I Am Aware of My Inconsistencies but Can Tolerate Them: The Effect of High Quality Listening on Speakers’ Attitude Ambivalence
Abstract
We examined how listeners characterized by empathy and a non-judgmental approach affect speakers’ attitude structure. We hypothesized that high-quality listening decreases speakers’ social anxiety, which in turn reduces defensive processing. This reduction in defensive processing was hypothesized to result in an awareness of contradictions (increased objective-attitude ambivalence) and decreased attitude extremity. Moreover, we hypothesized that experiencing high-quality listening would enable speakers to tolerate contradictory responses, such that listening would attenuate the association between objective and subjective-attitude ambivalence. We obtained consistent support for our hypotheses across four laboratory experiments that manipulated listening experience in different ways on a range of attitude topics. The effects of listening on objective-attitude ambivalence were stronger for higher dispositional social anxiety and initial objective-attitude ambivalence (Study 4). Overall, the results suggest that speakers’ attitude structure can be changed by a heretofore unexplored interpersonal variable: merely providing high-quality listening.
Don't let the facts ruin a good story: The effect of vivid reviews on attitude ambivalence and its coping mechanisms
Guy Itzchakov, Moty Amar, Frenk Van Harreveld
Attitudes
Purchasing decisions are increasingly based on reviews by fellow consumers which often consist of positive and negative evaluations about the product (i.e. valence-
inconsistency). We tested how the vividness of these reviews affects individuals' attitude ambivalence towards the product and their strategies to cope with this ambivalence. We hypothesized that reading vivid and valence-inconsistent reviews would lead to increased awareness of opposing features of attitudes towards the
product (i.e. increased simultaneous accessibility) as compared to reading less vivid valence-inconsistent reviews. If this is indeed the case, individuals should feel
more conflicted towards the attitude object (i.e. increased subjective ambivalence) and should be motivated to reduce it by using ambivalence-coping strategies,
specifically (a) processing additional information that is congruent with their initial attitude and (b) delaying their decision. These hypotheses were mostly supported across five experiments. The experiments included manipulations of valence-inconsistent information between reviews and within a review including three pre-
registered studies (Ns = 247, 396, 701, 433, 313, respectively).
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Attitudes in an interpersonal context: Psychological safety as a route to attitude change
Guy Itzchakov, Kenneth G. DeMarree
Attitudes
Interpersonal contexts can be complex because they can involve two or more
people who are interdependent, each of whom is pursuing both individual
and shared goals. Interactions consist of individual and joint behaviors
that evolve dynamically over time. Interactions are likely to affect people’s
attitudes because the interpersonal context gives conversation partners a
great deal of opportunity to intentionally or unintentionally influence each
other.
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