A comparison between the effect of emotional certainty and uncertainty of coping strategies

It was proposed that any emotion associated with a feeling of certainty would promote problem-focused coping, whereas any emotion associated with a feeling of uncertainty would lead to more emotion-focused coping. An experiment with 180 undergraduate students and based on appraisal questionnaires (Smith & Ellsworth, 1985) provided confirmation for the proposal by showing that participants in emotional states of uncertainty were more favorably disposed towards problem-focused coping than they were in states of emotional certainty; whereas participants in states of emotional certainty engaged in more emotion-focused coping than in states of uncertainty emotional in a judgment context.