The Conflicted Individual: Personality‐Based and Domain Specific Antecedents of Ambivalent Social Attitudes

Historically, attitude theory and research has assumed that attitudes are largely unconflicted and unidimensional summary statements of feelings and beliefs. More recent work has reexamined this assumption (Thompson, Zanna, & Griffin, in press). The present article details two studies that continue to investigate this notion, examining antecedent variables assumed important in the genesis of attitudinal ambivalence. The first study focuses upon personality-based factors such as individuals' Need for Cognition (NFC) and Personal Fear of Invalidity (PFI) (a heightened concern with error). The pattern of results was consistent with our predictions: High NFC was associated with less ambivalence and high PFI was associated with greater ambivalence. The second study investigated a domain-specific antecedent. It was predicted that higher involvement would reduce the level of ambivalence experienced. Further, involvement was expected to moderate the effect of the personality-based antecedents. Again, results confirmed our hypotheses. High NFC was associated with less ambivalence, especially under conditions of high involvement with the issues. Conversely, high PFI individuals who were highly involved with these issues experienced more ambivalence. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for attitude theory.