Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory
Inspired by Berger's Theory, the late California State, Fullerton, communication professor William Gudykunst began to apply some of the axioms and theorems of Uncertainty Reduction Theory to intercultural settings. Despite their common axiomatic format and parallel focus on the meeting of strangers, Gudykunst's Anxiety/Uncertainty Management Theory (AUM) differs from Berger's Uncertainty Reduction Theory in several significant ways. First, AUM asserts that people do not always try to reduce uncertainty. When uncertainty allows people to maintain positive predicted outcome values, they may choose to manage their information intake such that they balance their level of uncertainty. Second, AUM claims that people experience uncertainty differently in different situations. People must evaluate whether a particular instance of uncertainty is stressful, and if so, what resources are available.
Read more about this topic: Uncertainty Reduction Theory
Famous quotes containing the words anxiety, uncertainty, management and/or theory:
“Racism as a form of skin worship, and as a sickness and a pathological anxiety for America, is so great, until the poor whites—rather than fighting for jobs or education—fight to remain pink and fight to remain white. And therefore they cannot see an alliance with people that they feel to be inherently inferior.”
—Jesse Jackson (b. 1941)
“You do not mean by mystery what a Catholic does. You mean an interesting uncertainty: the uncertainty ceasing interest ceases also.... But a Catholic by mystery means an incomprehensible certainty: without certainty, without formulation there is no interest;... the clearer the formulation the greater the interest.”
—Gerard Manley Hopkins (1844–1889)
“Why not draft executive and management brains to prepare and produce the equipment the $21-a-month draftee must use and forget this dollar-a-year tommyrot? Would we send an army into the field under a dollar-a-year General who had to be home Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays?”
—Lyndon Baines Johnson (1908–1973)
“If my theory of relativity is proven correct, Germany will claim me as a German and France will declare that I am a citizen of the world. Should my theory prove untrue, France will say that I am a German and Germany will declare that I am a Jew.”
—Albert Einstein (1879–1955)