A Comparison of Numerical Indexes for Measuring Attitude Ambivalence

Abstract

Ambivalence is expressed when a person endorses both positive and negative attitudinal positions. Ambivalence is commonly measured by having respondents provide separate ratings of the positive and negative components of their attitudes. A number of different equations have been proposed for combining the two ratings into a numerical index of ambivalence. However, similarities and differences among the equations are not well understood. This article introduces a graphical method to help identify the important properties of an ambivalence index. Five ambivalence indexes were compared and contrasted by using this method, and only two were found to possess satisfactory properties. The same indexes were also computed from respondents' ratings of 26 attitude topics, and it was found that empirical differences among the indexes were relatively small.

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