Choices about political candidates and issues are inherently limited and imperfect, leading many people to feel mixed emotions, and even conflicting opinions, about which candidate or position they prefer.
In general, being ambivalent reduces political participation. For example, the more ambivalent a person is about candidates in an election, the less likely that person is to vote.
In a new article in the journal Science Advances, we find something that runs counter to that trend of uninvolved ambivalence: The more ambivalent a person is about a political issue, the more likely they are to support violence and other extreme actions relating to that topic.
Ambivalent people are more supportive of extreme actions
In one study in a series we conducted, we measured the opinions of several thousand people across several surveys on one of several topics, such as abortion, gun control or COVID-19 policies. We also measured how ambivalent they were about that opinion. Then we asked about their willingness to potentially engage in various actions in support of their opinion. Some of the actions were ordinary, such as voting for candidates whom the participants agreed with, donating money or volunteering. Other actions were more extreme, such as engaging in violence against their partisan opponents.
When we analyzed the links between people’s ambivalence and their willingness to engage in or support each behavior, we found that the results in all the studies depended on the behaviors’ extremity. As expected, more ambivalent people were less willing to support or engage in the moderate actions, such as voting. But contrary to our initial expectations, people who felt more ambivalent were also more willing to support or engage in the extreme actions, especially if they felt strongly about the issue.
Choices about political candidates and issues are inherently limited and imperfect, leading many people to feel mixed emotions, and even conflicting opinions, about which candidate or position they prefer.
In general, being ambivalent reduces political participation. For example, the more ambivalent a person is about candidates in an election, the less likely that person is to vote.
In a new article in the journal Science Advances, we find something that runs counter to that trend of uninvolved ambivalence: The more ambivalent a person is about a political issue, the more likely they are to support violence and other extreme actions relating to that topic.
Ambivalent people are more supportive of extreme actions
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