Some political attitudes and opinions shift and fluctuate over time whereas others remain fairly stable. Prior research on attitude strength has documented several features of attitudes that predict their temporal stability. The present analysis focuses on two of them: attitudinal ambivalence and certainty. Each of these variables has received mixed support for its relationship with attitude stability. A recent set of studies, however, has addressed this link by showing that ambivalence and certainty interact to predict stability. Because those studies relied exclusively on college student samples and considered issues that may have been especially likely to evince change over time, the present analysis aimed to replicate the original findings in a sample of registered Florida voters with an important politically relevant issue: abortion. Results of these analyses replicated the previous findings and support the generalizability of the ambivalence × certainty interaction on attitude stability to a sample of registered voters reporting their attitudes toward abortion. Implications for public opinion and the psychology of political attitudes are discussed.
A complete understanding of public opinion relies not just on snapshots of opinions at any given moment, but also on changes in opinions over time. Plenty of research efforts have observed trends in national opinion polls to understand the degree to which public opinion shifts or remains stable as time moves on (e.g.,
Many social psychological models conceptualize attitudes as relatively enduring evaluations (
This pattern of results—that opinions can be stable and that they can fluctuate—suggests that an attitude’s stability can depend on a host of factors. In this research, we examine features of the attitude itself that predict stability. The degree to which an individual’s opinion is likely to change over time is important because the stability of attitudes is related to their ability to predict future behavior (
One approach to understanding which attitudes will change over time has been the study of attitude strength: the notion that some attitudes are more durable and consequential than others. Strong attitudes are those that resist change in the face of explicit persuasion, predict relevant behavior, and most relevant to the present research, endure over time (
Although research has tended to focus primarily on main effects of various attitude attributes, more recent work has shown that the relationships between stability and these strength-related attitude attributes further depends on other features of the attitude or environment. In particular, a recent set of studies has documented how ambivalence and certainty interact to predict attitude stability over time (
First, attitudinal
Because greater ambivalence tends to reflect a weaker attitude (
In addition to varying in ambivalence, attitudes can also differ in their accompanying degree of
Across three studies investigating different topics, increasing attitude certainty was associated with greater temporal stability (less change over time) only at relatively low degrees of attitude ambivalence. That is, certainty reflected a crystallized, enduring attitude only when that attitude was pretty clearly positive or negative. At relatively high degrees of ambivalence, however, greater certainty was actually associated with
So, why might these variables interact in this way? First, ambivalence is an attitudinal attribute that reflects the degree to which the attitude is based on evaluatively consistent or inconsistent information. As such, ambivalent attitudes are especially sensitive to situational influences that can push them in one direction or another. This makes ambivalent evaluations more variable over time (e.g.,
The unique qualities of ambivalence and certainty thus predict an interaction between these variables in predicting attitude stability. That is, attitudes should be especially stable over time when they are both unambivalent and held with certainty because this certainty should validate the valence that consistently comes to mind at each moment of measurement, reinforcing the stability of unambivalent attitudes. By contrast, attitudes should be especially
Prior research has distinguished between two aspects of ambivalence. On the one hand, ambivalence can refer to the mere structural existence of mixed positive and negative reactions to a target of evaluation. In this sense, ambivalence is a function of whether a person tends to have a relatively clear, one-sided attitude or a relatively mixed attitude that contains high degrees of both acknowledged positivity and negativity (
On the other hand, ambivalence can refer more specifically to an unpleasant feeling of conflict that pertains to an attitude (
The theoretical account advanced earlier suggests that certainty is most likely to moderate the effects of the
The present research addresses two key limitations of
Second,
In sum, we hypothesized that attitudinal ambivalence and certainty would interact to predict the likelihood that people would report inconsistent positions on the abortion issue over time. We expected that the traditional attitude strength relationship between certainty and stability (i.e., greater certainty corresponding to greater stability) would be especially the case the less ambivalent the attitude was. The more ambivalent the attitude, however, the more increases in certainty would instead predict reduced temporal stability. We also expected this interaction pattern to show that the traditional relationship between ambivalence and stability (i.e., greater ambivalence corresponding to reduced stability) would be especially the case for attitudes held with increasingly high certainty.
Recall that
It is important to note that both ambivalence items available in the survey data are subjective measures inasmuch as they are self-reports of the features of the attitude. But, one item is a subjective report of whether people think their attitude consists of mixed reactions (similar to what prior scholars have called “objective” or “structural” ambivalence), whereas the other is about feeling conflicted about the attitude object, which prior scholars have sometimes called “subjective” or “felt” ambivalence (
To gather initial support for this prediction, we re-analyzed the data from Studies 1 and 2 in
The data for the present study come from the FVPS, a panel study of registered voters in Florida (
We chose this dataset because it uniquely met the needs of our research question. Although other available datasets measure attitudes at multiple times, we are not aware of any others that also jointly assess ambivalence and certainty in respondents’ initial attitudes. Respondents indicated their position on an important social and political issue (abortion) on identical measures at two time points, and they also responded to questions assessing their ambivalence and certainty with respect to their position. These measures could thus be submitted to statistical analysis using regression models akin to those employed in
Participants indicated their position on abortion at both time points by responding to the question “When it comes to abortion matters, in general, would you describe yourself as pro-choice or pro-life?” People who refused to answer this question at either time point (
Wave 1 Response | Wave 2 Response | Frequency | Percentage |
---|---|---|---|
Pro-Choice | Pro-Choice | 181 | 43.3 |
Pro-Choice | Pro-Life | 19 | 4.5 |
Pro-Choice | Neither | 16 | 3.8 |
Pro-Choice | Don’t Know | 6 | 1.4 |
Pro-Life | Pro-Choice | 22 | 5.3 |
Pro-Life | Pro-Life | 123 | 29.4 |
Pro-Life | Neither | 8 | 1.9 |
Pro-Life | Don’t Know | 2 | 0.5 |
Neither | Pro-Choice | 13 | 3.1 |
Neither | Pro-Life | 6 | 1.4 |
Neither | Neither | 8 | 1.9 |
Neither | Don’t Know | 1 | 0.2 |
Don’t Know | Pro-Choice | 2 | 0.5 |
Don’t Know | Pro-Life | 5 | 1.2 |
Don’t Know | Neither | 4 | 1.0 |
Don’t Know | Don’t Know | 2 | 0.5 |
To index the degree to which they had mixed evaluations of abortion (analogous to structural ambivalence), respondents rated their agreement with the statement, “I sometimes have mixed feelings and beliefs about the abortion issue.”iv Responses were recoded such that they fell linearly on a 5-point Likert scale anchored at “strongly disagree” and “strongly agree,” with higher numbers indicating more ambivalence. “Don’t know” responses to this question were dropped from analysis (
To index experienced conflict (felt ambivalence) about the issue (i.e., not merely acknowledging having mixed views), we used responses indicating how similar the following statement was to the participants’ own feelings: “I sometimes find myself feeling ‘torn’ between two sides of the abortion issue.” Responses were provided on a 7-point scale anchored at “very similar to my own feelings” and “not like my own feelings at all.” They were recoded such that higher numbers reflect greater felt conflict. “don’t know” responses to this question were dropped from analysis (
Participants were asked how much they agreed with the statement, “I think my views about abortion are absolutely correct.” Although this question does not directly ask participants for their certainty or confidence per se, the perception of correctness is a key feature of attitude certainty (see
In all models, we controlled for age, gender, education, and political ideology, all of which have been associated with attitudes toward legal abortion (cf.
Participants self-reported their age in years (
Demographics, initial attitudes, ambivalence, and certainty regarding abortion were assessed during the first wave of data collection. Follow-up attitudes were assessed during the second wave.
To test whether any of the predictor variables were associated with participant attrition, data were submitted to a multiple logistic regression model, entering certainty, having mixed reactions, feeling torn, initial abortion position, and demographic covariates as simultaneous predictors of whether a participant completed the second wave survey (1) or not (0). Results show that none of these variables predicted retention,
Measure | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | ||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1. Certainty | 3.88 | 1.32 | |||||
2. Ambivalence | -.34** | 2.93 | 1.64 | ||||
3. Felt Conflict | -.23** | .46** | 3.40 | 2.61 | |||
4. Age | -.02 | .00 | .03 | 59.47 | 15.65 | ||
5. Education | -.07 | -.01 | .07 | -.13* | 14.16 | 2.58 | |
6. Ideology | .13* | -.07 | -.12* | .03 | -.05 | 4.54 | 1.66 |
*
We first tested the ambivalence × certainty interaction on attitude instability, focusing on reports of being “mixed.” Data were submitted to a multiple logistic regression model, following recommended practice for testing conditional effects in political science (
Regression term | Ambivalence = “Mixed” | Ambivalence = “Torn” |
---|---|---|
Age | .01 | .01 |
Gender | .28 | .25 |
Education | -.10 | -.13* |
Political Ideology | .01 | .07 |
Ambivalence | .26** | .24** |
Certainty | -.13 | -.06 |
Ambivalence × Certainty | .15* | .02 |
368 | 360 |
*
Attitude certainty and ambivalence interact to predict the stability of attitudes toward abortion among Florida voters with approximately four months between measurements. Shaded area represents values of certainty more than 1 standard deviation below the mean.
From a different perspective, the traditional attitude strength effect of ambivalence on stability is observed more strongly as certainty increases. That is, at relatively high degrees of attitude certainty (i.e., at the maximum certainty value because 1
The data were also submitted to another set of models like those reported in the previous section, replacing the “mixed” predictor with feeling torn (i.e., conflict). Demographic covariates, certainty, feeling torn, and the certainty × torn interaction term were entered as simultaneous predictors of attitude change (
As another approach to testing whether felt conflict accounts for the certainty × mixed interaction, the logistic regression model reported in the previous section was run again while entering felt conflict as a covariate. Results reveal that the certainty × mixed interaction remains significant,
Data from a random sample of registered voters replicated the interaction between ambivalence and certainty on the temporal stability of attitudes found in previous research on college students. As ambivalence decreased, there was a stronger positive relationship between certainty and attitude stability—the traditional attitude strength effect of certainty. Similarly, as certainty increased, there was a stronger positive relationship between ambivalence and attitude instability—the traditional attitude strength effect of ambivalence.
Also consistent with prior findings, this interaction only emerged when considering respondents’ reports of how “mixed” they were on the issue of abortion (reflecting reports of holding evaluatively inconsistent reactions to the issue; structural ambivalence) and not when considering their reports of how much they felt “torn” between two sides of the issue (reflecting reports of their subjective reaction to holding mixed evaluations as well as potentially other sources of conflict). This further supports the notion that the ambivalence × certainty interaction is not necessarily reliant on the unpleasant affective experience of holding conflicting evaluations; rather, it relies on the mere co-existence of positive and negative reactions to the topic under consideration. As such, these results support the theoretical account advanced by
These results have intriguing implications for the measurement of ambivalence in that two introspective self-report questions had distinct and theoretically meaningful effects, one of which captured the mere degree to which people have mixed reactions (structural ambivalence) and the other capturing the unpleasant affective state of conflict (felt ambivalence). These distinctions emerged both in the present report and in re-analyses of previous studies. Prior researchers have acknowledged that subjective measures of ambivalence tap into multifaceted aspects of ambivalence (i.e., cognitive, affective, and behavioral; see
Finally, these findings may speak to other variables in political psychology, including dogmatism and polarization. In particular, it may be fruitful to consider these variables as the combined force of certainty and unambivalence. Therefore, not only are confidently held one-sided attitudes especially stable over time, but they may also evince qualities like intolerance (
Notably, these data did not support the significant
The present analysis also limits us from making strong claims about whether ambivalence × certainty interactions predict true attitude change over time or whether they instead predict a phenomenon reducible to measurement error. This has been a recurring question in the literature on changes in political opinion over time (e.g.,
Finally, we note that the data included in our analyses are from 1999 and many scholars have noted changes in the American political climate over time, such as increased partisan polarization (e.g.,
These results further support the fruitfulness of considering interactions between strength-related attitude attributes. That is, historically researchers have tended to focus on overall effects of individual attitude attributes such as ambivalence, certainty, importance, and knowledge, but some emerging research has begun to examine interactions between these attributes (see
Future research in this area may also begin to examine the stability of attitude attributes such as ambivalence and certainty themselves (cf.
Overall, the present work conceptually replicated the structural ambivalence × certainty interaction on longitudinal opinion response stability, extending previous findings to a non-student sample and an additional, controversial issue relevant to contemporary political discussion. Future research should test the key psychological mechanisms underlying these effects as well as consider other cases of interactions between attitude strength predictors.
The Supplementary Materials include re-analyses of
The authors have no funding to report.
The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.
The authors thank the members of the Ohio State Attitudes and Persuasion Lab for feedback on this research.
In the attitude certainty literature, “certainty” and “confidence” are often used interchangeably to refer to the same construct (see
The dataset also includes other measures relevant to ambivalence, but they pertain specifically to people’s openness to abortion under particular circumstances (e.g., when the pregnancy was the result of rape) rather than their overall position on the issue. There are no corresponding measures of certainty, however, for each of the specific considerations. Because our interest is in the interaction between ambivalence and certainty for the stability of general attitudes, we focus on the measures related to respondents’ overall position on abortion.
This scoring method considers any change as unstable. Thus, shifting from “neither” to “don’t know” is counted the same as shifting from “pro-life” to “pro-choice.” See the
Note that this item references both “feelings” and “beliefs.” Indeed, a person’s degree of attitudinal ambivalence can be built on mixed affective reactions, mixed cognitive reactions, or both (
We also ran additional models without including any interaction terms to test overall effects of our predictors. Results of those models can be found in Table S2 (see