Moderator effects of attitudinal ambivalence on attitude-behaviour relationships

By Mark Conner, Paul Sparks, Rachel Povey, Rhiannon James, R. Shepherd, Christopher J. Armitage. 2002

155 citations recorded by the source corpus.

Attitudinal ambivalence is generally construed as existing when the same attitude object is evaluated simultaneously as both positive and negative. The present research examined the moderating role of attitudinal ambivalence (as assessed by split-semantic differential measure) on the relationship between bipolar semantic differential measures of attitude and subsequent behaviour using moderated regression analysis. In Study 1, higher levels of attitudinal ambivalence were shown to result in weaker attitude–behaviour relationships for eating a low-fat diet (N = 140) and eating 5 portions of fruit and vegetables per day (N = 142). Study 2 (N = 361) replicated this effect when also including a measure of past behaviour for eating a low-fat diet. Implications for understanding the relationship between attitudes and behaviour are discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

Subfields: Applied Psychology, Marketing, Sociology and Political Science

View Paper: https://www.semanticscholar.org/paper/c4a8fc8e66311cb958a83a596e5eb8ceeb54fba7

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Citations in the corpus

Forming attitudes that predict future behavior: a meta-analysis of the attitude-behavior relation. (2006, background): “For example, ambivalent attitudes have often influenced the attitude–behavior relation in a negative way (Conner, Povey, Sparks, James, & Shepherd, 2003; Conner et al., 2002).”
Computer-delivered interventions for health promotion and behavioral risk reduction: a meta-analysis of 75 randomized controlled trials, 1988-2007. (2008, background): “It is possible that addressing motivational components increased participants’ ambivalence toward that behavior resulting in less changes (e.g., Conner et al. 1998, 2002;Povey et al. 2001; Sparks et al. 2001).”
The ABC of Ambivalence: Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive Consequences of Attitudinal Conflict (2015, unknown): “and behaviors on the other (Armitage & Conner, 2000; Bruckner et al., 2004; Conner, Povey, Sparks, James, & Shepherd, 2003; Conner et al., 2002; Costarelli & Colloca, 2007; Shepherd, 1999; Sparks et al., 2001, 2004).”
Attitudes and persuasion. (2006, unknown): “The well-documented moderator effects of ambivalence on attitude-behavior consistency (Armitage 2003, Armitage & Conner 2000, Conner et al. 2002, Costarelli & Colloca 2004, Sparks et al. 2004), attitude pliability (Armitage & Conner 2000), and decision making (Hänze 2001) provide additional…”
Contemporary perspectives on the psychology of attitudes (2004, background): “instances where evaluative-cognitive consistency was absent, Rosenberg (1968) stated that such attitudes were vacuous, or, in the words of Converse (1970), non-attitudes. Rosenberg’s work generated a substantial amount of research on intraattitudinal consistency. For example, Norman (1975) extended ”
Recycling and Ambivalence (2008, unknown): “Accordingly, studies have indicated that ambivalent attitudes moderate the attitude–intention and attitude–behavior relations (Armitage & Conner, 2000; Conner et al., 2002; Lavine, Thomsen, Zanna, & Borgida, 1998; Povey, Wellens, & Conner, 2001; Sparks, Conner, James, Shepherd, & Povey, 2001).”