Communication · Executive Insight Brief · 446
Some people need the question open
Uncertainty Management Theory shows why information can reduce, increase, preserve, or reframe uncertainty depending on what the unknown means
Premise
More information is not automatically better communication. Uncertainty Management Theory (UMT) challenges the assumption that uncertainty is inherently aversive and people always seek to reduce it. Uncertainty can threaten control, preserve hope, protect identity, postpone an intolerable answer, or reflect a condition that cannot yet be resolved.
The distinction matters whenever decisions precede complete facts. Restructuring, litigation, product failure, strategic change, and crisis response create unknowns that cannot be managed responsibly by promising certainty or releasing information without regard to meaning. The task is to make uncertainty intelligible enough for action.
What the model is: Uncertainty Management Theory (Brashers) in Knowledge →
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- FamilyModel
- CategoryTheories & Explanatory Models
- DomainRisk, Crisis & Safety
What these mean
Editorial orientation · Family
Model
In this series, Model names the editorial family primarily used to understand and explain communication: theories, frameworks, effects, traditions, principles and other conceptual resources. It is an umbrella for a route into the field, not a claim that every included object is a predictive model.
Editorial orientation · Category
Theories & Explanatory Models
Explains how or why a communication process works by relating mechanisms, conditions or variables. Its value is an account that can guide inquiry into what produces an outcome, rather than a name for the outcome alone.
- KnowledgeUncertainty Management Theory (Brashers)
- Related briefUncertainty Reduction: Seek the Evidence Needed for the Next Move
- Key conceptInformation avoidance