The interpersonal implications of perceiving others’ attitudinal ambivalence

Han, Ruiqing ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0572-2323 2024. The interpersonal implications of perceiving others’ attitudinal ambivalence. PhD Thesis, Cardiff University. Item availability restricted.

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Abstract

This thesis examined how people perceive and evaluate others with dispositionally ambivalent or non-ambivalent attitudes. Across nine experiments using different methodologies, dispositionally ambivalent targets were consistently perceived as warmer but less competent than non-ambivalent targets. These perceptions mediated downstream effects on expectations of the targets’ behaviours, values, and interpersonal interactions. Key findings include: 1. People can infer targets’ attitudinal ambivalence from both verbal descriptions and facial images. 2. Ambivalent targets were perceived as warmer but less competent than non-ambivalent targets. 3. The non-ambivalent target was expected to share fewer resources in economic games, be less suitable for job roles requiring warmth, and less likely to engage in moral behaviours. 4. The non-ambivalent target was perceived as attaching less importance to self-transcendence values and more importance to self-enhancement values, relative to ambivalent targets. 5. Participants could match ambivalent and non-ambivalent faces to corresponding verbal descriptions. 6. Warmth and competence consistently mediated the effects of perceived ambivalence on social judgments and behavioural expectations. 7. While many findings replicated across UK and Chinese samples, some cultural differences emerged in the role of warmth in ambivalence perception. iii This research establishes dispositional ambivalence as an important factor in impression formation with interpersonal consequences. It extends theories of attitude strength by demonstrating that dispositional ambivalence, as a dimension of attitude strength, has broader social implications beyond intrapersonal effects. The findings integrate and extend key frameworks in social cognition, including the Stereotype Content Model, the ABC approach to cooperation, and trait space theory. By showing how dispositional ambivalence operates within these frameworks, this work offers a more comprehensive understanding of how people organise and apply social knowledge across diverse domains of person perception. Further, the research highlights the utility of both direct and indirect measures and demonstrates cross-cultural validity, with some boundary conditions. It underscores the value of integrating diverse methodologies and theoretical perspectives in understanding how people navigate the social world by perceiving and evaluating others’ attitudinal ambivalence. Overall, this thesis provides a novel and nuanced investigation of the interpersonal consequences of dispositional ambivalence, contributing to our understanding of attitude formation, social perception, and cross-cultural psychology.

Item Type:	Thesis (PhD)
Date Type:	Completion
Status:	Unpublished
Schools:	Psychology
Date of First Compliant Deposit:	23 July 2024
Last Modified:	23 Jul 2024 08:49
URI:	https://orca.cardiff.ac.uk/id/eprint/170825

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