Do you know the real definition of ambivalent? From Merriam-Webster:
1. simultaneous and contradictory attitudes or feelings (as attraction and repulsion) toward an object, person, or action
A lot of people interpret ambivalence as having no opinion at all. Based on this older story from NPR about the Ebola outbreak, maybe there is a reason for that. They describe a study where participants were asked to donate to charity to help a starving child, but were also provided information about varying numbers (0, 1, 6) of children who they would not be helping. In the questionnaire, they asked participants to rate the "warm glow" they got from thinking about helping the starving child, and found that how happy they felt was reduced when they also were told about children they weren't helping.
One particularly interesting comment in the study itself is that they tried to figure out if participants attempted to be internally consistent. Usually when you participate in a study if you realize you are being asked the same question a different way, you try to answer the same way you did before. However, this study did not find that people tried to correct their answers. I want to leave you with the closing question of the NPR story, "what should charities do given this understanding?"
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