Intolerance of ambiguity among psychologists: A comment on maier and lavrakas

Maier and Lavrakas (“Attitudes Toward Women, Personality Rigidity, and Idealized Physique Preferences in Males,” Sex Roles, 1984, 11(5/6), 425–433) claim to have shown that males with a rigid personality structure seek an idealized muscular physique. It is pointed out that their measure of rigidity (the F scale) is based on an oversimplified and extensively disconfirmed theory, which is itself intolerant of ambiguity. Continued acceptance of the theory is also therefore intolerant of ambiguity. It is proposed that the correct interpretation of the Maier and Lavrakas findings should have been that it is old-fashioned to idealize a muscular physique.     

Intolerance of ambiguity and socio-politico ideology: A multidimensional analysis

This study tested the relative plausibility of three, main theories and/or hypotheses concerning the relationship between intolerance of ambiguity and socio-politico ideology: (a) authoritarian personality theory, (b) the extremism hypothesis and (c) the context hypothesis. The sample consisted of 195 Swedish high school students randomly selected from five different high schools from greater Stockholm in the spring of 1974. Separate factor analyses of the Budner Intolerance of Ambiguity Scale and the S4 Conservatism Scale generated seven factors of ambiguity intolerance and five factors of socio-politico ideology, Scattergram, correlation and trend analyses disclosed a number of statistically significant relationships between the various dimensions of ambiguity intolerance and socio-politico ideology. The main trend of the results tended to confirm authoritarian personality theory concerning the relationship between intolerance of ambiguity and racism or ethnic prejudice. Furthermore, some support was found for the context hypothesis, with regards to the relationship between general intolerance of ambiguity and general conservatism, among other things. No support could be found for the extremism hypothesis.     

Intolerance for approach of ambiguity in social anxiety disorder

Previous research has utilised the approach–avoidance task (AAT) to measure approach and avoidance action tendencies in socially anxious individuals. “Neutral” social stimuli may be perceived as ambiguous and hence threatening to socially anxious individuals, however it is unclear whether this results in difficulty approaching ambiguous (“neutral”) versus unambiguous threat (e.g. disgust) faces (i.e. intolerance of ambiguity). Thirty participants with social anxiety disorder (SADs) and 29 non-anxious controls completed an implicit AAT in which they were instructed to approach or avoid neutral and disgust faces (i.e. pull or push a joystick) based on colour of the picture border. Results indicated that SADs demonstrated greater difficulty approaching neutral relative to disgust faces. Moreover, intolerance for approach of ambiguity predicted social anxiety severity while controlling for the effects of trait anxiety and depression. Our results provide further support for the role of intolerance of ambiguity in SAD.     

Intolerance of ambiguity as a factor in the appreciation of humour

The relevance of the concept ‘Intolerance of Ambiguity’ within the field of humour has been investigated. It is predicted that intolerant people prefer jokes whose incongruity is solvable whilst rejecting the non-solvable nonsense jokes. Subjects were 134 male students who were asked to complete questionnaires and to rate 120 jokes according to the criteria ‘Funniness’ and ‘Rejection’. Both hypotheses were confirmed by comparison of extreme groups as well as in correlations using the whole sample. Additionally, the predictive value of related variables such as Rigidity, Dogmatism and Conservatism was assessed.     

Defining the cortical visual systems: "what", "where", and "how"

The visual system historically has been defined as consisting of at least two broad subsystems subserving object and spatial vision. These visual processing streams have been organized both structurally as two distinct pathways in the brain, and functionally for the types of tasks that they mediate. The classic definition by Ungerleider and Mishkin labeled a ventral "what" stream to process object information and a dorsal "where" stream to process spatial information. More recently, Goodale and Milner redefined the two visual systems with a focus on the different ways in which visual information is transformed for different goals. They relabeled the dorsal stream as a "how" system for transforming visual information using an egocentric frame of reference in preparation for direct action. This paper reviews recent research from psychophysics, neurophysiology, neuropsychology and neuroimaging to define the roles of the ventral and dorsal visual processing streams. We discuss a possible solution that allows for both "where" and "how" systems that are functionally and structurally organized within the posterior parietal lobe.     

论中国佛教的“心”、“性”概念与“心性问题”

由于佛教各宗各派对于“心”与“性”的理解各别，所持的理论立场也互不相同，因此对心性的阐述便呈现出非常复杂的形态。本文既对心”、“性”两个范畴的含义进行了诠释，又对佛教心性论所涉及的主要问题作出了归纳。     

Idiopathic Environmental Intolerance: A Treatment Model

Idiopathic environmental intolerance (IEI) refers to a health condition characterized by the presence of multiple symptoms in different organ systems in response to a variety of environmental cues, such as chemical exposures, electromagnetic radiation, infrasound from windmill farms, (parts of) buildings, foods, etc. Typically, the symptoms arise in response to triggers and at dosages that do not cause symptoms in the majority of people, and no clear link with any physiological dysfunction can be found. The condition varies in a dimensional way from very mild, for which no medical help is sought, to very disabling, compromising normal life. The condition is controversial, but several indications strongly suggest that the symptoms result from nocebo mechanisms. Currently, different psychological treatments are explored, but they are generally not based on a clear understanding of the aetiopathological mechanisms and the treatment effects are not well documented. In the present paper, we describe a treatment protocol based on a comprehensive explanatory model of IEI. The goal is to contribute to standardized, mechanism-based treatments as a basis for more systematic treatment studies.     

Reliability of Budner's intolerance of ambiguity scale in medical students.

Intolerance of ambiguity is the perception of ambiguous situations as threatening. It has often been measured using Budner's 1962 intolerance of ambiguity scale in studies of medical students and physicians. To examine the test-retest reliability of the scale among that population, we administered it to all 171 entering medical students at one medical school immediately prior to beginning classes and readministered it to them six to nine weeks later with an 81% follow-up rate. The Pearson correlation between the first and second administrations was .64, showing moderate reliability during this stressful period in medical socialization. The internal reliability of the scale remained constant; the alpha was .64 at the first administration and .63 at follow-up. These data indicate moderate reliability of Budner's intolerance of ambiguity scale when respondents are medical students.     

A note on "MMPI scale development methodology"

Clopton's recent article (1978) in JPA calls attention to methodological problems in the construction of special inventories from the MMPI pool, but overlooks the major problem. It stems from the theoretical correlation between psychopathology and the construct to be measured by the special inventory. This contamination renders the usual validity demonstration questionable. It is pointed out that there is a good number of special inventories that are not subject to the methodological problems noted by Clopton.     

A metacognitive approach to "implicit" and "explicit" evaluations: comment on Gawronski and Bodenhausen (2006)

A metacognitive model (MCM) is presented to describe how automatic (implicit) and deliberative (explicit) measures of attitudes respond to change attempts. The model assumes that contemporary implicit measures tap quick evaluative associations, whereas explicit measures also consider the perceived validity of these associations (and other factors). Change in explicit measures is greater than implicit measures when new evaluative associations are formed and old associations are rejected. Implicit measure change is greater than explicit when newly formed evaluative associations are rejected. When implicit and explicit evaluations conflict, implicit ambivalence can occur. The authors relate the MCM to the associative-propositional evaluation model and explain how the MCM builds on the attitude strength assumptions of the elaboration likelihood model of persuasion.