Concept and origins
In open-ended interviews, Feldman and Zaller (1992) found that many Americans cited the conflicting values of individualism and humanitarianism together, offering reasons both for and against welfare policies. They interpreted this not as ignorance or indifference but as ambivalence arising from holding different values at once. Alvarez and Brehm (2002) distinguished ambivalence from uncertainty and equivocation stemming from lack of information.
Response instability and judgment
Zaller and Feldman (1992) proposed that people answer survey questions by sampling some of the considerations in their heads. Ambivalent people hold many conflicting considerations, so their answers shift depending on which come to mind, a core assumption of Zaller's (1992) receive-accept-sample model. Lavine (2001) reported that voters more ambivalent about candidates weigh issues and performance more than party identification.
Causes and democratic significance
Rudolph and Popp (2007) proposed an information-processing theory in which exposure to more information and conflicting messages increases ambivalence. Lavine and colleagues (2012) argued that partisans ambivalent about their own party are less prone to motivated reasoning and evaluate information more fairly, so critical loyalty benefits democracy.
FAQ
- What is political ambivalence in simple terms?
- It is feeling strongly about both the good and bad sides of a policy or politician, so your mind does not settle on one side.
- Is ambivalence a bad thing?
- It can make answers unstable, but it also has an upside: it can lead people to weigh information more carefully rather than taking sides automatically.
Sources reviewed: 2026-10-26
References
- Feldman, S., & Zaller, J. (1992). The political culture of ambivalence: Ideological responses to the welfare state. American Journal of Political Science, 36(1), 268–307. Ambivalence toward the welfare state.
- Zaller, J., & Feldman, S. (1992). A simple theory of the survey response: Answering questions versus revealing preferences. American Journal of Political Science, 36(3), 579–616. Survey responses as sampled considerations.
- Zaller, J. R. (1992). The nature and origins of mass opinion. Cambridge University Press. The RAS model foundation.
- Alvarez, R. M., & Brehm, J. (2002). Hard choices, easy answers: Values, information, and American public opinion. Princeton University Press. Distinguishes ambivalence from uncertainty.
- Lavine, H. (2001). The electoral consequences of ambivalence toward presidential candidates. American Journal of Political Science, 45(4), 915–929. Ambivalence and candidate voting.
- Rudolph, T. J., & Popp, E. (2007). An information processing theory of ambivalence. Political Psychology, 28(5), 563–585. Information processing account of ambivalence.
- Lavine, H. G., Johnston, C. D., & Steenbergen, M. R. (2012). The ambivalent partisan: How critical loyalty promotes democracy. Oxford University Press. Ambivalent partisans as careful deliberators.