Preface.- 1: A Vocabulary of Ignorance.- 1.1 Ignoring Ignorance.- 1.2 A Framework for Ignorance.- 1.3 The Rest of this Book.- I: Normative Paradigms.- 2: Full Belief and the Pursuit of Certainty.- 2.1 Ignorance: The Views from Dogmatism and Skepticism.- 2.2 Examples of Traditional Normative Pragmatism.- 2.3 The Ultimate Mental Health Project.- 3: Probability and the Cultivation of Uncertainty.- 3.1 Probabilists as Strategists.- 3.2 Definitions of Cultivatable Uncertainty.- 3.3 Classical Theory and the Unifying Impulse.- 3.4 Relative Frequency Theory: Banishing the Monsters.- 3.5 Subjective Probability and the New Imperialists.- 3.6 Neoclassicism and the Logical Probabilists.- 3.7 Nonquantitative Probability.- 3.8 Combining Probability Judgments.- 3.9 Probability and Risk Assessment.- 4: Beyond Probability: New Normative Paradigms.- 4.1 The Modern Managerial Approach to Ignorance.- 4.2 Normative and Pragmatic Objections to Probability.- 4.3 The New Uncertainties.- 4.3.1 The Certainty Factors Debate.- 4.3.2 Fuzzy Sets, Vagueness, and Ambiguity.- 4.3.3 Possibility and Belief.- 4.4 The Leap to Second-Order Relations 125 4.4.1 Probability of Probabilities, Saith the Preacher.- 4.4.2 Rough Sets, Shaferian Belief, and Possibility Theory.- 4.4.3 Measures of Uncertainty.- 4.5 Imposing Order on the New Chaos.- 4.5.1 The Probabilists' Rejoinders.- 4.5.2 Reductionists: Logic, Topoi, and Probability Again.- 4.5.3 Pluralists and Synthesists.- 4.6 A Normative Paradigm Shift?.- II: Descriptive and Explanatory Paradigms.- 5: Psychological Accounts: Biases, Heuristics, and Control.- 5.1 The Normative View from Psychology.- 5.1.1 Three Traditions.- 5.1.2 Coping, Defending, and Ignorance.- 5.1.3 The Control and Predictability Thesis.- 5.2 The Bayesian Inquisition.- 5.2.1 A Paradigm for Studying Statistical Intuitions.- 5.2.2 From Words to Numbers and Vice-Versa.- 5.2.3 Selective Attention to Evidence.- 5.2.4 Aggregation and the Conjunction Effect.- 5.2.5 Randomicity and the Illusion of Control.- 5.2.6 Reframing Biases and the Independence Axiom.- 5.2.7 Normative Violations: Is the Evidence Clearcut?.- 5.3 Explaining Human Heuristics.- 5.3.1 Availability, Relevance, and Specificity.- 5.3.2 Representativeness, Anchoring, and Adjustment 18.- 5.3.3 Nonstandard Decision Theories.- 5.3.4 Criticisms of the Explanations.- 5.4 New Directions and New Uncertainties.- 5.4.1 Fuzzy Set Theory as a Behavioral Science?.- 5.4.2 Vagueness and Ambiguity.- 5.4.3 The New Reductionists.- 5.5 The Rationality Debate.- 5.5.1 The Bayesians and Rival Rationalists.- 5.5.2 The Normative and the Descriptive.- 6: The Social Construction of Ignorance.- 6.1 The View from Social Science.- 6.2 Ignorance and the Sociology of Knowledge.- 6.3 Ignorance in the Micro-Order.- 6.3.1 Language, Politeness, and Ignorance.- 6.3.2 Norms Inhibiting Communication.- 6.3.3 Privacy, Secrecy, and the Valuation of Information.- 6.3.4 Problems and Limitations.- 6.4 Ignorance in Organizational Life 23.- 6.4.1 Definitions of Uncertainty and Related Concepts.- 6.4.2 Uncertainty, Organizational Structure, and Process.- 6.4.3 Creating and Using Ignorance in Organizations.- 6.5 Coda: Ignorance and the Sociology of Science 25.- 7: A Dialog with Ignorance.- 7.1 The New Preoccupation with Ignorance.- 7.1.1 Techno-Rational Explanations.- 7.1.2 The Stage Model and Motivational Accounts.- 7.1.3 The Deviancy Analogy 27.- 7.2 An Example of a Normative-Descriptive Dialog: The Study of Second-Order Uncertainty.- 7.2.1 The Normative versus the Descriptive 27.- 7.2.2 A Study of Preference Patterns 27.- 7.2.3 Framing Effects in Nonprobabilistic Uncertainty.- 7.2.4 Expanding the Dialog 28.- 7.3 What Goals Are Served by Which 290 Normative Frameworks?.- 7.4 The Social Nature of Rationality.- Name Index.

Ignorance and Uncertainty overviews a variety of approaches to the problem of indeterminacies in human thought and behavior. This book examines, in depth, trends in the psychology of judgment and decision-making under uncertainty or ignorance. Research from the fields of cognitive psychology, social psychology, organizational studies, sociology, and social anthroplogy are reviewed here in anticipation of what Dr. Smithson characterizes as the beginning of a "creative dialogue between these researchers". Ignorance and Uncertainty offers the conceptual framework for understanding the paradigms associated with current research. It discusses the ways in which attitudes toward ignorance and uncertainty are changing, and addresses issues previously ignored.