An integrative model of ambivalence

Abstract

Ambivalence is a widely experienced psychological state, but inter-disciplinary studies, to a certain extent, define and conceptualize ambivalence independently. In spite of its lack of clarity, ambivalence has become an increasingly popular concept, utilized in hypotheses concerning a variety of social phenomena. This study provides an overview of extant studies on ambivalence, and summarizes the similarities and differences in how practitioners of social psychology, political science, and sociology have adopted the concept. A survey of literature from the three fields suggests four distinctive definitions of ambivalence or antecedents that have caused ambivalence: (1) co-activation of both positivity and negativity; (2) co-emergence of conflicting attitudes; (3) co-constraint of conflicting values; and (4) co-existence of conflicting reference groups. Some potential problems, such as inconsistent findings and lack of relevant measures or indices are indicated, and alternative methods are suggested. The paper concludes by suggesting a more sophisticated and precise integrative model of ambivalence.

Acknowledgement

The author would like to thank Dr. Joseph N. Cappella and anonymous reviewers for valuable comments and suggestions.

Notes

1 Some readers may be curious about the difference between ‘uncertainty’ and ‘ambiguity’ because both psychological states are caused by a lack of information. However, psychologists and/or economists distinguish ambiguity from uncertainty. Ambiguity is caused by a lack of critical information whereas uncertainty is invited by insufficient information to form an evaluation of an event (Keren & Gerritsen, 1999). Thus uncertainty is overcome simply by absorbing more information (i.e., information quantity), but ambiguity is averted by acquiring key information (i.e., information type). For further discussion, see Keren and Gerritsen (1999).

2 There are other approaches to investigating ambivalence. For example, social schema theory implicitly defines ambivalence as ‘the inconsistency between schema and a particular event’ (Fiske, 1998). The most relevant example from social schema theory is subtyping (Allport, 1954). However, this paper does not discuss subtyping in detail because it is more closely related to inconsistency than ambivalence. For similar reasons, this paper will not include an examination of theoretical legacy in cognitive dissonance theory (Festinger, 1957). As discussed earlier, ambivalence and dissonance (or inconsistency) should be distinguished conceptually.

3 The vertical inconsistency approach resembles the Freudian psychology model (i.e., the model of dynamics among the id, ego, and superego). In fact, Katz (1981) traced its theoretical origin to the Freudian Model.

4 There are other relevant traditions related to “ambivalence” in political science. For example, game theorists may explain ambivalence as a game-player's or social agent's psychological hesitancy caused by insufficient information about a partner's or a competitor's attitudes (Raiffa, 1968). However, I do not explore game theoretic implications for two reasons. First, ambivalence in game theory is usually conceptualized by uncertainty. In other words, providing more information can resolve the uncertainty about the decision-making situation. As shown earlier in this paper, uncertainty is a concept distinct from ambivalence (see Alvarez & Brehm, 1997). Second, game theory assumes symmetry between good and bad values. People usually behave as rational actors (Raiffa, 1968), and thus negativity and positivity are assumed to have the same strength. However, people have a psychologically biased tendency towards different reactions—for example, negativity bias or positivity offset (Cacioppo & Berntson, 1994)—and their decision-making process is influenced by subjective risk perception (e.g., risk-taking or loss aversion; see Tversky & Kahneman, 1981).

5 “Distal” means the causal factors having a distant relationship with the final outcome variable. For example, in the path model of A → B → C, A is defined as a distal variable. In a political scientific perspective, ideology is related with inter-attitudinal inconsistency, which causes intra-personal ambivalence.

6 Scholars distinguish two traditions of election studies—the Columbia and Michigan Schools (for review, see Shaw, 2001). While the Columbia School emphasized the influence of socio-demographic factors, the Michigan School investigated political psychological reasons, such as party affiliation, attitudes toward issues, and affect towards politicians (e.g., feeling thermometer). Similar arguments were suggested in the Michigan School of election studies, which I include under the political scientific perspective, but their explanation suggests how the sociological approach can be related to the inter-attitudinal approach in either a political scientific or a social psychological perspective. Campbell et al. (1960) posited.

Our measurements of the individual's evaluations of political objects may lead us to describe a type of psychological conflict that is linked less closely to politically heterogeneous memberships than are other types of conflict, such as perceptions of different partisan standards in two or more primary groups to which the individual belongs. Nevertheless the hypothesis that social cross-pressures contribute part of the conflict we observe in the system of partisan attitudes is one deserving careful exploration. …These cross-pressures should be reflected in a less consistent field of partisan attitudes (p. 87, emphasis added)ut simply, Campbell et al. (1960) do not deny the plausibility of the cross-pressures hypothesis. In Campbell et al's explanation, the psychological conflict is the mediating concept that links sociological ambivalence to delay in decision-making or political/civic participation.

7 Alvarez and Brehm (1997) treat the inter-attitudinal differences that are not explained by ideological constraint as “the degree of ambivalence.” Conceptually, the standard deviation of the second component of the extended Griffin index quantifies the degree of heteroskedasticity that is inter-attitudinal difference.

8 Another strategy to capture the inter-attitudinal latent ambivalence is the application of “multi-trait and multi-method” (MTMM, Campbell & Fiske, 1959) via structural equation modeling. In other words, overall evaluation (positive vs. negative) can be defined as trait, and multiple items can be treated as method. In my survey of the literature, there are no applications of MTMM to measure ambivalence.