[arc] [EVENT] Poster presentation at SPSP 2020

[Jana Hohnsbehn]

Dear Collective,

for those attending SPSP 2020: I will be presenting a poster on Friday, February 28th at 4pm (Elite Hall, F-039) which is about the relationship between trait ambivalence and confirmation bias as well as positive hypothesis testing. It also includes findings about the effect of state ambivalence on these phenomena. Find the abstract and title below.

It would be nice to see you there and connect!

Cheers,

Jana

Torn but balanced: ambivalence is related to less confirmation bias.

Traditionally, ambivalence has been conceptualized as a negative influence on decision-making, leading to procrastination, decision-delay, and negative affect. Challenging this notion, recent theorizing suggests that ambivalence can be beneficial because it promotes more balance in the decision-making process. Specifically, since ambivalence is a state where contrasting sides of an attitude object (e.g. both positive and negative evaluations) are salient, it likely leads to the consideration of more diverse information and reduces one-sided thought. We investigated this novel idea in the domain of one of the most pervasive biases in decision-making: confirmation bias. Confirmation bias refers to the tendency to prefer information that is in accord with one’s preexisting beliefs. That is, people tend to process information one-sidedly in line with their preconceptions, often resulting in less optimal choices. We examined the relationship between ambivalence and confirmation bias in an online study (N = 150) in which people performed different decision-making tasks. Results demonstrated that the more ambivalent people were, the less confirmation bias they showed. This provides first-time evidence that decision-making can benefit from ambivalence and lays the groundwork for more systematic future testing of the upsides of ambivalence.