Reliability and Factor Structure of Budner's Tolerance for Ambiguity Scale

Budner's (1962) tolerance for ambiguity scale is a well-known and widely used measure of ambiguity tolerance. Its reliability and factor structure were examined in the present study. Four hundred thirty-six undergraduate stttdents completed Budner's scale as part of a student assessment center program. The results of two confirmatory factor analyses failed to substantiate the plausibility of Budner's proposed single-factor model of tolerance for ambiguity, or the four-factor model reported in Furnham (1994). In addition, the Budner scale was shown to have low internal reliability (a = .44) in this sample. The low reliability estimates for this measure, coupled with the apparent lack of a replicable factor structure, suggest that the Budner scale (at least in its present form) is a poor measure of tolerance for ambiguity.