Abstract

The Certainty Trap introduced by Redstone reminds us that certainty/uncertainty are endemic to the human condition and merit sustained social science attention. This comment begins with seven preliminary considerations, such as whether the context is objective or subjective and the variety of words involved. Next we summarize some theoretical and empirical lines of attack. The theoretical approaches include three theories of varying type, all involving both certainty/uncertainty and happiness, signaling a link between certainty/uncertainty and happiness. The empirical approaches include both testing theoretical predictions and assembling an archive of data on certainty/uncertainty, including numerical versions of response categories. We end with the possibility that a large and lifelong field of opportunities to assess certainty/uncertainty may build both cognitive and noncognitive skills, protecting against the Certainty Trap.