There is quite a bit of great social science research on uncertainty management (Brashears, Babrow, Gudykunst, Dunwoody), but I can't seem to find any validated scales that measure perceived uncertainty, uncertainty management, and decision making.
Decisional conflict scale (O'Connor) is the one I am using now. Are there other scales I should look at?
Thank you, RG community! Your responses are truly invaluable!
look up tolerance for ambiguity scales; it isnt the same thing, but close.
Larry,
Thank you. My only concern for tolerance for ambiguity is that this line of research, if I know and interpret it correctly, aims at uncertainty reduction. However, I fin uncertainty management (Barrow, Brashers) approach more comprehensive.
Ali,
Duncan's paper is a great find. Thank you! I did not know about it.
Yulia
I think the following literature can be really relevant for you:
Clampitt, P. G., Williams, M. L., & Korenak, A. (2000, June). Managing organizational uncertainty: Conceptualization and measurement. In international, communication association conference. San Diego (CA).
http://imetacomm.com/wp-content/themes/Structure%20Premium%20White/organic_structure_white/downloads/Metacomm_Conceptualizations.pdf
I attached the link to read the article. They developed the Personal Uncertainty Scale and the Work Environment Uncertainty Scale. I think you could find them useful.
A scale that measures the attitude toward uncertainty is the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale originally published by Freeston et al. (1994). You can find a short form. See Carleton, Norton, Asmundson (2007): Fearing the unknown: a short version of the Intolerance of Uncertainty Scale.
Attitudes toward ambiguity and attitudes toward uncertainty are correlated but not the same. See Grenier (2005) Intolerance of Uncertainty and Intolerance of Ambiguity: Similarities and differences.
Perhaps the Arrow-Pratt measure of risk aversion may help you? Risk and uncertainty are not the same (the notion of risk assumes probabilities to be known, while under uncertainty not even probabilities are known), but depending on the question you pursue, the difference between risk and uncertainty might not be relevant.
Florian,
Thank you. While your comments about risk and uncertainty is well-taken, some situations with known risk still remain highly uncertain. The closer the probability for two events to 50%, the higher the uncertainty. For example, a probability of being assigned to a placebo or treatment group for clinical trials is with two conditions is exactly 50%. However, I would argue, decision-making would be based on the management of uncertainty rather than evaluation of risks.
Yulia
There is a discussion about uncertainty in public decision context, where uncertainty is defined in different levels like risk, uncertainty or ignorancy
see more in
Mirakyan A, De Guio R (2015) Modelling and uncertainties in integrated energy planning. Renewable and
Sustainable Energy Reviews 46 (0):62-69. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.rser.2015.02.028
Julia, perhaps this paper from our lab will be interesting for your question about uncertainty
Catena A, Perales JC, Megías A, Cándido A, Jara E, Maldonado A (2012) The Brain Network of Expectancy and Uncertainty Processing. PLoS ONE 7(7): e40252. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0040252
Antonio
Hi,
you might find some discussion and definitions about dimensions and categories of uncertainties also in context of sozial science.
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1364032115001161
Good luck!
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