves probability – it is outcomes with knowable probabilities, whereas “uncertainty” is when probability can’t be assigned.
As uncertain as the outcomes were, the “process uncertainty” was even more ambiguous, and therefore more uncertain: Would federal agents appear at the polls? Would ballots be received or sidelined? Would the results be accepted?
So, when the results were revealed surely there was a huge sigh of relief?
Not so fast.
First, it depended on what outcome you were hoping for and for many, the Democrats taking both the House and Senate, was exactly the outcome they were hoping for.
Hope and fear are related, not-so-distant cousins. They are both “prospect-based” emotions – emotions that are felt before the outcome: You hope for the best and you fear the worst.
Second, once the results were in, new uncertainty was introduced. What will the process of reclaiming the House and Senate be like? Will it be smooth and democratic? Or will it be met with the same resistance experienced during the 2020 election? Will this actually change anything?
We can hope it will be smooth. Hope exists within uncertainty. Hope persists when an outcome is possible, even when it’s not probable or certain. So, the relief may have felt like more of a temporary exhale, while bracing for the next smack of uncertainty.
The American Psychological Association conducted a Stress in America Survey on October 22, just ahead of the midterms and found that stress was indeed high.
The good news: It also found that 68% of respondents reported becoming accustomed to living with uncertainty.
Returning to the lessons learned from the electric shocks experiment, what does this look like in our workplaces?
Getting laid off is stressful, but it may not be as stressful as staying in a highly uncertain situation, wondering and waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Kate Sweeny found that most people are ill-equipped to deal with uncertainty, specifically the waiting. We have many coping strategies for when something bad actually happens, but not the same toolkit for waiting to learn our fate.
The old saying, “the only thing we can count on is change” is true, and that means that the uncertainty that accompanies change isn’t going away. It means that we have to get better at it! Get better at living with uncertainty; get better at not-knowing.
After studying uncertainty during two of the most uncertain times in our history, I discovered that we truly are more resilient than we know. We are, in fact, getting better at living with uncertainty. While there are still many unknowns ahead of us, things just got a little less uncertain which can allow us to be optimistic about the future.
I hope you agree.
