A new look at the consequences of attitude certainty: The amplification hypothesis.

Abstract

It is well established that increasing attitude certainty makes attitudes more resistant to attack and more predictive of behavior. This finding has been interpreted as indicating that attitude certainty crystallizes attitudes, making them more durable and impactful. The current research challenges this crystallization hypothesis and proposes an amplification hypothesis, which suggests that instead of invariably strengthening an attitude, attitude certainty amplifies the dominant effect of the attitude on thought, judgment, and behavior. In 3 experiments, the authors test these competing hypotheses by comparing the effects of attitude certainty manipulations on univalent versus ambivalent attitudes. Across experiments, it is demonstrated that increasing attitude certainty strengthens attitudes (e.g., increases their resistance to persuasion) when attitudes are univalent but weakens attitudes (e.g., decreases their resistance to persuasion) when attitudes are ambivalent. These results are consistent with the amplification hypothesis.

In doubt and disorderly: Ambivalence promotes compensatory perceptions of order.

“…As suggested earlier, (un)certainty has already been distin guished from ambivalence by various researchers (e.g., Bassili, 1996;Clarkson et al, 2008;Rucker & Petty, 2004;Rucker et al, 2008). Shepherd, Kay, Landau, and Keefer (2011) recently showed that different psychological threats elicit different kinds of com pensatory coping responses.…”

Wanting other attitudes: Actual–desired attitude discrepancies predict feelings of ambivalence and ambivalence consequences

“…Ambivalence is a central construct in the literature on attitudes, and it has been the focus of a recent resurgence in research interest (e.g., Cavazza & Butera, 2008;Clark et al, 2008;Clarkson, Tormala, & Rucker, 2008;Cowley & Czellar, 2012;DeMarree, Morrison, Wheeler, & Petty, 2011;Hormes & Rozin, 2011;Petty, Tormala, Briñol, & Jarvis, 2006;Priester et al, 2007;Sawicki et al, 2013;Schneider et al, 2013;van Harreveld, Rutjens, et al, 2009;Ziegler, Schlett, Casel, & Diehl, 2012). Although the subjective experience of conflict is important because it often drives ambivalence outcomes (e.g., attitudebehavior correspondence, information seeking), there is a current gap in our understanding of the factors that contribute to this sense of conflict.…”

Anxious and egocentric: How specific emotions influence perspective taking.

“…Under the guise of an "autobiographical memory" task, participants were randomly assigned to describe three experiences that made them feel either very certain or very uncertain. They received these instructions (adapted from Clarkson, Tormala, & Rucker, 2008 Next, as part of a "text comprehension" task, participants completed the same conceptual perspective-taking task involving ambiguous e-mail messages that we used in Experiment 3 (Keysar, 1994).…”