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Abstract
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The co-occurrence of positive and negative attributes of an attitude object typically accounts for less than a quarter of
the variance in felt ambivalence toward these objects, rendering this evaluative incongruence insufficient for explaining felt
ambivalence. The present research tested whether another type of incongruence, semantic incongruence, also causes felt
ambivalence. Semantic incongruence arises from inconsistencies in the descriptive content of attitude objects’ attributes (e.g.,
attributes that are not mutually supportive), independent of these attributes’ valences. Experiment 1 manipulated evaluative
and semantic incongruence using valence norms and semantic norms. Both of these norm-based manipulations independently
predicted felt ambivalence, and, in Experiment 2, they even did so over and above self-based incongruence (i.e., participants’
idiosyncratic perceptions of evaluative and semantic incongruence). Experiments 3a and 3b revealed that aversive dissonant
feelings play a role in the effects of evaluative incongruence, but not semantic incongruence, on felt ambivalence.
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