Making a Party Leader Less of a Party Member: The Impact of Ambivalence on Assimilation and Contrast Effects in Political Party Attitudes

Abstract

The present study tested the degree to which attitudes about a political party would be influenced by the context in which the party leader was rendered cognitively accessible. A sample of British undergraduates evaluated Prime Minister Tony Blair before expressing their opinion about the Labour party. In one condition, the two items were structured such that Blair was expected to be included in participants' representation of the party. In a second condition, the same items were structured such that Blair was expected to be excluded from participants' representation of the party. The results supported the hypothesis that manipulating the context in which Blair was made salient would produce different effects on a subsequent judgment of the Labour party, but only among politically ambivalent respondents.

Self-Ambivalence and Resistance to Subtle Self-Change Attempts

“…The current moderation results were found with objective but not subjective ambivalence, and objective ambivalence predicted self-change when controlling for subjective ambivalence, self-evaluation certainty, and self-esteem accessibility. Although subjective ambivalence is often associated with the resistance of attitudes to change (e.g., Haddock, 2003) and is often correlated with objective ambivalence (e.g., Priester & Petty, 1996), this change has generally been examined in situations in which the change-inducing agent is relatively blatant (e.g., a persuasive message). In our subtle self-change paradigm, objective ambivalence appears to be more relevant to the prediction of resistance (vs. susceptibility) to change than does subjective self-esteem ambivalence.…”

Wanting other attitudes: Actual–desired attitude discrepancies predict feelings of ambivalence and ambivalence consequences

“…Because of the psychological importance of subjective ambivalence, it is vital to understand its antecedents. Research on ambivalence often only measures objective ambivalence (for exceptions, see e.g., Haddock, 2003;Priester & Petty, 1996, 2001), but researchers typically assume that objective ambivalence leads to subjective ambivalence (e.g., Maio et al, 1996). As described next, however, objective ambivalence is an inadequate predictor of subjective ambivalence.…”

The Influence of Ambivalence on Adolescents' Reactions to Anti-Drug Messages

“…Research on racial attitudes has consistently revealed conflicting sentiments held by Whites toward Blacks (e.g., Hass, Katz, Rizoo, Bailey, & Eisenstadt, 1991;Katz & Hass, 1988). Political science research has demonstrated mixed opinions about various political issues and personalities (e.g., Alvarez & Brehm, 1995, 2002Haddock, 2003;Lavine, 2001;. In public health research, there is also increasing evidence that ambivalence exists in many people's attitudes toward health-related issues, such as diet (e.g., Armitage & Conner, 2000;Povey, Wellens, & Conner, 2001), smoking (e.g., Lipkus, Green, Feaganes, & Sedikides, 2001), alcohol use (e.g., Cameron, Stritzke, & Durkin, 2003;Priester, 2002), safe sex (e.g., Priester, 2002), and adolescent marijuana use (e.g., Zhao, 2005).…”