The sociological significance of ambivalence: An example from adoption research

Abstract

The current adoption controversy in the United States has prompted researchers to study factors that influence adoptees' attitudes towards obtaining identifying information 1 about their birth parents. This paper considers the usefulness of some recent methodological perspectives on the contextuality of meaning for the purpose of conducting and analyzing adoption interviews. I will argue that, because of the tendency among researchers to look only for adoptees' reasons for or against requesting genealogical knowledge, the dilemma-ridden nature of their thinking has been ignored. Theoretically, the paper proposes an alternative approach to adoption research and raises the issue of the sociological and methodological significance of ambivalence. Empirically, it shows that contradictory or ambivalent attitudes towards the disclosure of identifying information can be interpreted, not as signs of inconsistency, immaturity or delusion, but in terms of two intersecting moral vocabularies: the ethic of self-discovery and the ethic of reciprocity. Rather than merely expressing individual differences in experience or temperament, these vocabularies reflect moral themes in the culture at large.