Beding without breaking: Examining the role of attitudinal ambivalence in resisting persuasive communication

The present research aims at showing that ambivalence serves an adaptive function: to preserveattitudes and to resist persuasion. In two experiments, participants were exposed to a counter-attitudinalmessage attributed to an ingroup majority. Results of both experiments showed that participants low inambivalence changed their attitude more at the indirect than at the direct level, whereas highly ambivalentparticipants did the opposite. Thus, while manifest resistance did not prevent participants low in ambivalencefrom latent change, the coexistence of pro and con components within the attitude structure allowed highlyambivalent participants to comply with the majority at the direct level by expressing one of the components,thereby reducing the impact of the message at the indirect level.