"Think of confusion as an opportunity to learn, not as a failure or an obstacle to understanding.”--Eric Mazur, physicist
Ambiguity and Uncertainty
The ideas of Jerome Bruner
We are meaning-making machines. The human intellect has a need to resolve uncertainty and make sense of nonsense. In a complex, unpredictable world what matters most may not be IQ, willpower, or confidence in what we know--it may be how we deal with what we don’t understand. How we make sense of the world when a situation is obscure, ambiguous, or uncertain--what happens when we’re confused and the path forward isn’t obvious--can bring us to a standstill or help us move forward.
Think about how you learned something that you know how to do very well. Did you learn it because you were told how to do it? Or did you learn it by doing, by figuring it out yourself or with help?
Your comfort or discomfort with ambiguity and uncertainty
1. I don’t like situations that are uncertain.
2. I dislike questions that could be answered in many different ways.
3. I find that a well-ordered life with regular hours suits my temperament.
4. I feel uncomfortable when I don’t understand the reason why an event occurred in my life.
5. I feel irritated when one person disagrees with what everyone else in the group believes.
6. I don’t like to go into a situation without knowing what I can expect from it.
7. When I have made a decision, I feel relieved.
8. When I am confronted with a problem, I’m dying to reach a solution very quickly.
9. I would quickly become impatient and irritated if I could not find a solution to a problem immediately.
10. I don’t like to be with people who are capable of unexpected actions.
11. I dislike it when a person’s statement could mean many different things.
12. I find that establishing a consistent routine enables me to enjoy life more.
13. I enjoy having a clear and structured mode of life.
14. I do not usually consult many different opinions before forming my own views.
15. I dislike unpredictable situations.
2. I dislike questions that could be answered in many different ways.
3. I find that a well-ordered life with regular hours suits my temperament.
4. I feel uncomfortable when I don’t understand the reason why an event occurred in my life.
5. I feel irritated when one person disagrees with what everyone else in the group believes.
6. I don’t like to go into a situation without knowing what I can expect from it.
7. When I have made a decision, I feel relieved.
8. When I am confronted with a problem, I’m dying to reach a solution very quickly.
9. I would quickly become impatient and irritated if I could not find a solution to a problem immediately.
10. I don’t like to be with people who are capable of unexpected actions.
11. I dislike it when a person’s statement could mean many different things.
12. I find that establishing a consistent routine enables me to enjoy life more.
13. I enjoy having a clear and structured mode of life.
14. I do not usually consult many different opinions before forming my own views.
15. I dislike unpredictable situations.
To score yourself--
Mark each statement between a 1 (completely disagree) and a 6 (completely agree).
Now simply add up the total.
Your need for certainty is above average if you scored 57 or above.
Are you feeling rushed? Are you tired? Are you hungry? Are you having a difficult time with trusted friends? Chances are your score will be higher. Depending on your mood, your score may go up or down, but different people will still end up having a range where they are most comfortable.
A greater need for certainty implies that the mind’s natural preference for order is overpowering an openness to new information.
Mark each statement between a 1 (completely disagree) and a 6 (completely agree).
Now simply add up the total.
Your need for certainty is above average if you scored 57 or above.
Are you feeling rushed? Are you tired? Are you hungry? Are you having a difficult time with trusted friends? Chances are your score will be higher. Depending on your mood, your score may go up or down, but different people will still end up having a range where they are most comfortable.
A greater need for certainty implies that the mind’s natural preference for order is overpowering an openness to new information.
Jerome Bruner studied how cultivating ambiguity helps us keep an open mind and empathize with different viewpoints.
Jerome Bruner built his ideas of meaning-making on the work of Jean Piaget, who studied children's thoughts and ideas in mathematics and language-learning.
Jerome Bruner built his ideas of meaning-making on the work of Jean Piaget, who studied children's thoughts and ideas in mathematics and language-learning.
Elements of Meaning-Making: The Four A's
Assimilation: Jean Piaget observed that by adding new information to our existing knowledge base, children make sense of the world by applying what they already know. It involves fitting reality and what they experience into their current cognitive structure. A child's understanding of how the world works, therefore, filters and influences how they interpret the reality.
Affirmation: Encountering a new situation where a pattern is already familiar does not require the human mind to make changes. Instead, affirmation strengthens an already-existing idea or concept. The day-to-day skills practice in mathematics, getting the expected result in a science lab experiment, or the moral of the story in Aesop's fables are exercises in affirmation.
Abstraction: As people grow and mature, we become more abstract thinkers. Rather than requiring concrete, physical examples of every possibility in front of us, we are able to hold thought models in our minds. These models of past experience and future prediction are called abstractions.
Accommodation: A more difficult, but more mature approach to new ideas involves altering one's existing ideas, as a result of new information or new experiences.
Consider, for example, how young children learn about different types of animals. A young child knows that dogs have four legs, so she might automatically believe that all animals with four legs are dogs. When she later learns that cats also have four legs, she will undergo a process of accommodation in which her existing schema for dogs will change and she will also develop a new schema for cats. Schemas become more refined, detailed, and nuanced as new information is gathered and accommodated into our current ideas and beliefs about how the world works.
Jean Piaget's conclusion to his observations of human meaning-making over the years was that the ability to accommodate information from new, novel, or uncertain situations can be a predictor of a person's future potential for success. Improvement depends on accepting that we have more to learn.
Consider, for example, how young children learn about different types of animals. A young child knows that dogs have four legs, so she might automatically believe that all animals with four legs are dogs. When she later learns that cats also have four legs, she will undergo a process of accommodation in which her existing schema for dogs will change and she will also develop a new schema for cats. Schemas become more refined, detailed, and nuanced as new information is gathered and accommodated into our current ideas and beliefs about how the world works.
Jean Piaget's conclusion to his observations of human meaning-making over the years was that the ability to accommodate information from new, novel, or uncertain situations can be a predictor of a person's future potential for success. Improvement depends on accepting that we have more to learn.
Jerome Bruner's Fifth Element
Jerome Bruner suggested there is a fifth reaction to contradictory, ambiguous experiences. In keeping with the other four A’s—assimilation, affirmation, abstraction, and accommodation—he calls the fifth reaction to anomalies assembly.
Assembly: Creativity! When we assemble, we take the uncertainties in our lives and create something new out of them.
An active engagement and acceptance of uncertainty is a hugely important variable in learning, and Jerome Bruner regretted it’s often completely missed by common measures of intelligence. In his view, ambiguity and uncertainty are a kind of fuel for human imagination. Under the right conditions, embracing uncertainty can in fact provide opportunities to innovate.
A person’s comfort with confusion, the ability to admit that his or her present abstraction cannot assimilate a new idea through affirmation, but needs to go through accommodation or assembly, can inspire creative solutions, and might even help make us better people.
OK Go's "The Writing's on the Wall," "The One Moment,"
and "Upside Down and Inside Out"
make use of ambiguity and uncertainty.