Definition
Ambivalence refers to the simultaneous presence of conflicting attitudes toward an attitude target, most commonly the presence of both positive and negative attitudes (Kaplan 1972).
Introduction
An ambivalent (i.e., “many valenced”) attitude is distinguished from a univalent (i.e., “single valenced”) attitude in that an ambivalent attitude indicates the presence of both positive and negative attitudes, whereas a univalent attitude is conceptualized as bipolar, with positive and negative attitudes on opposing ends of a spectrum. Ambivalence may reflect conflicting attitudes in terms of conflicting affect, behavior, or cognition. In addition, ambivalence may also reflect conflicting attitudes among any combination of affect, behavior, and cognition (e.g., positive affect but negative cognitions; Thompson et al. 1995). Overall, there is not a general consensus on specifically how ambivalence should be...
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References
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Hoffarth, M.R., Hodson, G. (2016). Ambivalence. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2271-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_2271-1
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