Abstract:  Attitudinal ambivalence refers to the co-existence of positive and negative evaluations and feelings of attitude toward to an object. Recent studies of the domain investigated the origin of attitudinal ambivalence as well as the strategies adopted by people to cope with ambivalent feelings. In this article, we report a systematic review of recent research on attitudinal ambivalence, highlighting the origins (from the perspective of cognition, society and individual differences, respectively) and individual coping strategies (emotion-focused strategies, information processing strategies and compensatory strategies) of this domain. We proposed that future studies on attitudinal ambivalence should integrate different measures of attitudinal ambivalence and unveil how attitudinal ambivalence vary among different cultures and development stages. In addition, researchers can explore further into the variables influencing the relationship between attitudinal ambivalence and behavior.

Key words: bipolar problem, attitudinal ambivalence, information processing, origin, coping strategies