UNCERTAINTY ORIENTATION, THE SELF, AND OTHERS - INDIVIDUAL-DIFFERENCES IN VALUES AND SOCIAL-COMPARISON

This study was conducted to test the hypothesis that individual differ ences in uncertainty orientation reflect differences in people's desir e to learn about themselves and their environment. Subjects completed the Allport and Vernon (1931) Values Survey via microcomputer. Subsequ ently, they were shown their scores and permitted to view as many comp arison scores as they wished. As predicted, uncertainty-oriented subje cts viewed more comparison scores than did certainty-oriented subjects . This occurred regardless of whether they believed that the scores ca me from a similar (student) or dissimilar (community) sample or of how important the specific value was to them. Uncertainty-oriented subjec ts also scored higher than certainty-oriented subjects in ''Theoretica l'' and ''Aesthetic'' values on the Values Survey, reflecting an inter est in trying to understand one's world. Certainty-oriented subjects s cored higher in ''Religious'' values. These results are discussed in t erms of their implications for the construct uncertainty orientation a nd for theories of self-evaluation.