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Communicating scientific uncertainty about public health threats is ethically desirable but challenging due to its tendency to promote avoidance of choice options with unknown probabilities-a phenomenon known as "ambiguity aversion." This study examined this phenomenon's potential magnitude, its responses to different communication strategies, and its mechanisms. In a factorial experiment, 2701 adult laypersons in Spain read one of three versions of a hypothetical newspaper article describing a pandemic vaccine-preventable disease (VPD), but varying in scientific uncertainty about VPD risk and vaccine effectiveness: No-Uncertainty, Uncertainty, and Normalized-Uncertainty (emphasizing its expected nature). Vaccination intentions were lower for the Uncertainty and Normalized-Uncertainty groups compared to the No-Uncertainty group, consistent with ambiguity aversion; Uncertainty and Normalized-Uncertainty groups did not differ. Ambiguity-averse responses were moderated by health literacy and mediated by perceptions of vaccine effectiveness, VPD likelihood, and VPD severity. Communicating scientific uncertainty about public health threats warrants caution and further research to elucidate its outcomes, mechanisms, and management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

When making decisions in everyday life, we often have to choose between uncertain outcomes. Economic studies have demonstrated that healthy people tend to prefer options with known probabilities (risk) than those with unknown probabilities (ambiguity), which is referred to as "ambiguity aversion." However, it remains unclear how patients with schizophrenia behave under ambiguity, despite growing evidence of their altered decision-making under uncertainty. In this study, combining economic tools and functional magnetic resonance imaging (fMRI), we assessed the attitudes toward risk/ambiguity and investigated the neural correlates during decision-making under risk/ambiguity in schizophrenia. Although no significant difference in attitudes under risk was observed, patients with schizophrenia chose ambiguity significantly more often than the healthy controls. Attitudes under risk and ambiguity did not correlate across patients with schizophrenia. Furthermore, unlike in the healthy controls, activation of the left lateral orbitofrontal cortex was not increased during decision-making under ambiguity compared to under risk in schizophrenia. These results suggest that ambiguity aversion, a well-established subjective bias, is attenuated in patients with schizophrenia, highlighting the need to distinguish between risk and ambiguity when assessing decision-making under these situations. Our findings, comprising important clinical implications, contribute to improved understanding of the mechanisms underlying altered decision-making in patients with schizophrenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The purpose of the present meta-analysis was to quantify the effects that stress has on decisions made under uncertainty. We hypothesized that stress increases reward seeking and risk taking through alterations of dopamine firing rates and reduces executive control by hindering optimal prefrontal cortex functioning. In certain decision situations, increased reward seeking and risk taking is dysfunctional, whereas in others, this is not the case. We also assumed that the type of stressor plays a role. In addition, moderating variables are analyzed, such as the hormonal stress response, the time between stress onset and decisions, and the participants' age and gender. We included studies in the meta-analysis that investigated decision making after a laboratory stress-induction versus a control condition (k = 32 datasets, N = 1829 participants). A random-effects model revealed that overall, stress conditions lead to decisions that can be described as more disadvantageous, more reward seeking, and more risk taking than nonstress conditions (d = .17). In those situations in which increased reward seeking and risk taking is disadvantageous, stress had significant effects (d = .26), whereas in other situations, no effects were observed (d = .01). Effects were observed under processive stressors (d = .19), but not under systemic ones (d = .09). Moderation analyses did not reveal any significant results. We concluded that stress deteriorates overall decision-making performance through the mechanisms proposed. The effects differ, depending on the decision situation and the type of stressor, but not on the characteristics of the individuals. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Background: Although some studies reported specifically self-face processing deficits in patients with schizophrenia disorder (SZ), it remains unclear whether these deficits rather reflect a more global face processing deficit. Contradictory results are probably due to the different methodologies employed and the lack of control of other confounding factors. Moreover, no study has so far evaluated possible daily life self-face recognition difficulties in SZ. Therefore, our primary objective was to investigate self-face recognition in patients suffering from SZ compared to healthy controls (HC) using an "objective measure" (reaction time and accuracy) and a "subjective measure" (self-report of daily self-face recognition difficulties).Method: Twenty-four patients with SZ and 23 HC performed a self-face recognition task and completed a questionnaire evaluating daily difficulties in self-face recognition. Recognition task material consisted in three different faces (the own, a famous and an unknown) being morphed in steps of 20%.Results: Results showed that SZ were overall slower than HC regardless of the face identity, but less accurate only for the faces containing 60%-40% morphing. Moreover, SZ and HC reported a similar amount of daily problems with self/other face recognition. No significant correlations were found between objective and subjective measures (p > 0.05).Limitations: The small sample size and relatively mild severity of psychopathology does not allow us to generalize our results.Conclusions: These results suggest that: (1) patients with SZ are as capable of recognizing their own face as HC, although they are susceptible to ambiguity; (2) there are far less self recognition deficits in schizophrenia patients than previously postulated. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In three experiments we compared 5- and 6-year-old children's understanding of multiple interpretations arising from an ambiguous figure (e.g., the duck/rabbit) and other ambiguous partial input. Children found it equally easy to switch between alternative interpretations of ambiguous figures and partial views (Experiment 1, N = 19) and more difficult to accept two characters' conflicting interpretations of ambiguous figures, than partial views (Experiment 2, N = 29). Children found it more difficult to accept explicitly that one stimulus could simultaneously give rise to two interpretations, than to switch between them (Experiment 3, N = 40). Children's handling of multiple interpretations was not primarily affected by the type of input, but results suggest that there are two distinct stages in children's handling of multiple interpretations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

A landscape of interdisciplinary decision theories is sketched with a tentative place for the sense-making approach presented by Salvatore et al (). Uncertainty and ambiguity are highlighted as key concepts in both, economics and sense-making perspectives aligning possible and useful conceptual coincidences among post Keynesian economics (Shackle ; Davidson ) cultural psychology (Salvatore et al. ) and organization theory (March , ; Weick ). Few ideas for the construction of possible research agenda aimed to build a complex model of decision making are suggested. Finally a brief reflection on the study of underground economy is presented. The challenge for the link between psychology and economics is to figure out a descriptive general model of the process of decision making, perhaps by combining weighted elements of the different ways in which human rationality emerges—calculation, rule following, sense-making—for explaining singular and specific decisions. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Anxiety and depression share genetic influences, and have been associated with similar cognitive biases. Psychological theories of anxiety and depression highlight threat interpretations of ambiguity. Little is known about whether genes influence cognitive style, or its links to symptoms. We assessed ambiguous word and scenario interpretations, anxiety and depression symptoms in 300 8-year-old twin pairs. There were significant correlations between both negative interpretations of ambiguous words and scenarios and depression symptoms after controlling for anxiety symptoms (r = .13 and .31, respectively), but no significant correlations with anxiety independent of depression. Genetic effects ranged from 16% for depression to 30% for ambiguous word interpretations. Non-shared environmental influences were large (68-70%). Both genetic and environmental influences contributed to the association between depression and ambiguous scenario interpretations. These findings support psychological theories, which emphasise the role of environmental stress both on the development of threat interpretations and on their links with symptoms. The data also support a role for genetic influence on threat interpretations, which may mediate responses to stress. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed the possibility that the Budner (1962) Intolerance of Ambiguity Scale can offer an ideologically biased understanding of religious commitments. In a large sample of university undergraduates (N = 650), Budner Scale correlations with Religious Interest, Religious Orientation, Need for Cognition, and Response Uncertainty supported the conclusion that religion predicts an inability to cope with uncertainty. At the same time, however, special procedures were used to create new scales expressing a Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity by translating Budner Scale items into a language that was more compatible with religious beliefs. These Christian Tolerance of Ambiguity measures revealed that religiousness was associated with an ability rather than an inability to cope with uncertainty. Conflicting results between these Christian and nonreligious Tolerance of Ambiguity measures yielded additional support for the Ideological Surround Model of the psychology of religion. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]