Decision-Making

People regularly have to navigate decisions about which they feel ambivalent, for instance, regarding unhealthy food, recycling, or financial investments. It is assumed that people cope with such felt ambivalence by seeking information that sways their ambivalent attitudes (potential ambivalence) about these topics. However, empirical evidence for this proposition is scarce because most studies measure information seeking intentions instead of behavior. As such, it remains doubtful whether information seeking indeed helps people to reduce felt ambivalence while making decisions. To test this proposition, we adapted a sample-based information seeking paradigm that enabled us to measure actual information seeking behavior in financial decisions. In four preregistered studies (total N = 542 participants; k = 16.538 decisions), we demonstrated that when people feel ambivalent about an initial set of information about a stock, they seek more information about its development to decide whether it develops positively or negatively; this information seeking, in turn, helps them to reduce felt ambivalence when making the decision. However, this is only the case when the initial information is ambivalent and the sought information is univalent; otherwise, information seeking increases felt ambivalence. This supports a central proposition in ambivalence research, indicating that people can indeed solve their felt ambivalence through information seeking. However, our data also showed that the effect of information seeking on felt ambivalence cannot be fully explained by changes in potential ambivalence and a resolution of the attitudinal basis of the conflict. Future research should, therefore, examine whether and how information seeking can also serve as an emotion-focused coping strategy that helps people reduce felt ambivalence by coping with conflict-induced discomfort.

The regulation of self-control conflicts is integral to exerting self-control and pursuing (long-term) goals. Nonetheless, prevailing conceptualizations of self-control conflict remain vague, and the mechanisms and boundary conditions through which self-control conflict emerges are rarely empirically tested. In the present research, we thus propose that self-control conflicts originate in accessible ambivalent attitudes. To examine our attitudinal perspective on self-control and self-regulation, we investigated how (ambivalent) attitudes influence self-control conflicts and how resolving these attitudinal origins may enhance self-control and avert future conflicts. We ran a 21-day diary study assessing daily inhibition conflicts about eating meat among conflicted vegetarians (N = 156, k = 2,346). Our findings suggest that holding (positive) attitudes that conflict with predominant (negative) attitudes predicted heightened conflict frequency in people’s daily lives, and the situational accessibility of both positive and negative attitudes is associated with conflict magnitude. Moreover, to cope with these conflicts, people often engaged in attitude-based self-regulation involving the affirmation of negative and the disaffirmation of positive attitudes toward eating meat, thereby successfully exerting self-control. Contrary to our prediction, however, we did not find evidence for the effectiveness of attitude-based self-regulatory strategies for mitigating subsequent conflict. In fact, various self-regulatory strategies, including the disaffirmation of positive attitudes, self-distraction, and thought suppression, even escalated subsequent conflict. These findings suggest that our attitudinal perspective on self-control and self-regulation provides a parsimonious and testable conceptualization of self-control conflicts.

Ambivalence and dissonance research provides insights into the experiences and consequences of cognitive conflict. Despite the conceptual overlap between both conflicts, they are typically discussed and applied separately. Based on the notion that ambivalence reflects pre-decisional and dissonance reflects post-decisional conflict, we propose the Model of Ambivalent Choice and Dissonant Commitment (AC/DC model). The AC/DC model outlines that both conflicts are rooted in attitudes; however, as they succeed each other in decision-making, they entail distinct cognitive and emotional underpinnings, leading to different motivational consequences. Their sequence in decision-making entails far-reaching interrelations, depending on whether people cope with the conflict-induced discomfort or the conflict origins. Thereby, the AC/DC model elucidates how conflicts are navigated within decision-making and how they either resolve or manifest over time. This offers various novel implications, for instance, about conflicts regarding time-sensitive decisions, conflicts between alternatives, conflicts outside of decision situations, and conflict resolution and behaviour change.