Tolerance of uncertainty as a determinant of educators' psychological health in conditions of social tension

Introduction. Social instability increases the importance of tolerance of uncertainty among representatives of different social and professional groups. In the context of the COVID-19 pandemic, educators' tolerance of uncertainty as a probable determinant of their psychological health is of particular interest for researchers. Aim: to study tolerance of uncertainty as a determinant of educational staff's psychological health in conditions of social tension. Methods: D. McLain's MSTAT-II (adapted by E.M. Osin), T. Galkina & N. Artemtseva's Attitude to Psychological Health Scale, Scale of Positive Mental Health by J. Lukat et al., and Locus of Health Control questionnaire. Results. It was found that the most pronounced components of tolerance of uncertainty were the attitude to novelty and preference of uncertainty. Uncertainty tolerance components affected most aspects of educators' psychological health. Conclusion. Tolerance of uncertainty should be seen as a determinant of educators' psychological health.

Teaching Simple Strategies to Foster Emotional Well-Being

The COVID-19 pandemic has presented considerable disruptions to routines that have challenged emotional well-being for children and their caregivers. One direction for supporting emotional well-being includes strategies that help children feel their best in the moment, which can bolster their capacity to respond appropriately to thoughts and behaviors. Strengthening emotional well-being equitably, however, must include opportunities in settings that are easily accessible to all, such as schools. In this paper, we focus on simple, evidence-informed strategies that can be used in schools to promote positive feelings in the moment and build coping behaviors that facilitate tolerance of uncertainty. We focus on those strategies that educators can easily and routinely use across ages, stages, and activities. Selected strategies are primarily tied to cognitive behavioral theory, with our review broadly organized across categories of self-awareness, self-soothing, and social relationships. We review evidence for each, providing examples that illustrate ease of use in school settings.

Relationship between emotional sphere, tolerance of uncertainty and productive decision-making strategies

Tolerance for uncertainty is a component of intellectual-personal potential and mediates the decision-making process (DM). The state of Art demonstrates that tolerance of uncertainty contributes to effective and productive decision-making and associated with the constructs that reveal the emotional sphere of a person. The theory of dynamic regulative systems predicts that in the decision-making process, both cognitive and emotional-personal components (tolerance of uncertainty, emotional creativity, and emotional experience of threats from uncertainty) can reach the upper levels of the hierarchy. The role of tolerance for uncertainty in the decision-making processes is relatively well known, however the contribution of the emotional sphere to the problem-solving processes, as well as its relationship with tolerance of uncertainty, is not sufficiently studied. The aim of the study was to establish correlations between emotional creativity and tolerance for uncertainty and productive decision-making strategies. Hypotheses: positive correlation between emotional creativity tolerance of uncertainty productive decision-making strategies was expected. As a result, positive relationship between emotional creativity and tolerance of uncertainty was revealed. It is shown that emotional creativity can be involved in decision-making processes in two ways: to help overcome uncertainty and increase the effectiveness of problem solving, or to lead to difficulties in overcoming interpersonal intolerance of uncertainty, due to a decrease in components of self-control and control of emotional expression. Taken together, the results demonstrate the inclusion of uncertainty tolerance in the emotional sphere of the person, and show the involvement of these components in the DM processes.

A qualitative fallacy: Life trapped in interpretations and stories

This paper points out some problematic aspects of qualitative research based on interviews and uses examples from mental health. The narrative approach is explored while inquiring if the reality of life here is forced into the formula of a chronological story. The hermeneutic approach, in general, is also examined, and we ask if the reality of life in this scenario becomes caught up in a web of interpretations. Inspired by ideas from Bakhtin and phenomenology, we argue for interview-based research that stays with unresolvedness and constantly question the web of interpretations and narratives that determine our experiences. This also chimes with certain dialogical practices in mental health in which tolerance of uncertainty is the guiding principle. Concludingly, we suggest that interview-based research could be a practice of ‘un-resolving’ in which researchers, together with the participants, look for cracks, contradictions, and complexities to prevent the qualitative fallacies of well-organized meanings and well-composed stories.