Двойственность: Конфликт чувств и неопределенность.

Simultaneous conflicting beliefs or feelings
Ambivalence Stated another way, ambivalence is the experience of having an attitude towards someone or something that contains both positively and negatively valenced components. The term also refers to situations where "mixed feelings" of a more general sort are experienced, or where a person experiences uncertainty or indecisiveness. Although attitudes tend to guide attitude relevant behavior, those held with ambivalence tend to do so to a lesser extent. The less certain an individual is in their attitude, the more impressionable it becomes, hence making future actions less predictable and/or less decisive. Ambivalent attitudes are also more susceptible to transient information (e. g., mood), which can result in a more malleable evaluation. However, since ambivalent people think more about attitude relevant information, they also tend to be more persuaded by (compelling) attitude relevant information than less ambivalent people. Psychologically uncomfortable ambivalence, also known as cognitive dissonance, can lead to avoidance, procrastination, or to deliberate attempts to resolve the ambivalence. People are aware of their ambivalence to varying degrees, so the effects of an ambivalent state vary across individuals and situations. For this reason, researchers have considered two forms of ambivalence, only one of which is subjectively experienced as a state of conflict. Ambivalence is not always acknowledged by the individual experiencing it. Although, when the individual becomes aware to a varying degree, discomfort is felt, which is elicited by the conflicting attitudes about a particular stimulus. Because subjective ambivalence is a secondary judgment of a primary evaluation (i. e., I'm conflicted of my positive attitude towards the president), it is considered to be metacognitive. The point of these measures is to find out how much a person experiences ambivalence in a particular evaluation. Their report may be provided in a number of ways. Priester and Petty, for example, utilized a rating system where they had subjects rate the level of conflict they were experiencing on a scale from 0 (as in the subject experienced "no conflict at all") to 10 (as in the subject experienced "maximum conflict"). The three conditions are as follows:
If the larger value is maintained, while the smaller rating increases, ambivalence will increase. If the smaller value is maintained, while the larger rating increases, ambivalence will decrease. If both the larger and smaller values are the same, ambivalence will increase when both ratings increase (as the difference between the two will increase) or decrease as the values decrease. Thompson et al. refined Kaplan's formula to incorporate Breckler's components:

Research has shown only a moderate correlation between felt and potential ambivalence, although, both measures are useful depending on what is being asked. Potential ambivalence is often utilized by ambivalence researchers to gather more information about diversity of attitudes across contexts. Each individual experiences the after effects of unpleasant feelings in a different way, whether or not associated with ambivalence awareness. There are two primary moderators that link felt and potential ambivalence: simultaneous accessibility and preference for consistency. Simultaneous accessibility is when potential ambivalence depends on how quickly and uniformly conflicting evaluations come to mind. There is a significant difference in the behaviors and experiences of those possessing strong conflicting attitudes, compared to those who are simply neutral. This perspective is unsuitable for examining ambivalence and based on current research does not appear to accurately reflect how attitudes function and are experienced.

The two dimensional perspective separately rates positive and negative attitudes toward an attitudinal object.

Cognitive consistency theories were established on the premise that individuals prefer dependable and coherent cognition. Inconsistency in one's thoughts, feelings, emotions, values, beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors causes tension. In the past, consistency theorists focused primarily on the instinctive drive to reduce this psychological discomfort and return to a simple, balanced state. Unlike classical approaches, however, theories of attitudinal ambivalence are more concerned with the perceived paradoxical state itself. In a set of dimension scores, for example, positive 5 and negative 5 have the same degree of consistency as does the set of positive 9 and negative 1. Yet, the degree of ambivalence in each set is vastly different. This distinction is important when examining the implications and effects of ambivalence, since seemingly similar ratings are in fact quite different. The two dimensional perspective of attitudinal assessment can distinguish between ambivalence and evaluative cognitive consistency. As ratings increase, both ambivalence and evaluative cognitive consistency have a tendency to be less stable and less effective at predicting behavior. Festinger and other early psychologists held the notion that cognitive dissonance was the result of any two conflicting thoughts or opinions. Currently, however, research has proven that not all cognitive inconsistencies are equally upsetting, for it is not necessarily the dissonance itself that causes strife, rather, it is the individuals construct of the given contention. Dissonance, then, is characterized as a discrepancy between an attitude held by an individual and the actual behavior that is practiced by that individual, whereas ambivalence is seen as having a disparity within the attitude itself. Individuals seek to satisfy a stable and positive self image. The lack of accessibility here does serve to reduce a biased thought process. Yet, since it takes a greater amount of effort to resolve two conflicting attitudes, if one desires to form a conclusion, a more extensive thought process is necessary. Both personal and circumstantial aspects must be considered in order to accurately assess relationship sustainability between subjective and objective ambivalence. A chronic dieter, for example, may experience ambivalence between the goals of eating enjoyment and weight control. Each of these goals independently are viewed as positive, but when conjoined in regards to actually eating more food, the resulting conflict prompts ambivalence. The object of eating enjoyment and the object of losing weight are both regarded with positive attitude, but these two goals are incongruent with each other and are both activated when considering eating. Under those circumstances, people generally pay more attention to information that is relevant to their ambivalent state, in particular when it is perceived as having the potential to reduce discomfort.

Ambivalence is often conceptualized as a negative predictor of attitude strength. Studies have found that ambivalent attitudes are less stable over time, less resistant to change, and less predictive of behavior. Ambivalent attitudes are subject to change based on the concepts, feelings, or objects that are salient at the time. Since an ambivalent attitude is one in which positive and negative feelings are held simultaneously, the strength of either may wax or wane depending on what context the individual finds themselves in; different aspects of an attitude may be activated across situations. Bleuler distinguished three main types of ambivalence: volitional, intellectual, and emotional. Volitional ambivalence refers to an inability to decide on an action—what Montaigne called "a spirit justly balanced betweene two equal desires". The concept (if not Bleuler's term) had a long prehistory, reaching back through Buridan's ass, starving between two equally attractive bales of hay in the Middle Ages, to Aristotle. Intellectual ambivalence—the sceptical belief that "There is no reason but hath a contrary to it" —also follows a long tradition reaching back through Montaigne to Sextus Empiricus and Pyrrho. (Freud considered Bleuler's stress on intellectual ambivalence particularly appropriate given his own ambivalence towards Freud's intellectual constructs, alternatively praising and criticizing them). Emotional ambivalence involved opposing affective attitudes towards the same object, as with the man who both loved and hated his wife. While mainly dealing with ambivalence in relation to the psychological splitting of schizophrenia, Bleuler also noted how "in the dreams of healthy persons, affective as well as intellectual ambivalence is a common phenomenon".

Freud was swift to pick up Bleuler's concept of ambivalence, applying it to areas he had previously dealt with in terms of ambiguous language, or the persistent co existence of love and hatred aimed at the same person. Freud also extended the scope of Bleuler's term to cover the co existence of active and passive trends in the same instinctual impulse—what Freud called "pairs of contrary component instincts" such as looking and being looked at. Karl Abraham explored the presence of ambivalence in mourning—something he thought to be a universal phenomenon. Others in psychoanalysis have traced the roots of contradictory impulses (usually love and hate) to very early stages of psychosexual development. Defences against feeling both of the two contradictory emotions include psychological repression, isolation and displacement. Thus, for example, an analytic patient's love for his father might be quite consciously experienced and openly expressed—while his "hate" for the same object might be heavily repressed and only indirectly expressed, and thus only revealed in analysis. A drug addict may feel ambivalently about their drug of choice; they are aware of their drug use as a negative impact agent in their lives (socially, financially, physically, etc.) while simultaneously seeking and using the drug because of the positive impact results they receive from the drug's usage (the "high"). (More recent discourse of addiction as a mental health concern and chemically induced/encoded imperative, rather than as a behavioral choice, complicates the notion of ambivalence as it relates to addiction.) Another relevant distinction is that whereas the psychoanalytic notion of "ambivalence" sees it as engendered by all neurotic conflict, a person's everyday "mixed feelings" may easily be based on a quite realistic assessment of the imperfect nature of the thing being considered.

Philosophers such as Hili Razinsky consider how ambivalence relates to other aspects of the human experience, such as personhood, action, and judgement, and what it means that strict ambivalence is possible.