The role of existential experience in processing uncertainty
Uncertainty is an objective feature of the modern world. The uncertainty has acquired a special meaning recently in connection with the pandemic, which has brought an unprecedented level of anxiety and actualized existential givens. According to research, the main tool in the ability to accept the ambiguity of the world and discover new opportunities in the face of uncertainty is meaning. Existential experience, expressed in processing existential givens of death, freedom, loneliness and meaning, deeply affecting a person, becomes a source of personal changes and carries out value-semantic regulation of a person’s entire life. The purpose of the study is to analyze the role of existential experience in processing uncertainty. Written interviews of 108 subjects aged 25-45, which took place during the second wave of coronavirus in Moscow, were studied for the presence of existential issues. The types of processing existential experience were singled out; an empirical analysis of the relationship between the aspects of processing existential experience and indicators of tolerance for ambiguity, hardiness, trait anxiety, subjective happiness and basic hope were carried out. According to the results, emotional processing of existential experience is positively associated with greater existential fulfillment. Together with presence of personal resources it is positively associated with greater hardiness and low level of trait anxiety. Tolerance to ambiguity positively correlates with subjective happiness in respondents with an emotional type of processing existential experience. An assumption is made that an emotional type of processing existential experience contributes to personal maturity, an increase in basic hope and the acquisition of a creative position in relation to life, which is expressed not only in successful coping with anxiety, but also in the pleasure of creative transformation of uncertainty.