Uncertainty for better and worse

Uncertainty is ubiquitous. Without it, there would never be an occasion to learn or the opportunity to discover potentially beneficial new states or behaviors and there would be no surprising threats. We review recent studies examining the nature and behavioral consequences of uncertainty, placing them into the context of risk-averse and risk-seeking choices. We discuss the downsides of uncertainty, including sloth in decision-making and quantifications of risk that distort the probabilities of the worse outcomes; the upsides of uncertainty, including various notions about exploration; and finally discuss how these come together, in combinations of neophilia and neophobia, and in mixed-motive games. We conclude with some testable hypotheses.