Scale of Tolerance-Intolerance of Ambiguity

Abstract

The Scale of Tolerance-Intolerance of Ambiguity is a seminal psychological instrument developed by Stanley Budner in 1962. Its primary function is to measure an individual’s characteristic response to situations defined by uncertainty, novelty, or complexity. Specifically, the scale assesses whether an individual tends to perceive ambiguous situations as threatening and undesirable (indicating intolerance of ambiguity) or as challenging and desirable opportunities (indicating tolerance of ambiguity). The development process utilized data gathered from 17 diverse samples, including students across fields such as sociology, business, psychology, engineering, and medicine. The initial item pool contained 33 statements, which were rigorously reduced based on their ability to tap into perceived threat indicators and specific types of ambiguous situations. The final instrument is a concise, 16-item scale, carefully constructed with an equal balance of positively and negatively worded statements to mitigate response bias. Comprehensive data regarding the scale’s reliability and validity have been established in the original documentation.

Keywords

Personality Measures, Scale of Tolerance-Intolerance of Ambiguity, Test Development, Psychometric Properties, Intolerance of Ambiguity, Tolerance for Ambiguity, Test Construction, Personality Assessment.

Authors

Budner, Stanley

Purpose

The central purpose of the scale is the empirical examination and quantification of an individual’s inherent tolerance or intolerance of ambiguity. By distinguishing between these two orientations, the instrument provides researchers with a metric to understand how individuals psychologically manage uncertainty, which is a critical factor influencing decision-making, learning, and adaptability in complex environments.

Construct

The scale measures two closely related, yet opposing, psychological constructs: Intolerance of Ambiguity and Tolerance of Ambiguity. Intolerance of Ambiguity is conceptualized as the tendency to perceive ambiguous stimuli—those lacking clear structure or meaning—as sources of threat or discomfort, potentially leading to anxiety or avoidance. Conversely, Tolerance of Ambiguity reflects an individual’s capacity to remain comfortable, engaged, and even favorably disposed toward situations that are vague, complex, or novel.

Item selection during the instrument’s development was guided by two specific substantive criteria: indicators of perceived threat and different prototypical types of ambiguous situations, ensuring that the final 16 items accurately capture the breadth of the construct.

Validity

The validity of Budner’s scale was supported through multiple empirical methods. Initial validation involved correlating the scale scores with other established scales designed to assess similar dimensions of intolerance of ambiguity. Furthermore, evidence was gathered through external criteria, including rankings derived from autobiographical accounts and peer ratings, demonstrating concordance between self-report and external evaluation of the construct.

Crucially, the scale exhibits significant correlations with several key personality and social attitude variables, suggesting strong convergent and discriminant validity. These variables include conventionality, belief in a divine power, dogmatism, and authoritarianism. In applied settings, the scale has been shown to relate to specific career choices among medical students and their evaluations of preferred fields of practice, highlighting its predictive utility in vocational psychology and its relationship to attitudes toward censorship.

Reliability

The internal consistency reliability of the scale was assessed using Cronbach’s alpha, a standard statistical measure for estimating the consistency among items within a scale. The reliability computation was performed across the 17 initial samples used in the scale’s construction. While the specific alpha coefficient is not detailed in the summary, the analysis confirmed the internal consistency of the 16-item scale. The overall mean scale score across these diverse samples was reported to be approximately 49, providing a key normative benchmark for subsequent research utilizing the instrument.

Factor Analysis

The original documentation provided does not indicate that a formal factor analysis was performed or reported for the final 16-item scale. The scale development relied primarily on item selection based on substantive and empirical criteria (correlations with external measures), rather than an explicit exploration of underlying factor structure.

Instrument

Test Type: Rating Scale (Classification: Personality)

Format: The instrument utilizes a Likert-type scale with six response categories. Respondents are instructed to select one of the following options: strongly agree, moderately agree, slightly agree, slightly disagree, moderately disagree, or strongly disagree. Scoring is differential: positive items are scored from 7 (strongly agree) down to 1 (strongly disagree), while negative items are scored in reverse. Omissions or missing responses are assigned a neutral score of 4.

Language Available: English (Original)

Population Group: Human (Male and Female)

Age Group: Adulthood (18 years and older)

Population Details: Location: United States. Sample included diverse academic groups: Undergraduate, Graduate, Medical, and Adult Education Students from fields such as sociology, psychology, engineering, and medicine.

Test Methodology: The scale’s psychometric foundation rests on empirical data, confirming its reliability and validity through correlations with various established psychological and social attitudes. The initial item pool consisted of 33 statements, reduced to the final 16 based on their ability to capture the core construct effectively.

Keywords

Personality Assessment, Uncertainty Management, Dogmatism, Authoritarianism, Test Reliability, Test Validity, Budner Scale, Social Attitudes.

Authors

Author ORCID Identifier: Information not provided in source content.

Affiliation Email addresses: Information not provided in source content.

Correspondence Address: Information not provided in source content.

Permissions & Fee and Test Year

The scale was first published in 1962. Test items are not freely available in the public domain; interested parties must contact the original publisher or rights holder for information regarding usage permissions and associated fees.

Reference’s

• Budner, S. (1962). Intolerance of ambiguity as a personality variable. Journal of Personality, 30(1), 29–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1467-6494.1962.tb02303.x

Items of the Scale of Tolerance-Intolerance of Ambiguity

IMPORTANT: The following scale items must be preserved in their original language and must not be changed in any way.

Test Items Available: No, please contact the publisher for further information.