Uncertainty is something we can all identify with. We live in an uncertain age where it is hard to tell what is true and hard to discern a clear path, where right down at our cores, we doubt. Dr. Patrick Carroll’s new book, The Routledge Handbook of the Uncertain Self, second edition, jumps right into the social, cognitive, motivational, interpersonal, clinical and applied aspects of that uncertain self.
The impetus for a second edition grew out the research and collaborations that resulted from the first handbook that came out in 2009. Carroll anticipates that a similar phenomenon will happen with the researchers who contributed work for the second edition.
“The hope is that you can develop cross-fertilization of ideas so that, for example this person who does attitude and persuasion research all of the sudden starts talking to someone who does relationship research based on the common ground that they both look at self uncertainty,” Carroll said.
While he contributed a chapter about self-uncertainty as both the cause and consequence of identity change, Carroll’s role as editor meant he also helped define the topic, set goals for the collaboration and brought the contributors together. The second edition has some similar themes from the first, but has a notable difference in its focus on self-uncertainty.
“This edition has a much more applied focus and adds in a bit of the group dimension to the topic of self-uncertainty which we had not really done in the first handbook edition but it is really important nowadays because you have groups that are inspiring radical behavior, extremist behavior, conspiratorial thinking,” he said.
Carroll hopes the handbook will be put to use both in educational contexts and also in applied settings by different practitioners. For example, the idea of belongingness uncertainty has been used at Ohio State Lima to help members of underrepresented groups realize they have a place in higher education. Upper-class students who had successfully navigated their first years spoke to incoming students about their experiences to help normalize the idea of uncertainty and show how they worked through it.
His personal experiences and research on identity change led Carroll to his interest in self-identity and the formation of both editions of the handbook.
“This is a chance to take the people I was already following in the field and bring them together under a single roof and in the process educate myself on what the cutting-edge theory and research was saying on self-uncertainty.”
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"The Routledge Handbook of the Uncertain Self, Second Edition" edited by Patrick J. Carroll, Kimberly Rios and Kathryn C. Oleson hits shelves on February 25, 2025. Dr. Pat Carroll is a professor of psychology at The Ohio State University.