Whence Univalent Ambivalence? From the Anticipation of Conflicting Reactions

The subjective experience of ambivalence results from possessing both positive and negative reactions. Why do individuals sometimes experience ambivalence when they possess only positive or only negative reactions (i.e., univalent attitudes)? This research advances and provides support for the notion that anticipated conflicting reactions underlie such ambivalence. Anticipated conflicting reactions occur when an individual possesses no, or only a few, manifest conflicting reactions and yet anticipates that there may exist conflicting information of which they are unaware. Support is provided by three experiments in which anticipated conflicting reactions mediated the influence of amount of univalent information on feelings of ambivalence.

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