Ingroup ambivalence and experienced discomfort: the moderating roles of affective vs. cognitive attitudinal basis and group identification

The issue of whether holding ambivalent attitudes toward the ingroup is associated with discomfortive states has generated, in general, scarce research and all the more so within prior work in the intra- and intergroup domains. Therefore, the present research (a) explored the issue of whether ingroup ambivalence evokes discomfortive responses and (b) aimed to identify potential moderating factors involved in this process. To this end, findings from three studies support the argument that ambivalence-associated discomfort (a) is a general tendency when it regards affect-based ambivalence toward fellow group members but (b) only holds for the more identified group members when ambivalence concerns beliefs about the ingroup. The current findings are consistent with evidence provided by research conducted in the intergroup and attitude literatures. The presented evidence contributes to identify factors related to those negative affective responses that are set in motion by an ambivalent evaluation of one's own group.