Experiencing Uncertainty: Organasational Lessons from the Clinic

Many of the features of the work environment reported to be associated with stress can be subsumed under the general heading of “ambiguity” which is experienced by the individual as “uncertainty”. As Folkman et al. have suggested, it is not the ambiguity of the situation so much as the person's perception of it that creates the feeling of uncertainty; whether this is experienced as stressful depends on the meaning that uncertainty has for the individual.