1. Chapter 4 Making Sense of Our World
Managing
Uncertainty

2. Activate Your Brain
Think of the last time something surprising happened in one of your relationships.
Rate the event as positive or negative:
1= Very negative, 5=Neutral, 10=Very Positive
Did the event increase your uncertainty about
Your partner/friend and how he or she feels?
Your own feelings?
The nature of the relationship?
Did the event decrease your uncertainty?

3. Defining Uncertainty Continuum (not simply high or low)
Uncertainty = inability to predict or explain someone’s attitudes and behaviors.
High Uncertainty—feeling unsure or insecure in ability to predict and explain someone’s behavior
Low Uncertainty—feeling confident in ability to predict and explain someone’s behavior
Continuum (not high or low)
Continuum (not simply high or low)

4. Types of Relational Uncertainty
Self Uncertainty: uncertainty about your own feelings and how involved you want to be in a relationship
Partner Uncertainty: uncertainty about your partner's feelings and intentions, including whether your partner reciprocates your feelings
Relationship Uncertainty:
uncertainty about the general
state of your relationship
Relational Turbulence: the transition from a casual to committed relationship is often marked by all three types of uncertainty as couples struggle with commitment and interdependence (goal interference). (replaces pp )

5. Motivation for Reducing Uncertainty
Berger & Calabrese: Inability to predict what another person will do is uncomfortable, so we want to reduce uncertainty (evolutionary advantage?)
Sunnafrank: Outcome values are predictions about how rewarding or unrewarding future interactions with a particular person would be.
high outcome value:
low outcome value:
When another person is perceived to have positive outcome value, we will exert the effort to reduce uncertainty
When negative outcome value, we won’t.

6. Personality Preferences for Certainty or Uncertainty
Some people are more comfortable with uncertainty than others.
Certainty-oriented people—Don’t like uncertainty (tend to ignore inconsistent information)
How might this orientation affect relationships?
Uncertainty-oriented people—not afraid of uncertainty (enjoy the opportunity to broaden knowledge)

7. Preference for Uncertainty over certainty
Brashers: Uncertainty Management Theory
Uncertainty can produce --
Negative emotions (anxiety)
Positive emotions (not knowing is better than knowing)
Neutral emotions (not important to us whether we know or not)
Evident in medical situations (some people don’t want to know they have an STI or cancer)
Evident in relationships (taboo topics)
Evident in cross-sex friendships

8. Theory of Motivated Information Management
Individuals are only motivated to manage uncertainty when there is a discrepancy between the information they have and the level of certainty they want.
If there is a discrepancy, individuals decide whether and how to seek information based on:
the outcome expectancy (positive or negative)
the efficacy assessment (whether they think they will be able to gather the information for which they are searching and then cope with it)

9. Theory of Motivated Information Management (p. 84)
Seeker
Outcome
Expectancies
Uncertainty
Discrepancy
Anxiety
Information
Management Strategy
Provider
Efficacy
Assessments
Outcome
Expectancies
Information
Management
Efficacy
Assessments

10. Strategies for Reducing Uncertainty
Berger (originally for strangers)
Passive: unobtrusive observation
Active: using third parties or manipulating the environment
Interactive: direct communication
questions, self-disclosure, nonverbal signals
Hitch Bar Scene
Give examples of how these could be used in established relationships.
As uncertainty decreases, attraction (liking) usually increases.
When would attraction or liking not increase?

11. More Strategies Baxter & Wilmot Secret Tests Asking third party tests
Directness tests (22%)
Triangle tests (34%)
Fidelity tests
Jealousy tests
Separation tests (friend with romantic potential)
Endurance tests (33%) (reward/cost limits)
Public presentation tests (reaction to relationship label)
Indirect suggestion tests (friend with romantic potential)
Most respondents report using the indirect strategies (esp. early in rel. & rels. with rom. potential); what about friends with benefits?

12. Does More Information Always Reduce Uncertainty?
Behaviors that increase uncertainty
Competing relationships
Unexplained loss of contact or closeness
Sexual behavior
Deception
Change in Personality/Values
Betraying Confidence
Could these events actually reduce uncertainty?

13. Expectancy Violations Theory
(Began with Burgoon’s work on violations of personal space)
Over time, people build expectations for how people (in general and well known others) should behave
Predictive Expectancies: what people expect in a given situation based on what normally occurs with that person and/or in that relationship
Prescriptive expectancies: what people expect based on general norms and rules of appropriateness

14. Expectancies are influenced by three factors
Communicator Characteristics
Relationship Characteristics
Context (situation and culture)
Responses to violations are influenced by two factors
Positive or negative interpretation: unexpected behavior is perceived to be better or worse than the expected behavior
Rewardingness of violator: overall value that a person has in terms of attributes such as attractiveness or status.
Who should follow social norms?
(non-rewarding communicators)

15. Types of Expectancy Violations in Close Relationships
Criticism or accusation
Relationship escalation
Relationship de-escalation
Uncharacteristic relational behav.
Uncharacteristic social behavior
Transgressions
Acts of devotion
Acts of disregard
Gestures of inclusion
Give examples of how any of these could increase uncertainty
and be evaluated as positive or negative.
Give examples of how any of these could increase uncertainty
and be evaluated as positive or negative.

16. Possible artifact themes
Reflect on one of your previous or current relationships (friend or romantic).
List the events or behaviors that increased your uncertainty.
Which were positive and which were negative?
How did you reduce your uncertainty (strategy?)
Or how did the event itself make you more certain about the person’s goals, intentions, personality traits, values, etc.
Did you stay in the relationship? Leave the relationship? Redefine it?