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Background: The interval between adolescence and adulthood, 'emerging adulthood' (EA), lays the foundation for lifelong health and well‐being. To date, there exist little empirical data – particularly in the neurobiological domain – to establish markers of risk and resilience during the transition to adulthood. This gap in the literature is concerning given the numerous forms of psychiatric illness that emerge or worsen during this period. Methods: In this review, we focus on two strands of research with distinct importance for EA: reward sensitivity, and tolerance of ambiguity. We begin by placing these domains in a framework that considers the unique developmental goals of EA and then synthesize emerging neurobiological research on how these domains develop during EA. We then consider their role in common mental health problems that occur during this interval as well as how social support may moderate outcomes. Finally, we offer recommendations for advancing research to understand developmental process and outcomes in EA. Findings and conclusions: Few longitudinal studies specifically address emerging adult development and the milestones that characterize this interval. Data on neurobiological development are similarly sparse. Understanding neurobiological development during this window and its links to key adjustment outcomes is crucial for optimizing outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Non‐linear inversion of controlled source electromagnetic data is non‐unique. Inversion ambiguity and uncertainty grow with model complexity and limitations in sensitivity, for example when imaging deep targets. Uncertainties should be estimated. The best way to do that is by statistical inversion techniques. Because of the large number of parameters of 3D models, these methods are too costly for 3D applications. But neglecting or underestimating uncertainties often leads to erroneous interpretation and poor exploration decisions. The number of inversion parameters can be dramatically reduced while still being able to describe a complex 3D subsurface. To obtain that, I represent prior information by an input ensemble of geologically reasonable prior models. The model space is defined by the principal directions of this ensemble, where the inversion parameters are the coefficients of the different components. In this model space, inversion becomes much more efficient and can produce an updated ensemble of posterior models at the same computational cost as a controlled‐source electromagnetic inversion project using conventional non‐linear inversion techniques. I present examples where unique Gauss–Newton inversions lead to difficult interpretations and poor conclusions about hydrocarbon presence and saturation. The new approach provides a quantitative estimation of resistivity ambiguities and uncertainties leading to better interpretation and safer decisions. The examples use 2D synthetic controlled‐source electromagnetic data and 3D controlled‐source electromagnetic field data. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Decisions about one's health are often accompanied by uncertain outcomes, which may be either positively or negatively valenced. The presence of this uncertainty, which can range along a continuum from risk to ambiguity (i.e., decisions in which the outcome probabilities are known or unknown), can be perceived as threatening, and individuals tend to be averse to uncertain outcomes, attempting to avoid uncertainty when possible. We proposed that one way to reduce uncertainty aversion could be to provide opportunities to affirm one's core values, or "self‐affirmation." Prior research has suggested that self‐affirmation promotes health behavior by providing a buffer against potential threats to the self. However, the degree to which self‐affirmation affects decision making is still unclear. Across two studies, we tested the effects of a self‐affirmation manipulation on risk (Study 1) and ambiguity (Study 2) preferences for both potential gains and losses. In both studies, we found that, compared to the non‐affirmed group, affirmed individuals were more accepting of uncertainty when the decision involved potential gains, but not for potential losses. Furthermore, for risky decisions, the increased acceptance of uncertainty came at the expense of making choices consistent with the expected value, such that self‐affirmed individuals made more disadvantageous choices than non‐affirmed individuals. Our results suggest both benefits and costs of self‐affirmation in the context of risky choice, an important finding has given the many applications of self‐affirmation in behavioral decision‐making contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During exploration, young children often show an intuitive sensitivity to uncertainty, despite their strong tendency towards overconfidence in their explicit judgments. Here, we examine the development of children's explicit and implicit recognition of uncertainty using the same stimuli. We presented 4‐ and 5‐year‐olds with objects that varied in their amount of perceptual occlusion, and assessed their ability to distinguish among them using two types of measures. Experiment 1 used a traditional 3‐point confidence scale to examine children's explicit uncertainty judgments. We compared these confidence judgments before and after they observed disconfirming evidence, to assess the impact of this experience on their acknowledgement of uncertainty in later trials. Experiment 2 examined children's exploration preference as a measure of implicit sensitivity to uncertainty. Our results indicate that children intuitively recognize gaps in their knowledge, and that this implicit recognition may be leveraged to support their explicit judgments. Specifically, we found that children's baseline confidence judgments improved significantly following the presentation of disconfirming evidence. Furthermore, when asked to make exploration decisions about the same set of objects, children showed a spontaneous sensitivity to uncertainty, prior to any evidence. Taken together, these results suggest that children's exploration behavior may be used as an early developing measure of uncertainty control and raise the intriguing possibility that the experience of unexpected outcomes may play a role in the development of metacognition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The dynamic and changing healthcare environment requires educators to prepare nurse practitioner students with more than knowledge and skills. Healthcare providers need to be prepared with enhanced skills related to critical thinking and decision making. Metacognition training has been used by many disciplines within and outside of healthcare to prepare individuals to work in an environment that has volatility, uncertainty, complexity, ambiguity, and delayed feedback (VUCAD). This retrospective exploratory study uses computerized strategic management simulation (SMS) data to address the question: What parameters of metacognition do master's level nurse practitioner (NP) students excel versus underperform? Elements of Presentation: Presentation will include SMS parameters linked with the National Organization of Nurse Practitioner Faculties (NONPF) Core Competencies. In doing this, faculty can better assess students' individualized learning needs and tailor their academic education to address specific needs. Fifty‐nine master's level students completed SMS, measuring five unique parameters of metacognition (Crisis, Task, Strategy, People & Information Management). Students' mean and median scores were observed to be high range for crisis management; and moderate range for task management, strategy management, and people management. Conversely, mean and median scores were in the low range for information management. Knowledge gained from this study can be used for curriculum development and planning to ensure that the parameters of metacognition are demonstrated throughout the curriculum's content delivery, training exercises, and evaluation methods. Knowledge related to areas in which NP students score in the low range can be added to courses to assist students better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Influential theories posit that bodily responses are important for decision‐making under uncertainty. However, the evidence of the role of our ability to perceive subtle bodily changes (interoception) in decision‐making under uncertainty is mixed. These differences may arise from the fact that uncertainty, a part of daily decision‐making, can be fractionated into risk (known probabilities) and ambiguity (unknown probabilities). Here we examine the role of arousal and interoception in shaping risky and ambiguous decisions. We measured skin conductance responses and heart rate changes while participants (N = 40) made gambling decisions in the context of risky and ambiguous lotteries. Results reveal that the anticipation phase produced the largest arousal responses, suggesting that the anticipation is a major contributor to arousal during gambling behavior, regardless of the uncertainty type. Moreover, physiological responses were higher following positive outcomes than negative outcomes. We did not find any direct relation between interoceptive dimensions and the attitudes toward risk and ambiguity. However, in those with higher interoceptive accuracy, skin conductance responses differentiated between risk and ambiguity as well as between the gamble phases (decision, anticipation, and outcome). Together, our findings demonstrate that decision‐making under uncertainty is to some extent associated with individual differences in the ability both to generate and to perceive accurately subtle changes in bodily arousal during the decision‐making process. However, these changes seem to be moderately related to the type of uncertainty (risk or ambiguity). We demonstrate that decision‐making under uncertainty is associated with individual differences in the ability both to generate and perceive accurately subtle changes in bodily arousal during the decision‐making process. However, we did not find any direct relationship between interoceptive dimensions and attitudes (seeking/avoidance) toward risk and ambiguity. We also complement previous evidence that the largest arousal responses occurred during the anticipation phases, compared with the responses produced during the decision and the outcome phase. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Medical information is often conflicting and consequently perceived as ambiguous. There are individual differences both in how much people perceive ambiguity and in their tolerance for such ambiguity. Little is known about how these constructs are related to each other and with other beliefs. Objective: To examine the association between (a) perceived medical ambiguity, (b) tolerance for medical ambiguity and (c) their associations with various medical and cancer‐specific judgement and decision‐making correlates. Method and Participants: We conducted secondary data analyses using the cross‐sectional, nationally representative Health Information National Trends Survey 4, Cycle 4 (n = 3,433, 51.0% female, Mage = 46.5). Analyses statistically controlled for age, sex, race, education and health‐care coverage. Main variables studied: Perceived medical ambiguity, tolerance for medical ambiguity, cancer perceptions, health‐care experiences and preferences, and information‐seeking styles and beliefs. Results: Perceived medical ambiguity and tolerance for medical ambiguity were statistically independent. Higher perceived ambiguity was associated with lower perceived cancer preventability, lower reliance on doctors, lower perceived health and information‐seeking self‐efficacy, lower perceived quality of the cancer information‐seeking process, and greater cancer information avoidance. Lower tolerance for ambiguity was associated with lower cancer worry, lower trust in doctors, lower likelihood of seeking health information, and lower engagement in medical research. Discussion and Conclusions: Perceived medical ambiguity and tolerance for medical ambiguity seem to be distinct constructs. Findings have implications for how people make medical decisions when they perceive and prefer to avoid conflicting medical information. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: The COVID‐19 has posed a wide range of urgent questions: about the disease, testing, immunity, treatments, and outcomes. Extreme situations, such as pandemics, call for exceptional measures. However, this threatens the production and application of evidence. Methods: This article applies standard categories in epistemology to analyse the pandemic in terms of four kinds of uncertainty: Risk, Fundamental uncertainty, Ignorance, and Ambiguity. Results: Mapping the uncertainties of the pandemic onto the four types of uncertainty directs evidence production towards specific tasks in order to address the challenges of the pandemic: Eliminating ambiguity, being alert to the unknown, and gathering data to estimate risks are crucial to preserve evidence and save lives. Conclusion: In order to avoid fake facts and to provide sustainable solutions, we need to pay attention to the various kinds of uncertainty. Producing high‐quality evidence is the solution, not the problem. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Past research indicates that being religious is frequently motivated by the need to avoid uncertainty and associated with prejudice against value‐violating groups. The present research clarifies these previous findings and shows for the first time a causal link between a sense of uncertainty and group attitudes through religiosity and the perception of the target group's mindset. Study 1 demonstrates that belief in God is associated with uncertainty avoidance and increases prejudice against value‐violating groups, but simultaneously increases positive attitudes towards value‐consistent groups. Study 2 demonstrates experimentally that a sense of uncertainty shapes intergroup attitudes when the relationship is mediated through the belief in God and the perception that a target group actually violated perceivers' values. The results corroborate and broaden previous findings on religiosity, ambiguity avoidance, and prejudice and, for the first time, show a causal link between a sense of uncertainty and attitudes towards value‐violating and value‐consistent groups. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Ambiguity may lead us to insert abstractions into our experience that create a greater number of unanticipated, unintended consequences. When people move closer to the flux of ambiguity, they work to make sense of it. High reliability organizations react to ambiguity by increasing it momentarily. To increase ambiguity is to grasp more of the situation, to refrain from simplifications, and to strive for a workable level of ambiguity. This argument is developed through a focus on connotations of ambiguity, assumptions for organizing around ambiguity, and implications for practice. To grasp ambiguity is to adopt an attitude of wisdom. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we propose that performance under uncertainty and ambiguity is enabled by a two-pronged set of practices enacted by leaders and frontline workers. These contextualized practices fuel performance by enabling teams and organizations to both discern, interpret and make sense of important discrepancies as situations unfold (what we refer to as anomalizing), and to develop a richer understanding of a situation (what we call proactive leader sensemaking). Together, these situation-specific practices contextualize engagement and promote capabilities to contingently tailor actions to unfolding conditions. We test our hypotheses using data gathered from a sample of wildland firefighters and find strong support for our theorizing. We also identify a set of additional group and situational conditions that provide a more nuanced understanding of factors that contribute to reliable performance under dynamic uncertainty. Together, the findings provide quantitative evidence for the micro-foundations of effective performance in uncertain contexts. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This contribution attempts to explore the use of a variety of literary sources as aids or 'prompts' to understanding those offenders and offender-patients whose mental states often raise considerable anxieties in those charged with their management. The word 'prompt' is borrowed from the work of my friend, the late doctor Murray Cox, and his co-worker Alice Theilgaard in their seminal work Shakespeare as Prompter (1994). The author of the present article hopes that its content will enable readers to focus more clearly on why we sometimes fail our offenders and offender-patients; in particular, through the mechanism of denial. The use of dramatic presentation when proffered with a unique blend of force and sensitivity can permit us to view puzzlement and horror from a safe distance and, at the same time, encourage us to increase our empathic understanding and professional practice. Most of the examples cited are brief allusions but, because her history is so compellingly applicable to our concerns in the present contribution, the 'case' of Lady Macbeth is considered in more detail. Finally, I would note some very wise words by Cox and Theilgaard (1994) in a caveat note to the reader: 'Should the focus on therapy ever become occluded by preoccupation with poetic association, clinical skills would be diminished, distraction ensue and therapeutic contact deteriorate' (not numbered). In the material that follows readers should bear such a cautionary note in mind. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article presents an essay that focuses on Carl Schmitt's "Theory of the Partisan." It stresses the relationship between Schmitt's interest in guerilla warfare and his concerns with classic interstate war. It highlights the failure of Schmitt to subsume the complexities and contradictions of his own diagnosis into a determinate stance as well as his failure to resolve the ambiguity and uncertainty following the closure of the era of interstate war. It cites the role of Schmitt in reviving the theme of political theology.

Most risk assessments assume uncertainty may be decomposed into variability and incertitude. Language is often overlooked as a source of uncertainty, but linguistic uncertainty may be pervasive in workshops, committees, and other face-to-face language-based settings where it can result in misunderstanding and arbitrary disagreement. Here we present examples of linguistic uncertainty drawn from qualitative risk analysis undertaken in stakeholder workshops and describe how the uncertainties were treated. We used a process of iterative re-assessment of likelihoods and consequences, interspersed with facilitated discussion, to assist in the reduction of language-based uncertainty. The effects of this process were evident as changes in the level of agreement among groups of assessors in the ranking of hazards. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Parental deployment has substantial effects on the family system, among them ambiguity and uncertainty. Youth in military families are especially affected by parental deployment because their coping repertoire is only just developing; the requirements of deployment become additive to normal adolescent developmental demands. Focus groups were used to inquire about uncertainty, loss, resilience, and adjustment among youth aged 12–18 that had a parent deployed, most often to a war zone. The nature of uncertainty and ambiguous loss was explored. Response themes included overall perceptions of uncertainty and loss, boundary ambiguity, changes in mental health, and relationship conflict. These accounts suggest that ambiguous loss is a useful concept for understanding the experiences of these youth and for structuring prevention and intervention efforts.http://bkstrm1.epnet.com:8080/ai/images/save.gifSave [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A powerful application of decision theory to engineering problems often has failed: The uncertainty underlying is too complex to be modelled adequately by a (precise) probability distribution. The present paper shows how recent generalizations of the usual calculus of probability can be utilized to deal powerfully with complex uncertainty in decision problems. Basic notions of the resulting theory of generalized expected loss and generalized risk are developed and discussed. In addition to this, also a general applicable algorithm is proposed to calculate optimal decision functions by linear programming. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Many students find analysis of ethical dilemmas difficult due to the ambiguity and uncertainty they see in these situations. Games have been developed and are used in a wide variety of educational experiences. An ethics game entitled tights: Helter Skelter' has been used with nursing students in their first course focused on ethics and nursing. This game enhances their ability to tolerate high level of uncertainty while they analyse ethical dilemmas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]