Search

Building on the Moral Foundations Theory and findings regarding the linkage of values, convictions and beliefs, the aim of the study was to compare people displaying various constellations of moral foundations regarding their tolerance of ambiguity, fear of COVID-19 (FCV), endorsement of COVID-19 conspiracy theories and the extent to which they believed in the effectiveness of five COVID-19 preventive measures. This study was self-report- and questionnaire-based (N = 212), performed on the general public (aged from 18 to 65). Moral foundations clustered into four groups: Individualizing, Binding, Anti-Individualizing and Generally Moral. The endorsement of Individualizing values (Harm/Care, Fairness/Reciprocity) was linked to higher FCV and higher rating of the effectiveness of COVID-19 preventive measures. Endorsing Binding values (Ingroup/Loyalty, Authority/Respect and Purity/Sanctity) was related to lower tolerance of ambiguity and displaying higher conspiracy beliefs. Findings are discussed in the light of their meaning of values for socially responsible behaviour during a pandemic. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research into place attachment has increased significantly in recent years, although the main limitations in this area continue to be terminological and conceptual ambiguity and empirical operationalization. These limitations are seriously hampering progress in this field. Consequently, to overcome these obstacles place attachment has been defined and operationalized in terms of affection, identity, dependence, social ties, integration, preference, restorative capacity, quality of place, etc. Often these measurements do not correspond to the definition proposed by authors themselves. Researchers in this field must therefore join forces to halt this proliferation of proposals and attempt to reach a minimum consensus to enable the integration of results obtained in different studies. This study reviews the measures used most often by different authors and proposes a method for reaching a consensus based on the use of these attachment measures and also on the theoretical model proposed by Scannel and Gifford (2010). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of this paper is to discuss the limitations of evolutionary explanations of female mating strategies, and to present an alternative theory that accounts for the ambiguity of mating strategies throughout a woman's life. While mating strategies are considered to be discrete entities, it is clear that women's decision making in everyday life is based on mutually fused, ambiguous courses of actions. The current perspective addresses the commonality of female mating experiences while highlighting the uniqueness of each woman's mating strategy and outlines a multi-level perspective on strategies of women's reproductive decision making. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Based on our approach to complex dynamic systems, ambiguity of heuristics is a necessary tool to deal with objective ambiguity and complexity of the real world. I discuss various aspects of ambivalence of heuristics aimed to (a) decrease and (b) increase uncertainty in complex social worlds. Different kinds of asymmetry, paradoxes and contradictions in the creation and use of heuristics for diagnosis, prognosis, and control in social worlds are considered in such socially meaningful areas as stimulation and inhibition of others' development, translation of knowledge and masteries vs. keeping secrecy and ignorance, evaluation of humans' potential to create novelty, etc. Ambiguity of developmental paths related to objective uncertainty of real world, and to ambiguity of the heuristics used in main human activities is discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Human semiotic constructions operate at the boundary of time where they serve both a representational function of showing the world as it is, and a presentational function of what could be in the next moment. Ambivalence is used to highlight the constant tension between what is and what could be, which is what drives meaning-making and thereby to point out that what we usually think of as having only two dimensions, e.g., (1) the world as it is now → (2) the world as it is at the 'new' now, is actually containing at least three aspects, e.g., (1) the world as it is now ← → (2) the "what could be" of the future → (3) and the world as it is at the 'new' now. Within this triadic frame, humans are constantly facing the ambiguity of their own meaning worlds, and the question becomes how to accept this ambiguity in our own meaning or avoid it to the degree that we can. In the face of our own ambiguity humans invoke higher-order semiotic regulators that rearrange the relation of different meaning complexes in ways that either avoid ambiguity as much as possible by producing a near version of the same meaning, or others that can act to facilitate constructive elaboration of meaning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

It is intuitively felt that ambiguity plays a crucial role in human beings' everyday life and in psychologists' theoretical and applied work. However, ambiguity remains essentially non-problematised in psychological science since its foundation. This article analyses positivist and social constructionist perspectives on ambiguity in the context of their epistemological and ontological fundamental assumptions. The relational thesis of social constructionism is further analysed and it is argued that it constitutes a "weak thesis" concerning the relational constitution of human beings. In the second part, a dialogical alternative is elaborated. In this perspective, ambiguity is placed in the context of relationship and both are brought to an ontological ground. Therefore, it is argued, ambiguity is a fundamental property of human experience and plays a fundamental role in the constitution of (inter)subjective processes. The impact of this thesis on dialogical perspective on self is elaborated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]