title: Check to see if value is in DataFrame series ("The truth value of a Series is ambiguous" error)
body: <p>I'm trying to check to see if the value in a DataFrame column is contained in a series in a separate column. I'm receiving the "ValueError: The truth value of a Series is ambiguous. Use a.empty, a.bool(), a.item(), a.any() or a.all()." </p>
  
  <p>I've researched this, but do not quite understand why I'm receiving this error in this specific instance. </p>
  
  <p>I've tried using both the .contains functions. </p>
  
  <p>A simplified version of the DataFrame structure is as follows:</p>
  
  <pre><code>df
  
  index     id       id_list           in_series (desired return column]
  1         23       [1,2,34,56,75]    False
  2         14       [1,5,14,23,45]    True
  3         2        [1,2,4,25,37]     True
  4         14       [2,4,34,26,77]    False
  5         27       [1,6,19,27,50]    True
  
  a = df['id']
  b = df['id_list]
  df['in_series'] = b.str.contains(a, regex=False)
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Is there a better way of going about this?</p>