Ambiguity tolerance in organizations: definitional clarification and perspectives on future research.

Ambiguity tolerance is an increasingly popular subject for study in a wide variety of fields. The definition of ambiguity tolerance has changed since its inception, and accompanying that change are changes in measurement and the research questions that interest researchers. There is a wealth of opportunity for research related to ambiguity tolerance and recent advances in neuroscience, measurement, trait research, perception, problem solving, and other fields highlight areas of interest and point to issues that need further attention. The future of ambiguity tolerance research is promising and it is expected that future studies will yield new insights into individual differences in reactions to the complex, unfamiliar, confusing, indeterminate, and incomplete stimuli that fall within the conceptual domain of ambiguity.

Sensitivity to social information, social referencing, and safety attitudes in a hazardous occupation.

Social referencing, or seeking information cues from others, occurs when a worker must make sense of those aspects of work, like safety hazards, that are ambiguous. This is a central argument of Social Information Processing Theory (SIPT), a social referencing and job characteristics theory of work attitudes. Adapting SIPT to the understanding of safety perceptions and attitudes, this paper hypothesizes relationships between the worker's sensitivity to social information, the worker's social safety cognitions, and the worker's own safety attitudes. Findings from a field study of workers in a hazardous occupation, emergency care/firefighting, confirmed SIPT-predicted relationships among these factors: the worker's belief in management's willingness to provide a safe work environment, the degree of risk the worker associates with his or her job, the worker's concern about the frequency of exposure to hazards, and the worker's personal experiences with hazards. These findings also suggest that a social referencing and job characteristics perspective like SIPT provides a logical and useful theoretical framework for understanding workers' interpretations of safety conditions. This perspective also helps relate theories of safety attitudes to a broad set of theories of social information and organizational behavior.

Preliminary validation of the Spanish version of the Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance Scale (MSTAT-II).

Despite widespread interest in ambiguity tolerance and other information-related individual differences, existing measures are conceptually dispersed and psychometrically weak. This paper presents the Spanish version of MSTAT-II, a short, stimulus-oriented, and psychometrically improved measure of an individual's orientation toward ambiguous stimuli. Results obtained reveal adequate reliability, validity, and temporal stability. These results support the use of MSTAT-II as an adequate measure of ambiguity tolerance.

Preliminary validation of the Spanish version of the multiple stimulus types ambiguity tolerance scale (MSTAT-II)

Despite widespread interest in ambiguity tolerance and other information-related individual differences, existing measures are conceptually dispersed and psychometrically weak. This paper presents the Spanish version of MSTAT-II, a short, stimulus-oriented, and psychometrically improved measure of an individual’s orientation toward ambiguous stimuli. Results obtained reveal adequate reliability, validity, and temporal stability. These results support the use of MSTAT-II as an adequate measure of ambiguity tolerance (AU)

A pesar del amplio interés en la tolerancia a la ambigüedad y a otras diferencias individuales relacionadas con la información, las medidas existentes son conceptualmente dispersas y presentan deficiencias psicométricas. El propósito de este trabajo es presentar la versión española del MSTAT II, un instrumento de medida de las orientaciones de un individuo respecto a estímulos ambiguos con mejoras psicométricas sustanciales, independiente del contexto y suficientemente corto para ser utilizado junto con otras medidas. Los resultados obtenidos en cuanto a consistencia interna, estabilidad temporal y validez son satisfactorios. Estos resultados apoyan el uso del MSTAT-II en su versión española como una medida adecuada de tolerancia a la ambigüedad (AU)

Evidence of the properties of an ambiguity tolerance measure: the Multiple Stimulus Types Ambiguity Tolerance Scale-II (MSTAT-II).

Despite widespread interest in ambiguity tolerance and other information-related individual differences, existing measures of ambiguity tolerance are conceptually disparate and are often psychometrically weak. This paper presents evidence of reliability and validity for a 13-item measure of ambiguity tolerance (MSTAT-II) based on a definition of ambiguity tolerance as an orientation, ranging from aversion to attraction, toward stimuli that are complex, unfamiliar, and insoluble. The MSTAT-II addresses each basic type of ambiguous stimulus, contains fewer items than many other scales, and reduces references to specific contexts and objects not directly related to ambiguity. Data from three studies using diverse samples and measures, including other popular ambiguity tolerance scales, were examined, and the results suggest the MSTAT-II may improve upon other paper-and-pencil measures of ambiguity tolerance.

The perceived compatibility of safety and production expectations in hazardous occupations.

INTRODUCTION: Safety hazards are unavoidable in many work environments. Employees must be both productive and safe, however, conflicting safety and production demands can negatively affect safety, production, or both. The employee's perception of the compatibility of management's safety and production expectations is a possible predictor of such consequences. This paper defines "safety-production compatibility" and describes how measures of safety-production compatibility, as well as safety pressure and production pressure, were developed. METHOD: We used LISREL structural equation modeling to test the influences of safety-production compatibility, safety pressure, and production pressure on safe work behavior and interference with performing other work tasks. The 239 study participants were workers employed in diverse but hazardous occupations. RESULTS: Pressure to work safely was positively associated with safe work behavior. The perceived compatibility of safety and production demands positively influenced safe work behavior and reduced the interference of safety hazards performing other tasks. Safety-production compatibility was also found to mediate the relationship between trust in management and safe work behavior. CONCLUSIONS: The results of this field study suggest increased compatibility, and thus less conflict, between safety and production demands influences safe work behavior and the interference of safety hazards with performing other work tasks. More broadly, the worker's reaction to multiple work demands is a safety and performance influence. IMPACT ON INDUSTRY: Safety management efforts that focus only on the hazards fail to eliminate many accidents because accidents arise from many factors including technology, safety climate, social influences, production, and safety demands. This study suggests that workers differ in their perception of the compatibility of safety and production demands. These differences will show up in safe work behavior, influencing the effectiveness of safety management efforts and the trust workers have in management's concern for safety.