Attitudinal Ambivalence Research Articles

Associations of perceived norms with intentions to learn genomic sequencing results: Roles for attitudes and ambivalence.

Genomic sequencing is becoming increasingly accessible, highlighting the need to understand the social and psychological factors that drive interest in receiving testing results. These decisions may depend on perceived descriptive norms (how most others behave) and injunctive norms (what is approved of by others). We predicted that descriptive norms would be directly associated with intentions to learn genomic sequencing results, whereas injunctive norms would be associated indirectly, via attitudes. These differential associations with intentions versus attitudes were hypothesized to be strongest when individuals held ambivalent attitudes toward obtaining results. Participants enrolled in a genomic sequencing trial (n = 372) reported intentions to learn medically actionable, nonmedically actionable, and carrier sequencing results. Descriptive norms items referenced other study participants. Injunctive norms were analyzed separately for close friends and family members. Attitudes, attitudinal ambivalence, and sociodemographic covariates were also assessed. In structural equation models, both descriptive norms and friend injunctive norms were associated with intentions to receive all sequencing results (ps < .004). Attitudes consistently mediated all friend injunctive norms-intentions associations, but not the descriptive norms-intentions associations. Attitudinal ambivalence moderated the association between friend injunctive norms (p ≤ .001), but not descriptive norms (p = .16), and attitudes. Injunctive norms were significantly associated with attitudes when ambivalence was high, but were unrelated when ambivalence was low. Results replicated for family injunctive norms. Descriptive and injunctive norms play roles in genomic sequencing decisions. Considering mediators and moderators of these processes enhances ability to optimize use of normative information to support informed decision making. (PsycINFO Database Record

Wearable health information systems intermittent discontinuance

PurposeWearable health information systems (IS) open up a new era for personal health self-management, and bring about disruptive changes to individual lives. However, prior studies on IS post-adoptive behavior primarily focused on either continuance or discontinuance, neglecting the mutual transformation process between IS usage and rejection behavior. This behavior is expressed as intermittent discontinuance in the current study. By revising and extending the expectation-disconfirmation model, the purpose of this paper is to understand the factors affecting information system intermittent discontinuance in the context of wearable eHealth.Design/methodology/approachThis study proposes a revised expectation-disconfirmation model by incorporating four new theoretical constructs, i.e. neutral disconfirmation, attitudinal ambivalence, neutral satisfaction, and intermittent discontinuance. An online survey was used to validate the research model, and 428 wearable health device users were recruited in this study.FindingsEmpirical results demonstrate that neutral disconfirmation exerts positive effects on neutral satisfaction and attitudinal ambivalence, both of which further have positive effects on intermittent discontinuance. In addition, attitudinal ambivalence also has a positive and significant effect on neutral satisfaction.Originality/valueThis study extends the current understanding on IS post-adoption usage behavior by introducing a new concept, i.e., intermittent discontinuance. In particular, post-adoption usage behavior is viewed as a dynamic process within a changing environment in this study. Some unique features specific to intermittent discontinuance are also identified. In this regard, neutral and conflicting constructs further add new values to IS adoption and diffusion literature. In addition, the integration of eHealth and wearable devices provides a fruitful research context for future research, and this study represents one of the first attempts to empirically explore the intermittent usage problems encountered within this emerging phenomenon.

The Impact of Coworkers' Safety Violations on an Individual Worker: A Social Contagion Effect within the Construction Crew.

This research developed and tested a model of the social contagion effect of coworkers’ safety violations on individual workers within construction crews. Both situational and routine safety violations were considered in this model. Empirical data were collected from 345 construction workers in China using a detailed questionnaire. The results showed that both types of safety violations made by coworkers were significantly related to individuals’ perceived social support and production pressure. Individuals’ attitudinal ambivalence toward safety compliance mediated the relationships between perceived social support and production pressure and both types of individuals’ safety violations. However, safety motivation only mediated the effects of perceived social support and production pressure on individuals’ situational safety violations. Further, this research supported the differences between situational and routine safety violations. Specifically, we found that individuals were more likely to imitate coworkers’ routine safety violations than their situational safety violations. Coworkers’ situational safety violations had an indirect effect on individuals’ situational safety violations mainly through perceived social support and safety motivation. By contrast, coworkers’ routine safety violations had an indirect effect on individuals’ routine safety violations mainly through perceived production pressure and attitudinal ambivalence. Finally, the theoretical and practical implications, research limitations, and future directions were discussed.

The Bipolarity of Attitudes: Unfolding the Implications of Ambivalence.

Recently, some attitude researchers have argued that the traditional bipolar model of attitudes should be replaced, claiming that a bivariate model is superior in several ways, foremost of which is its ability to account for ambivalent attitudes. This study argues that ambivalence is not at odds with bipolarity per se, but rather the conventional view of bipolarity, and that the psychometric evidence supporting a bivariate interpretation has been flawed. To demonstrate this, a scale developed out of the bivariate approach was examined using a unidimensional unfolding item response theory model: general hyperbolic cosine model for polytomous responses. The results were consistent with a bipolar interpretation, providing support for the argument that ambivalent evaluations are the correct middle-point of a bipolar evaluative dimension. Thus, it is argued that attitudinal ambivalence does not necessitate moving beyond bipolarity, but rather, moving beyond the conventional conceptualization and assessment of attitudes.

Explaining Time of Vote Decision: The Socio-Structural, Attitudinal, and Contextual Determinants of Late Deciding

In the last decades, Western democracies have witnessed an increase in the proportion of voters who make their electoral choice late in the campaign. Consequently, scholars have paid considerable attention to this phenomenon and attempted to identify the factors which influence time of vote decision. This article reviews the literature on the determinants of decision timing. Several studies suggest that women and young citizens are more likely to be late deciders. Besides, party identification has been shown to hasten the electoral decision, whereas attitudinal ambivalence and network cross-pressures have been found to delay the crystallisation of vote intentions. Moreover, previous work reveals that strategic voters decide later than do their sincere counterparts. Special attention is also devoted to the debate on whether the phenomenon of late deciding can be seen as the consequence of a lack of political sophistication or as the product of a high level of political engagement.

Relating Mindfulness to Attitudinal Ambivalence Through Self-concept Clarity

Attitudinal ambivalence is characterized by conflict and indecision. Individuals differ in the extent to which they hold ambivalent attitudes, and this has recently been shown to be associated with mindfulness. Specifically, higher mindfulness was related to lower levels of ambivalence. The current study examined whether this relationship would be mediated by the clarity that individuals have about themselves (self-concept clarity, SCC). A close relationship between the self and attitudes has been documented in previous research, and the current study hypothesized (a) that high SCC would be associated with less attitudinal ambivalence and (b) that this association might account for the relationship between mindfulness and ambivalence. Participants of the current study (N = 114) completed measures of mindfulness and SCC as well as an attitude survey asking them about various contentious issues (e.g., euthanasia). Results of linear mixed-effects model analyses showed that both higher mindfulness and higher SCC were associated with lower levels of attitudinal ambivalence. Moreover, bootstrapping mediation analyses showed that SCC mediated the association between mindfulness and ambivalence. Results suggest that mindfulness may foster self-knowledge and that clear self-knowledge may shield individuals from feeling too much conflict and indecision about various contentious issues.

Attitude Strength and Structure Regarding Privatization of Local Public Park and Recreation Services

As tax-based funding for local public park and recreation services becomes increasingly scarce, alternative funding strategies have received increased attention. Privatization, any activity that reduces the public’s role in the financing and delivery of such services, has garnered particular scrutiny. Privatization is simultaneously a promising tool for public park agencies, and a potentially controversial and contentious issue. However, existing research has provided an incomplete picture of privatization in the local public park and recreation context. Previous studies are limited by the localized nature of their samples, as well as their emphasis on dichotomous attitude measurements, which do not fully address attitude strength and structure. To address these gaps, this study used a nationally representative sample to examine cognitive factors that relate to attitudes toward the concept of park privatization as a whole, and toward specific privatization practices. Results indicate only a modest level of attitudinal ambivalence among respondents, indicating that privatization of park and recreation services may not be a highly controversial topic among the general public. Attitudes toward privatization as a whole were moderately positive across the entire sample; however, there were significant variations in acceptability among individual practices (i.e., corporate sponsorship, outsourcing, and the outright sale of public park facilities). Social ideology, attitudinal ambivalence, and knowledge about privatization were shown to be consistent predictors of attitudes toward privatization, while economic ideology was less consistently significant. Social conservatives with greater attitudinal ambivalence and knowledge of privatization were generally more positive toward privatization as a whole, and toward individual privatization practices. Privatization practices in the delivery of park and recreation services are likely to be part of the new reality for many public agencies. As such, a more comprehensive understanding of the factors that influence the acceptability of these practices will be crucial. This study illustrated that several cognitive factors are significantly related to attitudes toward privatization. For practitioners and decision makers considering implementing one or more of these practices, as well as national professional groups advocating for public parks and recreation, such information may be of significant value. Future research should continue to explore and refine the concept of attitudinal ambivalence as it applies to park privatization practices. Based on the influence of social ideology found in this study, future research must also examine additional factors such as personal value orientation for any potential relationship to attitudes and support for privatization.Subscribe to JPRA

Feeling torn and fearing rue: Attitude ambivalence and anticipated regret as antecedents of biased information seeking

Theoretical work on attitudinal ambivalence suggests that anticipated regret may play a role in causing awareness of contradictions that subsequently induce a feeling of an evaluative conflict. In the present paper we empirically examined how the anticipation of regret relates to the association between the simultaneous presence of contradictory cognitions and emotions (objective ambivalence), and the evaluative conflict associated with it (subjective ambivalence), in the context of decision-making. Across three studies (Ns=204,127,244), manipulating both objective ambivalence and regret, we consistently found that when a dichotomous ambivalent choice had to be made, (objectively) ambivalent attitude holders for whom feelings of anticipated regret were made salient reported higher levels of subjective-attitude ambivalence than participants in the other conditions. Moreover, in Studies 2 and 3 we found that the effect of anticipated regret on subjective ambivalence had consequences on information processing. Specifically, anticipating regret made ambivalent participants search for attitude-congruent information. This effect was mediated by the increase in subjective ambivalence. This work provides the first empirical evidence for the role of regret in the association between objective-and- subjective attitude ambivalence, and its consequences.

The influence of word-of-mouth on attitudinal ambivalence during the higher education decision-making process

This study investigates the influence of word-of-mouth (WOM) on consumers' attitudinal ambivalence in the context of higher education decision-making. Construal level theory (CLT) is combined with attitudinal ambivalence literature to generate hypotheses about how different types of WOM (i.e., praise and activity) received during the decision-making process reduce attitudinal ambivalence. The subsequent consequences of attitudinal ambivalence for decision-making are also studied. A two-wave survey of applicants to international higher education programs is used to test the hypotheses. This study contributes to the ambivalence literature by showing that different types of WOM information reduce attitudinal ambivalence depending on the temporal closeness of a choice and the consumption of a service. The findings have implications for the management of attitudinal ambivalence and WOM throughout the consumer decision-making process and consequently for assisting consumers in making choices.

Attitude change when presenting science museum visitors with risk–benefit information

AbstractVisitors to modern science museums are likely to encounter exhibitions presenting conflicting information, such as risks and benefits of new scientific developments. Such exhibitions encourage visitors to reflect upon different sides of a story and to form or adjust their attitudes toward the topic on display. However, there is very little evidence of museum visits influencing visitors’ attitudes. Using a risk–benefit museum text, we set out to explore this blind spot of attitude change in a science museum, with visual and auditory text as information conditions. Our results show a small average change in visitors’ attitude toward the text topic after information (N = 225). No significant differences were found between participants’ attitude change in the two information conditions. We also explored whether participants’ attitude change can be predicted based on presentation modality and four dimensions of attitude strength (prior knowledge, attitudinal certainty, attitudinal importance, and attitudinal ambivalence) that are known to play a role in attitude change. Results indicate that this model explained a small part of the variance, but only ambivalence added statistically significantly to the prediction. Overall, our findings suggest that risk–benefit information can on average change visitors’ attitudes and that prior attitudinal ambivalence can influence that change.

Winding paths: Ambivalence in consumers' buying processes

AbstractThis paper investigates ambivalence in the buying process. The existing literature has rarely studied ambivalence in longitudinal processes and has therefore not been able to capture its dynamics. Those studies that have studied ambivalence longitudinally have focused on general attitudinal ambivalence rather than its subtypes (cognitive, affective, and intercomponent ambivalence) and have therefore ignored some of the more detailed dynamics. Hence, this study addresses these different types of ambivalence longitudinally, exploring what these different ambivalences consist of, what their roles are in the buying process, and how they occur under different types of involvement conditions. A longitudinal video diary method is used in conjunction with a multimodal analysis technique to explore not only the verbally expressed aspects of ambivalence but also its nonverbal expression, which further reveals differences between different types of ambivalence. The findings suggest that cognitive ambivalence involves conflicting evaluations of utilitarian brand and product aspects and is resolved through more effortful mechanisms, whereas intercomponent ambivalence involves conflicting evaluations of varying utilitarian, hedonic, and symbolic brand and product aspects and is resolved through both more and less effortful mechanisms. Finally, affective ambivalence involves conflicting anticipations about the outcome of the buying process but is not resolved through similarly clear mechanisms. As the key outcome of the exploration, propositions and a synthesising framework about the different types of ambivalence in the buying process are developed for future research. This paper hence contributes to the ambivalence literature and offers managerial implications especially for marketers of multifaceted and high‐involvement products.

Mixed feelings: the case of ambivalence

Mixed feelings come in many forms. We focus on mixed feelings resulting from conflicting evaluations of a single attitude object, that is, attitudinal ambivalence. Research on attitudinal ambivalence has led to specific measures that assess the presence, intensity, and resolution of ambivalence, shedding new light on underlying dynamics and moderators. This work has also spawned an interest in the metacognitive experiences of conflict that arise from ambivalence and their downstream consequences for judgment and choice. Because research into mixed emotions may benefit from these conceptual and methodological developments, the current article provides an introductory overview of attitudinal ambivalence and its measurement.

The impact of attitudinal ambivalence on information processing and resistance to anti-smoking persuasion

PurposeThis paper aims to clarify the effect of attitudinal ambivalence on resistance to anti-smoking persuasion through information processing styles. It was hypothesized that a high smoker’s ambivalence, induced by an anti-smoking persuasive message, triggers among smokers both a reflective and a non-reflective information processing. In turn, both the information processing styles were supposed to be predictors of the resistance to anti-smoking persuasion.Design/methodology/approachAn experiment and a survey were conducted on a random sample of 347 smokers in this regard.FindingsThe findings indicated that smokers feel ambivalent toward anti-smoking messages in print ads and tend to process them both analytically and superficially. Also, it seems that only the analytical processing triggers resistance to anti-smoking persuasion.Originality/valueThe author reports on the importance of attitudinal ambivalence and information processing in the resistance to anti-smoking persuasion process. The paper should be of interest to readers in the areas of health communication and social marketing. This work seems to be important to the extent that few works have highlighted the causal and linear effect of a persuasive anti-smoking message on smokers’ ambivalence, information processing and resistance to persuasion. The findings in this paper seem interesting insofar, as they show the importance of the negative emotional appeal in the ambivalence, analytical information processing and resistance triggering.

Ambivalent attitudes about teaching children with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD)

ABSTRACTDrawing on attitude theories from social psychology, we conducted a survey of Australian pre-service (n = 327) and in-service (n = 127) teachers’ attitudes about teaching children with attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). This paper reports a content analysis of beliefs, affect and behaviours towards teaching children with ADHD and quantitative analyses pertaining to attitudinal ambivalence – that is, where a teacher may simultaneously report negative and positive evaluations of teaching children with ADHD. While on average, overall or global attitudes were mildly positive for both cohorts, considerable ambivalence about teaching children with ADHD was commonly experienced. Participants reported ambivalent beliefs, affect and behaviours, as well as ambivalence between these attitude components. Paradoxically, participants who knew more about ADHD and held stronger positive global attitudes about teaching children with ADHD reported less ambivalent behaviours towards these children, but reported more ambivalent beliefs. The implications for teachers’ professional development and training are discussed.

On the Attitudinal Consequences of Being Mindful: Links Between Mindfulness and Attitudinal Ambivalence.

A series of studies examined whether mindfulness is associated with the experience of attitudinal ambivalence. Studies 1A and 1B found that mindful individuals expressed greater comfort holding ambivalent views and reported feeling ambivalent less often. More mindful individuals also responded more positively to feelings of uncertainty (as assessed in Study 1B). Study 2 replicated these effects and demonstrated that mindful individuals had lower objective and subjective ambivalence across a range of attitude objects but did not differ in attitude valence, extremity, positivity/negativity, strength, or the need to evaluate. Study 3 showed that the link between greater ambivalence and negative affect was buffered by mindfulness, such that there was no link between the amount of ambivalence and negative affect among more mindful individuals. The results are discussed with respect to the benefits of mindfulness in relation to ambivalence and affect.

PUGS: A novel scale to assess perceptions of uncertainties in genome sequencing.

Expectations of results from genome sequencing by end users are influenced by perceptions of uncertainty. This study aimed to assess uncertainties about sequencing by developing, evaluating, and implementing a novel scale. The Perceptions of Uncertainties in Genome Sequencing (PUGS) scale comprised ten items to assess uncertainties within three domains: clinical, affective, and evaluative. Participants (n=535) from the ClinSeq® NIH sequencing study completed a baseline survey that included the PUGS; responses (mean = 3.4/5, SD=0.58) suggested modest perceptions of certainty. A confirmatory factor analysis identified factor loadings that led to elimination of two items. A revised eight-item PUGS scale was used to test correlations with perceived ambiguity (r = -0.303, p < 0.001), attitudinal ambivalence (r = -0.111, p = 0.011), and ambiguity aversion (r = -0.093, p = 0.033). Results support nomological validity. A correlation with the MICRA uncertainty subscale was found among 175 cohort participants who had received results (r = -0.335, p < 0.001). Convergent and discriminant validity were also satisfied in a second sample of 208 parents from the HudsonAlpha CSER Project who completed the PUGS (mean = 3.4/5, SD = 0.72), and configural invariance was supported across the two datasets. As such, the PUGS is a promising scale for evaluating perceived uncertainties in genome sequencing, which can inform interventions to help patients form realistic expectations of these uncertainties.

The Sons of Remus: Identity in Roman Gaul and Spain by Andrew G. Johnston

418 PHOENIX et Militiae: Elite Religion at Rome in Response to External Triumphs and Crises”) describes this process as “accumulative civic polytheism” (126). Adopting an instrumentalist approach, Champion compares the official introduction of Magna Mater in 204 to the senate’s suppression of Bacchic cult groups in 186. He concludes that in both cases, the main issue was an attempt by the senate to exercise control over the cults that Rome encountered and assimilated. Even so, Champion cautions against interpreting these episodes as evidence of a consistent, far-sighted religious policy on the part of the aristocracy. Chapter Five (“Understanding Elites’ Religious Behaviors in the Middle Roman Republic ”) considers elite religious behavior in light of psychological, sociological, anthropological , and cultural theories. Psychological research in social cognition and attitudinal ambivalence, Champion argues, allows us to reconcile the fact that the same elites who occasionally made skeptical or incredulous statements about public religion nonetheless persevered in their commitment to the demands of religious orthopraxy. Cognitive dissonance theory, on the other hand, suggests that Scipio Africanus must have acted from genuine conviction when he delayed on the European side of the Hellespont during the campaign against Antiochus the Great. If Scipio had entertained serious doubts about the efficacy of public religion, then the psychological tension created by a delay of over a month at a crucial moment in the campaign would have been unbearable. Finally, Champion returns to a critique of totalizing theories of culture to argue for a distinct elite religious culture created, maintained, and consumed by the aristocracy. At times, Champion exaggerates the interpretive power of elite-instrumentalism as historical counterfactual. Roman elites were attuned to the social and political dimensions of public ritual, as Champion himself admits (180, passim). To accept this does not require us to reject the notion that they believed in their gods according to his definition of belief as “a genuine, collective conviction on the part of governing elites that Roman success, and indeed the city’s very existence, depended on maintaining correct relations with the gods through orthopraxy, or exactingly accurate performances of religious ceremony , ritual, and sacrifice” (xiv–xv, 223). Despite this tendency to frame the issue as a choice between mutually exclusive alternatives, Champion has produced an accessible and nuanced study of an important question in the study of Roman religion. His approach places individual experience at the center of analysis while keeping the individual’s social and cultural context clearly in view. As a result, his book suggests how we might conceive of the emotions and behaviors of elite Romans who were charged with maintaining the pax deorum. Baylor University Meghan DiLuzio The Sons of Remus: Identity in Roman Gaul and Spain. By Andrew G. Johnston. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 2017. Pp. 420. In this elegantly structured, generously documented, and closely argued book, Andrew G. Johnston provides a fresh and original reading of the cultural and social changes that affected the four Gallic and three Hispanic provinces following their integration into the Roman empire. Grounding his analysis in concepts derived from the sociological literature on identity politics, he argues that identity in these Roman provinces BOOK REVIEWS/COMPTES RENDUS 419 was rooted primarily in a “sense of belonging to local communities, which were persistently reimagined, redefined, and made meaningful by the agency of the provincial actors themselves” (4). Social memory and shifting representations of the past—both the local and the Roman past—served to construct, renegotiate, and perform both communal and individual identities, that is, in sociological terms, to foster “communalization,” a concept to which Johnston frequently resorts and which he defines as “a pattern of action that promotes a sense of belonging together” (5). Discourse was crucial to this process, as individuals—especially local elites—created locally imagined narratives, which, developing and changing over time, helped situate individuals and their local Hispanic or Gallic provincial communities within a broader cultural framework in which the imperial power of Rome loomed large. In this process, the pre-conquest past was never forgotten nor erased from memory, but elements of that lost world were selectively remembered, as each community, even those of privileged Roman status such as coloniae and municipia, developed its...

“Every coin has two sides”: The effects of dialectical thinking and attitudinal ambivalence on psychological discomfort and consumer choice

Prior research suggests that consumers experience psychological discomfort when they make a choice under attitudinal ambivalence. The research reported here examines systematic cross-cultural variations in psychological discomfort as a function of dialectical thinking and attitudinal ambivalence in the context of choice. It shows that compared to nondialectical (Western) consumers, dialectical (Eastern) consumers experience less psychological discomfort when they hold bivalent evaluations of the focal object, but more psychological discomfort when they hold univalent evaluations (Study 1). It also identifies “uncertainty about making the correct choice” as the underlying process that accounts for these findings (Study 2). In addition, this research explores the downstream effects of psychological discomfort on choice deferral in the context of free choice (Study 3) and preference reversal in the context of forced choice (Study 4). Contributions to and implications for research on attitudinal ambivalence, choice behavior, and dialectical thinking are discussed.

Ambivalencia Actitudinal Ante el Cambio Organizacional: Un Análisis Desde el Individuo en Contexto Laboral

Traditionally workers' reactions in organizational change situations have been studied from the perspective of resistance to change, an approach which has led to controversial findings. The present research focused on the role of attitudinal ambivalence, integrating contributions from social psychology. A first experimental study aimed to manipulate worker's ambivalence levels controlling the type of information on organizational change that was provided to them. A second correlational study evaluated the moderating role of attitudinal ambivalence in the relationship between workers' attitudes and behavioral intentions. The participants were, respectively, 61 and 418 workers of a Chilean mining company undergoing a change process, selected through a stratified random sampling process. Two forms of a questionnaire were administered. Student's t -test, bivariate correlations, and moderated regression analyses revealed that the participants of Study 1 who were exposed to inconsistent information displayed higher levels of ambivalence. Study 2 suggested that ambivalence moderates the relationship between workers’ attitudes and behavioral intentions. These results indicate that ambivalence assessment should be regarded as a relevant factor in organizational change contexts.

Boomerangs versus Javelins: How Polarization Constrains Communication on Climate Change

ABSTRACTPolitical communicators work under the assumption that information provision, such as framing, may influence audiences and elicit some desired attitudinal or behavioral shift. However, some political issues, such as climate change, have become polarized along party lines, with partisans seemingly impervious to disconfirming information. On these highly polarized issues, can framing sway partisans to moderate their positions, or are partisans so motivated in their issue stances that framing fails? Using a variety of vignettes, and Republican climate change skepticism as a case, this article reports an experiment of how partisans respond to counter-attitudinal framing on a sharply polarized issue. Results indicate that Republicans are resistant to frames that encourage support of governmental action or personal engagement against climate change. There is strong evidence of motivated skepticism, given widespread backfire (or ‘boomerang’) effects and decreased attitudinal ambivalence following exposure to framing, suggesting that issue polarization may severely constrain attempts at communication.