title: Feeling conflicted and seeking information: when ambivalence enhances and diminishes selective exposure to attitude-consistent information.
abstract: To date, little research has examined the impact of attitudinal ambivalence on attitude-congruent selective exposure. Past research would suggest that strong/univalent rather than weak/ambivalent attitudes should be more predictive of proattitudinal information seeking. Although ambivalent attitude structure might weaken the attitude's effect on seeking proattitudinal information, we believe that conflicted attitudes might also motivate attitude-congruent selective exposure because proattitudinal information should be effective in reducing ambivalence. Two studies provide evidence that the effects of ambivalence on information choices depend on amount of issue knowledge. That is, ambivalence motivates attitude-consistent exposure when issue knowledge is relatively low because less familiar information is perceived to be effective at reducing ambivalence. Conversely, when knowledge is relatively high, more unambivalent (univalent) attitudes predicted attitude-consistent information seeking.
authors.affiliation: Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210, USA. sawicki.14@osu.edu
authors.forename: Vanessa
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Sawicki
authors.forename: Duane T
authors.initials: DT
authors.lastname: Wegener
authors.forename: Jason K
authors.initials: JK
authors.lastname: Clark
authors.forename: Leandre R
authors.initials: LR
authors.lastname: Fabrigar
authors.forename: Steven M
authors.initials: SM
authors.lastname: Smith
authors.forename: Geoffrey R O
authors.initials: GR
authors.lastname: Durso
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D001290:Attitude; D002755:Choice Behavior; D003220:Conflict, Psychological; D003657:Decision Making; D004644:Emotions; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D007389:Internal-External Control; D008297:Male; D009042:Motivation; D010865:Pilot Projects; D011237:Predictive Value of Tests; D012044:Regression Analysis; D055815:Young Adult
keywords: attitude strength; attitude structure; attitudinal ambivalence; information seeking; selective exposure