Call for Papers - Special Issue

CALL FOR PAPERS: Honoring Lucia Mannetti’s contributions to the topic of uncertainty, Psychology Hub announces the special issue on "Reactions to uncertainty"

Submissions:
Start by: 12th, May, 2023
End by: 31st, January, 2024

Expected publication:

 2024

Guest Editors:

Antonio Pierro and Arie W. Kruglanski

Types of manuscripts

For this Special Issue, we accept Original Articles, Research Notes, and Annotated Bibliographies

Manuscript Submission Information

When submitting a contribution for the Special Issue, please be sure to select the "Special Issue" option. In this way, the contribution will be sent to Guest Editors for full consideration. 

 

Reactions to uncertainty

The dynamism of modernity, technological advances, economic and geopolitical shocks, migratory flows, pandemics, climate and energy crises, and any number of novel or unanticipated events that can happen in an individual’s life have one thing in common: they represent sources of uncertainty the reactions to which may vary from individual to individual, and from situation to situation. Some individuals feel confused and anxious under uncertain circumstances, while others react to them with hope and excitement.
Diverse research programs in several areas of psychology (personality and individual differences, clinical psychology, developmental psychology, cognitive psychology, cultural psychology, social psychology, economic and marketing psychology, organizational psychology, etc.) have mostly highlighted the negative side of uncertainty and emphasized the human tendency to avoid uncertainty, seek cognitive closure, crave security, and compensate for the aversive and discomfort state associated with uncertainty in different ways (e.g., Frenkel-Brunswick, 1948; Hofstede, 2001; Hogg, 2012; Kruglanski, 2004).
Lucia Mannetti, to whom this special issue is dedicated, in her work on the need for cognitive closure, contributed substantially to understanding people’s desire for certainty and their eschewal of unpredictability (see e.g., De Grada et al., 1999; Mannetti et al., 2002, 2007, 2010; Pierro et al., 2003; Chirumbolo et al., 2004; Kosic et al., 2004; Kruglanski et al., 2006; Livi et al., 2015; Brizi et al., 2016).
Yet despite the general interest in psychology on the aversive aspects of uncertainty, several research paradigms attest to approach rather than avoidance of uncertain situations and highlight people’s positive feelings about the novel and uncertain situations ((for instance, research on creativity (Sternberg & Kaufman, 2010), sensation seeking (Zuckerman, 2009), and curiosity and exploration (Szumowska & Kruglanski, 2020), see for review, Kruglanski et al., 2023)). It follows that uncertainty is neither necessarily “bad”, nor experienced as aversive, nor “good”, nor experienced as pleasant or exciting.
Honoring Lucia Mannetti’s contributions to the topic of uncertainty, and in light of the pervasiveness of uncertainty in people's lives, we are announcing here a special issue on reactions to uncertainty, as these have been studied in different areas of psychology. We are particularly interested in contributions on (1) factors (personality and situational) that underlie the contrasting reactions to novel and uncertain situations and (2) implications and consequences of different reactions to uncertainty to various aspects of people’s personal relations and group interactions. However, any contributions relevant to the topic of uncertainty would be appropriate for this special issue and given due consideration.
We are excited about the opportunity this initiative offers to express our deep thanks for Lucia’s tireless and prolific academic work and to bring together diverse ways of thinking about uncertainty and explore its different facets.

References
Brizi, A., Mannetti, L., & Kruglanski, A.W. (2016). The closing of open minds: Need for closure moderates the impact of uncertainty salience on outgroup discrimination. British Journal of Social Psychology 55 (2), 244-262

Chirumbolo, A., Livi, S., Mannetti, L., Pierro, A., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2004). Effects of need for closure on creativity in small group interactions. European Journal of Personality, 18(4), 265-278.

De Grada, E., Kruglanski, A. W., Mannetti, L., & Pierro, A. (1999). Motivated cognition and group interaction: Need for closure affects the contents and processes of collective negotiations. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 35(4), 346-365.

Frenkel-Brunswick, E. (1948). Intolerance of Ambiguity as an Emotional and Perceptual Personality Variable. Journal of Personality, 18, 108-123.

Hofstede, G. (2001). Culture's consequences: Comparing values, behaviors, institutions and organizations across nations. Sage publications.

Hogg, M. A. (2012). Self-uncertainty, social identity, and the solace of extremism. In M. A. Hogg & D. L. Blaylock (Eds.), Extremism and the psychology of uncertainty (pp. 19–35). Wiley Blackwell.

Kosic, A., Kruglanski, A.W., Pierro, A., & Mannetti, L. (2004).The social cognition of immigrants' acculturation: effects of the need for closure and the reference group at entry. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 86 (6), 796-813.

Kruglanski, A. W. (2004). The Psychology of Closed Mindedness. Psychology Press.

Kruglanski, A. W., Pierro, A., Mannetti, L., & De Grada, E. (2006). Groups as epistemic providers: need for closure and the unfolding of group-centrism. Psychological Review, 113(1), 84.

Kruglanski, A. W., et al. (2023). Facing the Unknown: On the Affective Reactions to Uncertainty. Paper under review.

Livi, S., Kruglanski, A.W., Pierro, A., Mannetti, L., & Kenny, D.A. (2015). Epistemic motivation and perpetuation of group culture: Effects of need for cognitive closure on trans-generational norm transmission. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 129, 105-112.

Mannetti, L., Pierro, A., Kruglanski, A.W., Taris, T., & Bezinovic, P. (2002). A cross‐cultural study of the Need for Cognitive Closure Scale: Comparing its structure in Croatia, Italy, USA, and The Netherlands. British Journal of Social Psychology, 41 (1), 139-156.

Mannetti, L., Pierro, A., & Kruglanski, A.W. (2007). Who regrets more after choosing a non-status-quo option? Post decisional regret under need for cognitive closure. Journal of Economic Psychology, 28 (2), 186-196.

Mannetti, L., Levine, J.M., Pierro, A., & Kruglanski, A.W. (2010). Group reaction to defection: The impact of shared reality. Social Cognition, 28 (3), 447-464.

Pierro, A., Mannetti, L., De Grada, E., Livi, S., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2003). Autocracy bias in informal groups under need for closure. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 29(3), 405-417.

Sternberg, R. J., & Kaufman, J. C. (Eds., 2010). The Cambridge Handbook of Creativity. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Szumowska, E., & Kruglanski, A. W. (2020). Curiosity as end and means. Current Opinion in Behavioral Sciences, 35, 35–39. 

Zuckerman, M. (2009). Sensation seeking. In M. R. Leary & R. H. Hoyle (Eds.), Handbook of individual differences in social behavior (pp. 455–465). The Guilford Press.