Browsing by Subject "uncertainty"

Objectives: Personality traits have been associated with fertility behaviour, but associations between personality and fertility intentions, especially uncertainty in fertility intentions, have not been studied before. Uncertainty in fertility intentions is the state in which an individual is not sure whether to have (more) children. Fertility intentions have been used to project population trends and to better understand reproductive decision-making processes. In this study, uncertainty in fertility intentions is studied from a biological point of view, by examining personality traits and their associations with uncertainty in fertility intentions, as well as how these associations differ between men and women. Methods: The data used in this study was from the German family panel (pairfam). The respondents (n=4420) were childless men and women aged 18-45 years. Long-term fertility intentions were assessed with a question about how many children the respondents realistically intended to have in their lifetime, and the answers were divided into three categories, one of which represented uncertain intentions. Personality traits were assessed using a short version of the Big Five Inventory. The associations were analyzed using multinomial logistic regression, and gender differences were analyzed using interaction terms between personality traits and gender. Age, partnership status, education and residence were controlled in the analysis. Results and conclusion: All personality traits, except extraversion, were associated with fertility intentions independent of socio-demographic factors. Higher neuroticism and openness were associated with higher uncertainty in fertility intentions, whereas higher conscientiousness and agreeableness were associated with higher likelihood of intending to have children. There were no differences between men and women in these associations. Male gender, older age, not having a partner, and higher education were related to higher uncertainty in fertility intentions. The results are mostly in line with previous studies on the associations between personality and actual number of children, except for conscientiousness, which has previously been associated with lower fertility. This study strengthens the notion that biological factors have associations with fertility behaviour, stressing the importance of further research on the topic.

Managing uncertainty in change: a case study on communication and uncertainty in the Gulf of Finland Coast Guard District Besides the changes that have occurred in the Finnish security authorities’ operational environment, cuts in the financial resources of the Finnish Border Guard have intensified internal pressures for change in the line-and-staff organisation and the need to create new modes of operation. In this Master’s Thesis, the relationship between the uncertainty associated with change and the internal communication of the organisation was examined from the viewpoint of the complexity theory. The purpose of this case study was to extend our understanding of the phenomenon of uncertainty and to try and find better ways of managing uncertainty arising from change in the communication processes of the Finnish Border Guard. From the perspective of the philosophy of science, this study is based on hermeneutical thinking, in which knowledge is constructed through interpretation, layer by layer, from preliminary understanding to conclusions. The empirical data consist of eleven themed interviews of employees of the Gulf of Finland Coast Guard District, which were analysed by means of theory-led content analysis. The interview data were supplemented with documentary material, including a plan for economic and financial adjustment drawn up within the Finnish Border Guard. The perceptions of the interviewees were structured as narratives formed at different administrative levels of the organisation and were examined through the lenses of uncertainty, complexity, and change. The attained understanding of the uncertainty arising from change was deepened by means of a complexity-theoretical framework and the concept of sensemaking. It was found that the problem of managing a complex communication network and dynamic organisational processes boils down to information and interaction amongst the various actors. The experience of uncertainty is situative and subjective. Regardless of whether uncertainty in the organisation was examined from the point of view of external or internal change, uncertainty was seen as a factor impairing the organisation’s performance. The conclusion was drawn in the study that the uncertainty arising from change can be managed more effectively if the narrative of change is created from the points of view of both the organisation and the individual employee. Other helpful measures are ensuring the continuity of the communicative narrative and promoting multifaceted dialogue and interaction amongst the administrative levels. The results indicate that the organisation’s problem-solving ability is largely based on the management of uncertainty, i.e., that the organisation lends a sensitive ear to the dynamism of social systems and harnesses the information transmitted through the feedback processes into a part of the narrative of change-management communication. When communication is understood as an ever-changing and evolving narrative process, the management of uncertainty becomes closely linked with the management of complexity and the strengthening of the organisation’s resilience. This study supplements the scholarly discourse on the management of uncertainty and functions as an empirical window into the application of complexity-theoretical concepts to organisation research.

Mallintaminen on erittäin ajankohtainen tapa tuottaa tietoa kompleksisista ilmiöistä ja niihin liittyvistä kausaalisuhteista. Mallinnus nähdään parhaana saatavilla olevana työkaluna tarjota päättäjille tietoa lähitulevaisuuden skenaarioista ja tarvittavista toimista (Meah, 2019; Schirpke et al., 2020). Tässä tutkielmassa luodaan kokonaiskuva modernista ympäristömallinnuksesta vertaamalla globaaleja, objektiiviseen dataan pohjaavia ilmastomalleja paikallisiin, ekologista ja sosiaalista tietoa yhdistäviin ekosysteemipalvelumalleihin. Mallinnuksen lisäksi tarkastellaan tieteen ja päätöksenteon rajapintaa, joka on etenkin mallien yhteiskunnallisen käyttökelpoisuuden keskiössä. Käyttökelpoista ja yhteiskunnallisesti relevanttia mallinnusta analysoidaan integroivan kirjallisuuskatsauksen (Whittemore & Knafl, 2005) kautta. Kirjallisuuden aiheina ovat ilmastonmuutos, ekosysteemipalvelut, mallinnus ja tieteen ja politiikan rajapinta, n=58. Eri tieteenalat ja näkökulmat ovat edustettuna aineistossa. Koska päämääränä on luoda kattava ymmärrys mallinnuksesta poikkitieteellisenä ilmiönä, tutkielma ei keskity mallinnuksen teknisiin näkökulmiin. Kirjallisuudesta tyypitellään epävarmuuden lajeja sekä niiden hallintaan pyrkiviä strategioita (mm. van der Sluijs, 2005). Lisäksi tunnistetaan käyttökelpoisten mallien ja muiden tieteen muotojen tunnuspiirteitä (mm. Saltelli et al., 2020). Käyttökelpoisimpia ovat tilanteeseen sopivat, ratkaisukeskeiset ja saatavilla olevat mallit yhdistettynä riittävään vuorovaikutukseen ja luottamukseen mallien käyttäjien ja luojien välillä. Ilmastonmuutos ja ekosysteemipalvelut toimivat tapausesimerkkeinä, joita analysoidaan läpileikkaavasti kaikissa kappaleissa. Keskustelu tieteen ja päätöksenteon suhteesta on erityisen tärkeää kestävyyskriisiä ratkaistaessa. Koska mallinnus sijoittuu tieteen ja päätöksenteon rajapinnalle (Duncan, Robson-Williams, & Edwards, 2020), rajapintatyön rooli epävarmuuden hallitsijana ja viestijänä sekä mallin käyttökelpoisuuden varmistajana on analyysin keskiössä.

This thesis looks at the post-war reintegration of and war trauma in the former Lord’s Resistance Army (LRA) rebel force abductees in the Acholi subregion of northern Uganda. The work’s focus is on how the former LRA abductees make meaning of their subjective experience of trauma according to the Acholi world view and how these experiences guide their search for healing. These questions are examined in the context of three healing practices from which the formerly abducted research participants have sought help for their war-related psychological symptoms: public healthcare and non-governmental psychosocial trauma counselling, local ajwaka spirit mediums, and Pentecostal and Charismatic Christian churches. The research for this thesis is based on three-month-long ethnographic fieldwork consisting of participant observation, semi-structured interviews, group discussions, and other informal interactions in the Acholi districts of Gulu and Nwoya between October and December 2017. The core research participants are 20 formerly abducted LRA combatants (ten males and ten females aged between 24–55 years) who have returned back to civilian life before the northern Uganda conflict ended in 2006. Furthermore, medical professionals, trauma counsellors, ajwaka spirit mediums, Charismatic Christian pastor, and relatives of the core research participants were interviewed for this study. This thesis is built around medical anthropological theories of trauma and anthropological theories of subjectivity, where the former LRA abductees’ symptoms are approached through a three-dimensional theoretical framework of inner subjectivity, structural subjugation, and intersubjective relations. This thesis proposes that the war-related symptoms find their meaning through inner and bodily experiences, personal convictions, and subjective world views of their sufferers, which steer the former LRA abductees towards their preferred healing practices. However, these experiences are shaped by external constraints related to economic and sociopolitical subjugation under state rule, hierarchical social structure as well as intimate intersubjective power relations and cultural norms that can either enable or challenge the former abductees’ access to healing. The findings of this thesis suggest that even though the three healing practices approach war-related symptoms from ontologically different angles, they all offer meaningful tools to repair broken social relationships and retether the former abductees back to their social worlds in ways that can reduce trauma symptoms and foster healing. However, for various reasons the administered treatments sometimes fail, which forces symptom-sufferers to move beyond their preferred healing practices to find relief from their war-related symptoms. This thesis argues that the search for healing is full of uncertainty about the cosmological origin of symptoms, social tensions, and opaque motives of helpers. Thus, the healing process is dependent on intersubjective entanglements with kin, treatment providers, illness agents, and healing powers alike, which suggests that different forms of relationality lie at the centre of healing from war trauma. In conclusion, this thesis proposes that the gap between the former LRA abductees and the wider Acholi community has narrowed over the years since the conflict ended, but for some research participants the ongoing experiencing of war-related psychological symptoms still prevent them from fully participating in the Acholi society, which continues to hinder their reintegration. Until recently, the study of trauma in northern Uganda has revolved around the study of local spirits and Acholi rituals. The present study contributes to the broadening of the scope of the study of trauma among the Acholi towards other healing practices and provides a critical and multifaceted review of how the formerly abducted Lord’s Resistance Army combatants conceptualise their experience of war-related psychological symptoms from their socio-cultural perspective in post-war northern Uganda.

One of the most debated areas of metaethics is whether moral beliefs should be understood as descriptive beliefs or as non-cognitive states of mind. If the former is true, then moral beliefs are truth-apt and should be understood to describe facts of the world. Expressivists think that moral beliefs are expressions of non-cognitive states of mind similar to desires and that moral beliefs do not get their meaning from any descriptive facts. Instead, the function of a moral judgement is to avow attitudes, express preferences, or the like. This thesis explores two problems, which arise from the expressivists understanding of moral beliefs. More specifically, the problems investigated are about how uncertainty and certainty in our moral beliefs should be understood by those endorsing expressivism. Expressivism neatly explains why moral beliefs have a motivational force, but faces problems in explaining why our everyday normative talk seems to behave as if moral beliefs are similar to all the descriptive beliefs we have. Quasi-realism is a project aimed to explain and justify everyday moral talk from the expressivist viewpoint. Moral error is one of the concepts our everyday moralizing uses, which quasi-realism aims to justify. Being wrong in moral matters should be possible, as should uncertainty on whether your own moral beliefs are erroneous. If moral beliefs are expressions of desire-like non-cognitive states of mind, it is not obvious how we can be uncertain of them. After all, desires are traditionally thought to be unquestionable. An explanation of moral uncertainty is, in this case, a crucial goal for quasi-realism. Andy Egan claims that quasi-realists cannot provide a good enough explanation of moral uncertainty. In particular, he argues that there are fundamental moral beliefs which quasi-realists are forced to judge as a priori true, while everyone else’s fundamental moral beliefs can be doubted. If so, this asymmetry means that quasi-realists are unpardonably smug and so fail to vindicate our everyday understanding of morality. Michael Smith provides another problem for quasi-realists and expressivists. He claims that moral beliefs have three features, and expressivists can only provide an explanation of two of them. These three features are the importance of a belief versus other beliefs, its stability when new facts and opinions are uncovered, and the certitude that the belief holder has regarding the truthfulness of the belief. From these three features, it is certitude that is widely regarded as the one which expressivists cannot explain, making quasi-realists’ goals once again unattainable. This thesis explores the different ways quasi-realists and expressivists have tried to answer these arguments and failed. I will argue that the two problems presented here are linked, and the solution to Egan’s argument can only be gained if Smith’s argument is also solved. Smith’s understanding of certitude is argued to be erroneous, and that his problem of explaining certitude poses no further problems for expressivists, which everyone else would not face as well. In addition, this thesis will have suggestions of how certitude should be understood regardless of metaethical views. As for Egan’s challenge, I will argue that his definition of fundamental moral beliefs is incomplete. I propose that fundamental moral belief should be understood as completely certain beliefs and that expressions of knowledge accompany those, and that no-one can doubt fundamental beliefs. We are all smug when it comes to our most fundamental moral beliefs.