Predictors and predictive effects of ambivalence.
Recent interest in people's ambivalence about social behaviours and social categories has provoked a number of challenges for the ways in which attitudes are conceptualized. Research into the implications of ambivalence for attitude-behaviour relationships and for information processing has developed alongside a concern with how best to measure ambivalence and with its implications for the application of social psychological theory. In a study (N = 197) of attendance at a local health club, two novel issues were addressed: firstly, an assessment of the effect of ambivalence on intention-behaviour relationships (using an objective behaviour measure) revealed the hypothesized moderation effect; secondly, in a move towards identifying some of the factors that may lead to ambivalence, an assessment of potential motivational conflicts based on a consideration of behavioural beliefs and outcome evaluations was introduced. We suggest that this method of assessing ambivalence represents a useful framework on which to build a fuller understanding of the relationship between people's attitudes and the variety of motives that may influence their social behaviour. Pointers for future research are outlined.
University of Sussex, BN1 9QH, UK. p.sparks@sussex.ac.uk
Paul
P
Sparks
Peter R
PR
Harris
Nina
N
Lockwood
D001290:Attitude; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D006801:Humans; D009042:Motivation; D012919:Social Behavior