The fundamental challenge for refining theories of communication and uncertainty is to abandon the assumption that uncertainty will produce anxiety. To better explain processes of communication and uncertainty management the authors must answer questions about a) the experience and meaning of uncertainty b) the role of appraisal and emotion in uncertainty management and c) the range of behavioral and psychological responses to uncertainty. This paper outlines and extends a theory of uncertainty management and reviews current theory and research in this area. In addition to the theoretical advances promised by this perspective the paper describes applications to health communication practice. The drive in disease prevention to reduce uncertainty about the state of health and illness has led to a "culture of chronic illness". Constant surveillance of peoples health combined with improved methods for screening and monitoring virtually guarantee finding something wrong with every person creating a society divided into the chronically ill and the worried well (i.e. those waiting to be diagnosed). (authors)

Communication and Uncertainty Management.

Disclosure is a critical aspect of the experience of people who live with concealable stigmatized identities. This article presents the Disclosure Processes Model (DPM)— a framework that examines when and why interpersonal disclosure may be beneficial. The DPM suggests that antecedent goals representing approach and avoidance motivational systems moderate the effect of disclosure on numerous individual, dyadic, and social contextual outcomes and that these effects are mediated by three distinct processes: (1) alleviation of inhibition, (2) social support, and (3) changes in social information. Ultimately, the DPM provides a framework that advances disclosure theory and identifies strategies that can assist disclosers in maximizing the likelihood that disclosure will benefit well-being.

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The disclosure processes model: understanding disclosure decision making and postdisclosure outcomes among people living with a concealable stigmatized identity.

The relationship between uncertainty and information has long been at the forefront of the social scientific study of human behavior. The last decade has seen increased attention among communication scholars to the information-management process. The result has been significant widening of ideological lenses and an impressive growth of knowledge. However, a review of the literature shows that there is the need for a framework that integrates and extends these efforts. We advance the theory of motivated information-management to fill that need. The theory proposes a 3-phase process of information-management in interpersonal encounters, emphasizes the role of efficacy, and brings attention to the interactive nature of information-management in this context. We explicate the theory's propositional structure and present a graphical model intended to capture some of the overarching principles detailed in that structure.

Toward a Theory of Motivated Information Management

Communication is a means of managing uncertainty. In a state of uncertainty: (a) information seeking can reduce uncertainty by allowing for better discrimination between or among alternatives; (b) information seeking can increase uncertainty by increasing the number of alternatives, or by blurring the distinction between or among alternatives; and (c) information avoidance can maintain uncertainty. Individuals living with HIV or AIDS, like many other chronically‐ill or terminally‐ill individuals, must manage high levels of uncertainty about their illness. Participants in a focus group study of persons with HIV or AIDS reported effective uncertainty management, including managing uncertainty that was challenging, managing uncertainty that was essential for maintaining hope, learning to live with chronic uncertainty, and managing information problems. New information can serve uncertainty management even if it fails to reduce the number or ambiguity of alternatives, because new information can invite a reap...

Communication in the management of uncertainty: The case of persons living with HIV or AIDS

The Cambridge Handbook of Personal Relationships: Self-Disclosure in Personal Relationships

Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics

This book describes many different and useful ways of understanding personal relationships from a dialectical perspective. It is written for scholars in higher education, both faculty and students, across many fields within the social sciences and the humanities who seek answers to questions about how people relate to one another. The book is valuable for all scholars who pursue new ideas because it models a form of scholarly communication in which: * multiple voices can be acknowledged as valid; * the worth of one perspective is not measured by the denigration of another; and * difference is celebrated as conducive to learning rather than threatening to it. The contributors emphasize the characteristics of their dialectical view that set them apart from other dialectical authors and describe their methods of studying relationships from a dialectical perspective. Following the Bakhtinian perspective, they honor the values of dialogism by respecting different and sometimes contradictory views, assuming that these views can be valid, and joining in a discussion with the editors and other contributors about their emerging work. They also acknowledge that the chapters in this text are part of an ongoing process to frame and reframe emerging ideas, and allow the dialogue that occurs within this frame the freedom to express creative, unique ideas.

Barbara M. Montgomery

Papers

Relating: Dialogues and Dialectics

Dialectical approaches to studying personal relationships.

A Guide to Dialectical Approaches to Studying Personal Relationships

Dialectic Empiricism: Science and Relationship Metaphors

Relating: Dialogue & Dialectics