Effects of attitudinal ambivalence on information processing and attitude-intention consistency

We hypothesize that, when encountering a new or unfamiliar attitude object that has both positive and negative attributes, such evaluatively inconsistent information leads to attitudinal ambivalence, that is, a coexistence of positive and negative evaluation of the particular object. By drawing upon the heuristic-systematic model (Chaiken, Liberman, & Eagly, 1989), we predict that (a) ambivalence decreases the individual's confidence in his or her own attitude toward behaviors involving the object, (b) the decreased confidence evokes systematic processing of relevant information, and (c) systematic processing increases consistency between ambivalent attitudes and pertinent behavioral intentions. To test these hypotheses, ambivalence was manipulated in two experiments by providing participants with either evaluatively inconsistent or consistent information about fictional shampoos. As predicted, in both experiments more consistency between the attitude toward buying the shampoo and the behavioral intention was obtained in the ambivalent condition than in the nonambivalent condition. Experiment 2 also provided data confirming the postulated mediating processes. (C) 1997 Academic Press.