Ambivalence in mass politics

Abstract

Ambivalence is the simultaneous pull in different affective directions that people may experience. Originally developed as a psychological construct, a growing literature in political behavior draws on the concept of ambivalence to understand public opinion, vote choice, and other phenomena. This chapter discusses what ambivalence means in a political context, how it can be conceptualized and measured, how it arises, and how it affects information processing. It discusses the consequences of ambivalence for public opinion, vote choice, and political perception. While ambivalence sheds light on many phenomena in political behavior such as unstable and unpredictable opinions, vote switching, ticket splitting, belief updating, and the determinants of vote choice, important questions remain and those our outlined in the chapter.