What influences individuals' tolerance for ambiguity? Exploring the role of social comparison orientation, tendency to maximize and feel regret

Situations marked with ambiguity can induce an aversion due to heightened fear of the unknown augmented by individual differences in ambiguity tolerance levels (Einhorn & Hogarth, 1985). Under such situations, an individual's ambiguity tolerance levels can be influenced based on the need to compare with others for ability-related or opinion-related social comparisons. Moreover, specific personality dispositions and emotions like the tendency to maximize and proneness to feel regret are prone to be sensitive towards social comparison effects. Hence, by employing two survey studies across different cultural backgrounds of the Indian context (N = 259) and US context (N = 284), this study aims to examine the under-researched relation between an individual's social comparison orientation (SCO) and tolerance for ambiguity (ToA), along with the emotional disposition traits of maximization and proneness to regret. The results show that the relationship is significant across both survey studies. However, only for ability-related social comparisons. While maximization tendency came as a significant predictor in the Indian context, in the US context, proneness to feel regret came as a significant predictor between the relation of SCO and ToA. The results show that comparing with others influences the tolerance for ambiguity. However, different personality traits reflective of collectivist vs individualistic cultural backgrounds also are a significant predictor of this relation.