PUB - Publikationen an der Universität Bielefeld

The central focus of the following working paper is a social-scientific and especially social- psychological understanding of the relation between the concept of uncertainty and conflicts between groups within a certain society. How can uncertainty be conceptualised (understood)? What is the meaning and role of uncertainty when we want to understand conflicts between groups? What can social psychology contribute to the questions: How do and which uncertainties influence conflicts, especially processes of constructive and destructive conflict regulation? By which group dynamics and mechanisms do groups navigate uncertainty in society? Shortly, conflicts and the regulation of societal conflicts are the central focus of this contribution to interdisciplinary uncertainty studies. The perspective we outline in the following is social psychological, i.e. we focus on conflicts between groups and their members. We focus on a psychological level. We try to understand individuals, their perceptions, emotions and behaviour. From this perspective, we differentiate between individual and collectively shared uncertainty; we propose a clearer differentiation of levels, types, sources and modes of navigation of uncertainty in group conflicts.