Valence asymmetries in attitude ambivalence.

(greater impact of negative reactions than positive reactions). Consistent with positivity offset, we observe that subjective ambivalence is greater when people have univalent negative rather than univalent positive attitudes. However, as conflicting information is acquired, subjective ambivalence rises more quickly when that information is negative rather than positive. The latter effect is consistent with negativity bias and suggests that although people feel more conflicted when they have only negative (vs. only positive) reactions, they also feel more conflicted when they have mostly positive (vs. mostly negative) reactions. Our investigation also uncovers an interesting consequence of these asymmetries: When people have mixed reactions, they do not experience maximum ambivalence at equal levels of positivity and negativity, as suggested by canonical ambivalence theory. Rather, subjective ambivalence peaks when positive reactions outnumber negative reactions. These effects are found to have downstream consequences for other dimensions of attitude strength. (PsycINFO Database Record