People with clear opinions usually tend to support violence than individuals with ambivalent political beliefs.

The selection of political candidates and issues is, by its nature, limited and imperfect, leading many individuals to have mixed feelings and even opposing opinions about which candidate or position they like.

In general, ambivalence reduces political participation. For example, the more ambivalent an individual is towards the candidates in an election, the This person is less more likely to vote.

We are social psychologists who study how people’s beliefs influence their behavior.

In a brand new article within the journal Science Advances, we discover something that goes against this trend of uninvolved ambivalence: the more ambivalent an individual is a few political issue, the They usually tend to support violence and other extreme actions related to this topic.

Ambivalent persons are more more likely to support extreme actions

In one in every of a series of studies we conducted, we surveyed several thousand people on one in every of several issues, reminiscent of abortion, gun control, or Covid-19 measures, using multiple surveys. We also measured how ambivalent they were about that opinion. Then we asked them about their willingness to potentially engage in various actions to support their opinion. Some of the actions were mundane, reminiscent of voting for candidates with whom participants agreed, donating money, or volunteering. Other actions were more extreme, reminiscent of engaging in violence against their partisan opponents.

In other studies, we examined national data collected by researchers from the Voter Study Group of the Democracy Fund and that Cooperative Election Study which contained similar questions.

When we analyzed the relationships between people's ambivalence and their willingness to have interaction in or support each behavior, we found that the leads to all studies relied on the extremeness of the behavior. As expected, more ambivalent people were less willing to support or engage in moderate actions like voting. Yet, contrary to our initial expectations, individuals with more ambivalent feelings were also more willing to support or engage in extreme actions, especially when the problem was very near their hearts.

Dealing with discomfort

In subsequent studies, we sought to grasp why more ambivalent persons are more more likely to support more extreme political actions—from confronting political opponents or campaigning to get them fired to much more extreme acts, including violence.

We thought one factor is likely to be psychological discomfort experienced by ambivalent people: When people feel uncomfortable with their beliefs, they often look for tactics Compensation by signal strengthFor example, when their beliefs are questioned, people sometimes react with support them much more.

Similarly, we thought that ambivalent people might support extreme measures because they feel uncomfortable doing so and wish to signal clarity and conviction about their beliefs.

Our results were consistent with the concept people might compensate for his or her discomfort by supporting extreme actions: When we asked participants how uncomfortable they felt with their opinions on the subject, More ambivalent people reported feeling less comfortable with their views, which was also related to the indisputable fact that they were more more likely to support extreme behavior.

Extreme actions with real commitment

However, these are hypothetical behaviors. Are more ambivalent people actually more willing to take extreme measures?

We tested this by asking people to take concrete actions with real consequences. We gave participants the choice to donate money to pro-environmental organizations known for his or her radical ideologies and tactics, reminiscent of sabotaging energy infrastructure and disrupting traffic – JustStopOil And EarthFirst! Alternatively, participants can decide to win some or all the money themselves.

We found that individuals who were ambivalent about environmentalism donated extra money to JustStopOil and EarthFirst! than individuals who weren’t ambivalent, especially in the event that they were strongly committed to environmental issues. And this was very true for the unconventional charities. When they’d the identical opportunity to donate to mainstream organizations – the Sierra Club And The Nature Conservation Authority – Ambivalent people didn’t spend extra money than non-ambivalent people.

We have in a roundabout way investigated why persons are so supportive of environmental protection despite being ambivalent about environmental issues. But perhaps it’s because people who find themselves concerned about climate change are also concerned in regards to the economic consequences of tackling it. Or individuals who find it difficult to make environmentally friendly selections and feel that they usually are not living as much as their very own expectations. Or perhaps individuals with a more general type of political ambivalence, reminiscent of the assumption that even good policies involve trade-offs.

A much bigger picture

The link between ambivalence and support for extreme actions in our studies was a correlation – two things are linked, however the explanation for this link is unknown. So we will't make sure that ambivalence is the explanation for this support. Perhaps the connection is the opposite way around and support for extreme actions makes people more ambivalent. Or perhaps another factor we missed influences each.

But after we searched for evidence for these alternative explanations, we didn't find much. For example, it didn't affect the outcomes whether we asked about ambivalence before or after asking about support for the intense actions. And although Extreme behavior is expounded to other aspects, reminiscent of a bent toward aggressivenesseven after we compared individuals who were equal on these other aspects, ambivalence still played a job. Yet we have no idea every little thing in regards to the relationship between ambivalence and extreme actions.

The psychology of utmost behavior is complex. To explain its causes, many studies emphasize that some persons are particularly vulnerable tend toward extremism, including those that have difficulty controlling their emotions. Our research suggests one other possibility: that some beliefs themselves have properties – particularly ambivalence – that encourage support for extreme actions.