Ambivalent Attitudes and Persuasion

Abstract

By extending prior research that has shown that people who feel ambivalent toward a target object engage in systematic processing, the first experiment in this study demonstrates that people engage in systematic processing when they feel ambivalent toward an information source as well. Experiments 2 and 3 demonstrate in turn that identification with the source/target can enhance motivated processing among ambivalent people. According to Experiment 2, when a manipulation causes people to feel ambivalent toward a positive source, their identification with the source influences their responses to the endorsed information, such that stronger identifiers exhibit motivated processing and express indiscriminately positive responses to the endorsed information. Experiment 3 demonstrates that when a manipulation makes people feel ambivalent toward a target, those who strongly identify with that target engage in motivated processing by improving their attitudes upon their exposure to new positive information about the target. ..PAT.-Unpublished Manuscript