To Partition or Not to Partition Evaluative Judgments: Comparing Measures of Structural Ambivalence

Attitudinal ambivalence is one of the most widely studied structural properties in the attitudes literature. The current research compared two commonly used measures of structural ambivalence. Both measures separately assess the positive and negative components of ambivalence; however, one approach instructs participants to partition their oppositely valenced evaluative responses whereas the other does not. Using both experimental and nonexperimental designs, four studies revealed that the nonpartitioned measure was more sensitive to manipulations of attitudinal ambivalence (Studies 1 and 2) and was a better predictor of subjective ambivalence (Studies 1 – 4). Potential reasons for this distinction are discussed. Keywords attitudes, ambivalence, measurement Is assisted suicide good or bad? Do you have a favorable impression of lawyers? Some people have difficulty providing straightforward answers to these questions because they pos-sess mixed (i.e., positive and negative) evaluative reactions. A combination of positive and negative evaluations toward the same attitude object is referred to as attitudinal ambivalence (e.g., Kaplan, 1972; Scott, 1969). Since its original formulation as a construct, ambivalence has been one of the most widely studied structural properties of atti-tudes. Indeed, our review of the literature identified more than 90 published studies investigating attitudinal ambivalence. This large body of research has confirmed the utility of the ambiva-lence construct. For example, ambivalence is a powerful deter-minant of attitude strength that affects information processin