The experience of recurring ambivalence and its relation to effortful problem-focused coping

Ambivalent attitudes are a pervasive part of people’s lives, yet research has primarily examined isolated instances of ambivalence without considering its persistence across time. The present research addresses this temporal dimension of ambivalence and how it shapes coping efforts. We propose that frequently recurring ambivalence motivates individuals to engage in more effortful coping because they (a) appraise the recurrence as aversive and (b) seek to prevent future reexperiences of ambivalence-induced discomfort. Study 1 revealed variability in how frequently people experience ambivalence across various personal topics, attributable to attitude importance and individual differences. As hypothesized, perceptions of recurrence amplified the correlation between felt ambivalence and effortful problem-focused coping, but without a role of dispositional future-oriented thinking. Study 2 further substantiated this interaction by employing a quasi-experimental design that varied felt ambivalence and recurrence across personal topics, suggesting a role of negative appraisals of recurring ambivalence in its motivational effect on coping. Study 3 employed a decision-making task and manipulated ambivalence and expectations of its future recurrence, yielding no significant interaction effect on effortful information seeking. Taken together, recurring ambivalence is a widespread and often unpleasant experience, and our studies (N = 1,672) provide tentative support for the notion that the discomfort of reexperiencing ambivalence (but not heightened expectations of future recurrence) increases the motivation to engage in more effortful resolution attempts. A temporal perspective offers novel implications for understanding the nature of ambivalence and its consequences.