Chapter Five – The ABC of Ambivalence: Affective, Behavioral, and Cognitive Consequences of Attitudinal Conflict

In a world where individuals are continuously exposed to information, the experience of ambivalence has become an intricate part of human existence. Recently, the consequences of ambivalence have been the subject of considerable research attention. In this chapter, we provide an overview of this research and present the ABC (Affect, Behavior, Cognition) model of ambivalence that integrates recent insights into the affective, behavioral, and cognitive consequences of ambivalence. This research shows when and why ambivalence leads to negative affect and that this affective response is the fuel that drives subsequent effects of ambivalence on cognition and behavior. Moreover, the reviewed findings reveal that the effects on cognition and behavior serve the purpose of either resolving ambivalence or mitigating the negative affective response. With the ABC model of ambivalence, we aim to identify the distinctive features of ambivalence in terms of what we feel, think, and do.