People vary in their tolerance for uncertainty, and this motivation—known as Need for Cognitive Closure (NFC)—can shape social behavior. Individuals high in NFC are driven to avoid ambiguity and quickly resolve uncertainty. Because interacting with similar others (homophily) tends to reduce uncertainty, while engaging with dissimilar others (heterophily) can increase it, we examined whether NFC predicts preferences for homophilous over heterophilous interactions. Across four correlational studies and a preregistered experiment, we found that higher NFC was consistently associated with lower heterophily. Meta-analytic results confirmed the robustness of this association across samples. High-NFC individuals also reported fewer acquaintances and fewer people to discuss important matters with. To investigate whether uncertainty reduction motivates these patterns, we experimentally induced uncertainty and assessed participants’ social preferences. As predicted, uncertainty reduced interest in interacting with dissimilar others, especially among individuals high in NFC. These findings suggest that a fundamental motivation to reduce uncertainty influences the diversity and composition of people’s social networks. This has broader implications for social support, the construction of shared realities, and the persistence of group-based stereotypes.
This paper proposes a theory for design as an alternative to constructing a universal theory of design. Design is presented not as an abstract construct but as a pragmatic process of problem-solving, transforming existing situations into preferred ones through communicative offers—artefacts, systems, and practices that orient humans within their social and environmental contexts.
Grounded in constructivist epistemology (Maturana, Varela, von Foerster, von Glasersfeld), the argument treats cognition as an individual, non-transferable process of meaning-making, while communication provides the mechanism linking these cognitive worlds. Following Luhmann and Fleischer, communication is seen as self-reproducing, generating society as a system of repeated and connectable interactions. Design thus appears as a communicative practice: stimulating cognition, offering products
for meaning negotiation, and shaping social reproduction. Examples such as the redesign of signage in transport hubs show that design extends beyond artefacts, initiating processes of adaptation, critique, and meaning reproduction. Every design is ultimately a design of communication, raising strategic questions of what, how, to whom, and when to communicate.
The paper argues that “effective communication” is an operative fiction: useful for practice yet impossible to guarantee. Accordingly, design cannot directly steer social change but creates conditions for awareness and collective negotiation of meanings. A theory for design provides a neutral, knowledge-based framework for intentional, communication-oriented practices, placing the human being and their environment at the center.
Pozostałe osiągnięcia naukoweMonografia (zamknięty dostęp)Monograph Chapter (Conference proceedings)
Codebook to a qualitative study on barriers and facilitators to participation in a dyadic internet intervention to manage work-family conflict as reported in: Smoktunowicz E, Maciejewski J, Lesnierowska M, Ziolkowska J, Roczniewska M. Doing it together: Qualitative study on barriers and facilitators to dyadic internet interventions for interrole conflict. Internet Interv. 2025 Oct 3;42:100880. doi: 10.1016/j.invent.2025.100880. PMID: 41113765; PMCID: PMC12529352.
The dataset is a part of a larger data collection, study 1 of the project: Meaning-reconstruction process in cancer: the role of psychological flexibility. Intensive longitudinal and experimental studies (National Science Centre, Poland, grant No. 2020/39/B/HS6/01927 awarded to Aleksandra Kroemeke).
This folder contains the following files:
- [File_1.csv]: This file contains the dataset that included following main variables: meaning-related distress, meaning-making, meanings made, and physical and emotional well-being.
- [File_2.xlsx]: This file contains the codebook that contains information on variables used in the study.
Further information on the study can be found here: Kroemeke A, Dudek J, Sobczyk-Kruszelnicka M (2022). The role of psychological flexibility in the meaning-reconstruction process in cancer: The intensive longitudinal study protocol. PLoS ONE 17(10): e0276049. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0276049.
