Page 2 - Tolerance_to_Ambiguity_Scale_Sample_Report

Bottom Quartile

Your score for the first subscale “NOVELTY” is 19 and lies in the top quartile indicating that you
have a fairly low tolerance level for new unfamiliar information or situations. Your scores for the
second subscale “ COMPLEXITY” at 12 indicates that you have reasonably high level of tolerance for
multiple, distinct and unrelated information. Your score on the third subscale “INSOLUBILITY” at
8 also falls in the bottom quartile. This indicates that you have very high level of tolerance for
problems that are very difficult to solve or where alternative solutions are not evident

Put together your scores can be interpreted as indicating that though you are extremely comfortable
dealing with with complex, unrelated information and situations which do not have easy or
apparent solutions, one important concern area is new and unfamiliar information. Your scores
indicate that you may experience challenges plugging in unfamilar information into your existing
mental models or information that disrupts or challenges your existing models. The report also
indicates that you may experience some challenges while functioning in stimulus rich or
information overloaded environments

To help you better deal with such ambiguous situations you can consider practising the following:

• Step 1: Rephrase the question.
Every additional byte of information that we absorb need not contribute towards building
coherence of our existing mental model. While it is important that we are not selective in
absorbing only that information which fits our mental models it is also equally important we ask
the right (not usual) questions. Often when we rephrase our questions we realize that the
information fits into our mental models but not in ways we expected it to fit.

• Step 2: Seek objections instead of affirmations
We usually seek information that affirms and sustain our existing mental models. Therefore
when we face new and disconfirming evidence against our mental models we experience
rejection and display intolerance. One way to safeguard against this derailment is to
intentionally seek information that contradicts our existing beliefs and thinking models and then
build alternative scenarios or models around the new information. That way we are constantly
upskilling our mental tenacity to accomodate uncertainty ushered in by new and unfamiliar
information.

• Step 3: Seek help.
It is possible that other people may have better insights and simpler approaches to such
challenges.

Use the following exercise to think about a change, that you have experienced in the past, and consider the resistance you felt
initially. Then use the benefit of hindsight to put the experience into perspective. Do this for a change initiated by someone else,
rather than one you implemented yourself.

• Think of a major change that happened to you at work. Describe the situation briefly

• What direct impact did the change have on you?

• How did you first learn about change?

• Think back and describe how you initially reacted to it

• How did your feelings and perceptions change over time?

• What triggered your revised view?

• Think about how you feel about change now. Describe the process and outcome again. But this time from your current vantage
point

• Note how you reacted then, compared to how you do now. What do you attribute this difference to?

Disclaimer: The "Tolerance to Ambiguity scale" is a psychometric assessment and like all such
assessments, the scores are to be used as indicators with representative value. The scores do not
claim to be 100 percent accurate. The assessment attempts to describe the individual based on their
responses to the questionnaire. As a standard practice, we recommend that for a better
understanding and use of the results, this report is interpreted by a certified practitioner through a one
on one interpretation or coaching session. It is recomended that this instrument is read alongside
other assessments like “Cognitive Style Index”; “Decision Effectiveness Index”; Hogan Business
Reasoning Inventory etc. Results from this instrument are recomended only for training and
development purpose