In an era where political polarization seems to dominate conversations, expressing nuanced opinions might seem like a bridge-building strategy. However, a recent study published in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology provides evidence that individuals who express ambivalence about political issues may pay a social price for their nuanced views. Those who articulate their stance with ambivalence are often perceived as less likeable, warm, and competent. This finding emerges across a range of policy topics.
Previous research had indicated that people often expect expressing ambivalence to be socially valued, especially in controversial contexts. This expectation made intuitive sense: if people see that someone recognizes arguments on both sides of an issue, they might perceive that person as thoughtful, competent, and less biased. The researchers aimed to test whether these positive expectations matched social reality.
“I think a big part of the story of political polarization is how it sidelines people with nuanced opinions and amplifies those with more extreme views. We were interested in whether everyday social dynamics might contribute to that by incentivizing expressing certain types of opinions – one-sided ones – and disincentivizing expressing others – ambivalent ones,” said study author Joseph J. Siev, a postdoctoral fellow at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business.
In an initial pilot study, the researchers recruited 77 student participants and presented them with a hypothetical social scenario. In this scenario, participants were asked to imagine themselves in a new social setting where they wanted to make friends and be liked. During a conversation, a political topic such as COVID-19 mask mandates or U.S. immigration policy comes up, and the participants were asked how likely they would be to express their opinions in two ways: taking a clear, one-sided position or expressing a preference while acknowledging some arguments from the opposing side.
Participants indicated their likelihood of choosing each approach, providing insight into their expectations about how expressing ambivalence might affect their social standing. The results showed a strong preference for taking a two-sided, ambivalent stance over a one-sided position, suggesting that participants believed ambivalence would be socially beneficial.
Next, to examine the actual social consequences of expressing ambivalence on polarizing political issues, the researchers recruited 618 participants through the online platform Mechanical Turk. Participants first completed a questionnaire assessing their own positions and ambivalence regarding U.S. immigration policy, the death penalty, or COVID-19 mask mandates.
Participants were then exposed to a fictional target who expressed either a one-sided (univalent) or two-sided (ambivalent) opinion on the same issue. The targets were also designed to either agree or disagree with the participants’ overall stance. The researchers ensured that the overall position and the extremity of attitudes were constant across conditions to isolate the effect of ambivalence. Participants rated their liking for the target, along with perceptions of the target’s warmth, competence, and their interest in meeting the target.
The findings revealed that ambivalent targets were generally less liked than one-sided targets, particularly by participants who agreed with the target’s overall stance but were low in ambivalence themselves. This pattern was consistent across the different topics, with slight variations in strength.
Participants unsurprisingly preferred targets who shared their views over those who held opposing positions. However, expressing ambivalence did not make targets more likeable when they disagreed with participants’ stance.
“We thought things might balance out more, with some people liking ambivalent (vs. non-ambivalent) people less and others liking them more,” Siev told PsyPost. “We thought certain groups of participants might especially like ambivalent people: those who disagreed with the ambivalent person’s overall position on the issue, in which case ambivalence creates some common ground, and/or those who were also ambivalent themselves. But we didn’t find strong evidence for those possibilities.”
Siev and his colleagues then sought to replicate and extend the findings by manipulating the perceived polarization of a single issue: U.S. immigration reform. The researchers framed the topic in two ways: highly polarizing (immigration from Mexico) and less polarizing (immigration from Canada). They recruited 594 participants from the online platform Prolific. Participants first completed a questionnaire about their positions and ambivalence on the issue of immigration from either Mexico or Canada, based on their random assignment.
Participants were then presented with a target who agreed with their overall position on immigration but expressed either a one-sided or two-sided opinion. They rated their liking for the target, along with perceptions of warmth, competence, and interest in meeting the target.
Consistent with the previous findings, the results showed that ambivalent targets were less liked than one-sided targets, regardless of whether the issue was framed as more or less polarizing. Participants with high levels of ambivalence were more tolerant of ambivalent targets, while those with low ambivalence showed a clear preference for one-sided targets. These findings reinforced the idea that expressing ambivalence generally leads to reduced social liking, even when the issue is less polarizing.
“People pay a social price for expressing nuanced, ambivalent opinions about political issues,” Siev explained. “They are often less popular overall because members of their political ingroup like them less than they like those with more polarized, one-sided opinions. This might be part of the reason moderate opinions are underrepresented and political discourse seems so extreme.”
But as with all research, there are some caveats. The study’s participants were primarily Americans, and results may vary in different cultural contexts. The study also focused on specific political issues. Future research could examine other topics, including non-political ones, to see if the findings hold.
“It’s possible the results would differ in other cultural contexts, historical periods, or political systems,” Siev noted. “Our findings are most applicable to the contemporary U.S. and other contexts that are comparable to it in terms of politics and culture.”
As far as the long-term goals for this line of research, Siev hopes “to encourage nuanced contributions to political discourse and raise the profiles of people who express them. Part of that is figuring out how to make people more receptive to ambivalent opinions from ingroup members. Another part of that is understanding how people can use ambivalent opinions to reach across the political aisle.”
“Our paper resonates with and expands upon other recent research showing how people’s political beliefs affect whom they like and want to socialize with, and how these processes contribute to political polarization,” he added. “For example: Hussein & Wheeler (2024), people who are receptive to outgroups’ opinions pay social costs. Goldenberg et al. (2022), people prefer to interact with ingroup members with more (vs. less) extreme opinions.”
The study, “Endorsing both sides, pleasing neither: Ambivalent individuals face unexpected social costs in political conflicts,” was authored by Joseph J. Siev, Aviva Philipp-Muller, Geoffrey R.O. Durso, and, Duane T. Wegener.