THE CONFLICTED INDIVIDUAL - PERSONALITY-BASED AND DOMAIN-SPECIFIC ANTECEDENTS OF AMBIVALENT SOCIAL-ATTITUDES

Historically, attitude theory and research has assumed that attitudes are largely unconflicted and unidimensional summary statements of feel ings and beliefs. More recent work has reexamined this assumption (Tho mpson, Zanna, & Griffin, in press). The present article details two st udies that continue to investigate this notion, examining antecedent v ariables assumed important in the genesis of attitudinal ambivalence. The first study focuses upon personality-based factors such as individ uals' Need for Cognition (NFC) and Personal Fear of Invalidity (PFI) ( a heightened concern with error). The pattern of results was consisten t with our predictions: High NFC was associated with less ambivalence and high PFI was associated with greater ambivalence. The second study investigated a domain-specific antecedent. It was predicted that high er involvement would reduce the level of ambivalence experienced. Furt her, involvement was expected to moderate the effect of the personalit y-based antecedents. Again, results confirmed our hypotheses. High NFC was associated with less ambivalence, especially under conditions of high involvement with the issues. Conversely, high PFI individuals who were highly involved with these issues experienced more ambivalence. These results are discussed in terms of their implications for attitud e theory.