Ambivalence and Self-Reported Adherence to Recommendations to Reduce the Spread of COVID-19

Abstract. Governments worldwide still, to some extent, rely on behavioral recommendations to reduce the spread of COVID-19. We examine the role of ambivalence toward both the specific recommendations (micro-ambivalence) and the pandemic as a whole (macro-ambivalence) about compliance. We predict that micro ambivalence relates negatively, whereas macro ambivalence relates positively to self-reported adherence to recommendations. We present two studies ( N = 691) supporting our hypotheses: the more ambivalent people are toward the behavioral recommendations (micro-level), the less they report following them. Conversely, the more ambivalent people are about the pandemic as a whole (macro-level), the more they report following recommendations. Our findings were replicated in a US sample and a representative German sample.

Social Ambivalence and Disease (SAD): A Theoretical Model Aimed at Understanding the Health Implications of Ambivalent Relationships

The protective influence of social relationships on health is widely documented; however, not all relationships are positive, and negative aspects of relationships may be detrimental. Much less is known about the relationships characterized by both positivity and negativity (i.e., ambivalence). This article provides a theoretical framework for considering the influence of ambivalent relationships on physical health, including reasons why ambivalence should be considered separately from relationships characterized as primarily positive (supportive) or primarily negative (aversive). We introduce the social ambivalence and disease (SAD) model as a guide to understanding the social psychological antecedents, processes, and consequences of ambivalent relationships. We conclude by highlighting gaps in the literature and features of the SAD model that may serve as a guide to future research on potential health-relevant pathways of ambivalent relationships.

Exploring the Framing of Animal Farming and Meat Consumption: On the Diversity of Topics Used and Qualitative Patterns in Selected Demographic Contexts

Simple Summary

In various contexts, people talk about the farming and consumption of animals using different arguments to construct and justify their (non-)acceptability. This paper reports on a qualitative research among consumers with different backgrounds in urban and rural areas in The Netherlands and Turkey. We present an elaborate methodology for qualitatively researching everyday-life talk about animal farming and meat consumption. We explain how we collected and organised topics people refer to, and looked at the possible relation of complete argumentations with the researched contexts. The resulting long list of topics includes animal welfare arguments, but shows that in everyday-life many others are used, such as health, taste, money, religion, and environmental impact. Our research indicates several ties between mentioned topics and the researched contexts—the most noticeable pattern being the difference between respondents in cities and rural areas. However, in contrast to what literature suggests, single contextual features, like country or gender, offered relatively little insight into the differences that showed up in the complete argumentations. This, we argue, does not imply that context does not matter, but rather that so many cultural and personal contextual aspects play a role that singular contextual features cannot sufficiently explain framing.

Abstract

In various contexts, people talk about animal farming and meat consumption using different arguments to construct and justify their (non-)acceptability. This article presents the results of an in-depth qualitative inquiry into the content of and contextual patterns in the everyday-life framing regarding this issue, performed among consumers in various settings in two extremes in the European sphere: the Netherlands and Turkey. We describe the methodological steps of collecting, coding, and organizing the variety of encountered framing topics, as well as our search for symbolic convergence in groups of consumers from different selected demographic contexts (country, urban-rural areas, gender, age, and education level). The framing of animal farming and meat consumption in everyday-life is not a simple one-issue rational display of facts; people referred to a vast range of topics in the categories knowledge, convictions, pronounced behaviour, values, norms, interests, and feelings. Looking at framing in relation to the researched demographic contexts, most patterns were found on the level of topics; symbolic convergence in lines of reasoning and composite framing was less prominent in groups based on single demographic contexts than anticipated. An explanation for this lies in the complexity of frame construction, happening in relation with multiple interdependent contextual features.

Reducing Subjective Ambivalence by Creating Doubt

Ambivalence, the presence of positive and negative reactions toward an object, typically involves the subjective experience of conflict. We investigate the role that the perceived validity of each side of an ambivalent attitude plays in producing subjective ambivalence (SA). Consistent with the metacognitive model of attitudes, we demonstrated that SA is reduced when people doubt either the positive or the negative reactions. Thus, inducing doubt (in one side) can reduce SA. We further explored whether viewing both sides as invalid would lead to relatively low or to relatively high levels of SA. Consistent with the idea that equivalent perceived validity increases the difficulty of ambivalence reduction, when both sides were doubted, conflict was as high as when both sides were validated.

Agency-communion and interest in prosocial behavior: social motives for assimilation and contrast explain sociocultural inconsistencies

Identifying the "prosocial personality" is a classic project in personality psychology. However, personality traits have been elusive predictors of prosocial behavior, with personality-prosociality relations varying widely across sociocultural contexts. We propose the social motives perspective to account for such sociocultural inconsistencies. According to this perspective, a focal quality of agency (e.g., competence, independence, openness) is the motive to swim against the social tide-agentic social contrast. Conversely, a focal quality of communion (e.g., warmth, interdependence, agreeableness) is the motive to swim with the social tide-communal social assimilation. We report two cross-sectional studies. Study 1 (N = 131,562) defined social context at the country level (11 European countries), whereas Study 2 (N = 56,395) defined it at the country level (11 European countries) and the city level (296 cities within these countries). Communion predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in sociocultural contexts where such interest was common and comparatively weakly where such interest was uncommon. Agency predicted interest in prosocial behavior comparatively strongly in sociocultural contexts where such interest was uncommon and comparatively weakly where such interest was common. The results supported the social motives perspective. Also, the findings help to reestablish the importance of personality for understanding prosociality.