The role of dialecticism in objective and subjective attitudinal ambivalence

Although attitudes are often considered positive or negative evaluations, people often have both positive and negative associations with a target object or issue, and when people are ambivalent, they are typically presumed to find the experience aversive because they are motivated to hold clear, univalent attitudes. Cross-cultural research, however, has shown cultural variation in the propensity for dialectical thinking, which is characterized by a tolerance for contradiction. Two studies examined the role of dialectical thinking tendencies in the occurrence of attitudinal ambivalence and how much people subjectively experience their state of ambivalence. Study 1 measured individual differences in dialectical thinking within a culture, and Study 2 compared participants across two cultures (United States and Taiwan) that differ in dialecticism. Across studies, greater dialectical thinking was associated with holding both positive and negative evaluations of the same topic (objective ambivalence) and weaker correlations between objective ambivalence and subjective reports of being conflicted (subjective ambivalence).