Indecisiveness and the interpretation of ambiguous situations

Indecisiveness has been argued to be associated with process characteristics of decision making, such as decision latency, required amount of information, and reluctance to decide. In this study, the possible effect of indecisiveness on the content of decisions was explored. Fifty female undergraduate students completed a scale measuring indecisiveness and subsequently evaluated various situation descriptions either as concerning or not concerning. Scores on the Indecisiveness Scale correlated with the number of ambiguous situations that were labeled as concerning. This association was maintained after controlling for anxiety, depression, worry-proneness, and intolerance of uncertainty. Apparently, indecisiveness fosters worst case scenario reasoning, in that indecisive individuals tend to interpret ambiguous situations more readily as threatening. (c) 2005 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.