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Who feels more ambivalence?

Linking dialectical thinking to mixed emotions


Chin Ming Hui
a,
*
, Hung Kit Fok
b
, Michael Harris Bond
a
a
Department of Psychology, Chinese University of Hong Kong, 3/F Sino Building, Shatin, Hong Kong
b
Department of Community Medicine, University of Hong Kong, 5/F William MW Mong Block, 21 Sassoon Road, Hong Kong
a r t i c l e i n f o
Article history:
Received 13 July 2008
Received in revised form 16 November 2008
Accepted 25 November 2008
Available online 1 January 2009
Keywords:
Mixed emotions
Dialectical thinking
Cognitive style
Response bias
Self-construals
a b s t r a c t
Who are more vulnerable to experiencing mixed emotions? Previous studies have attempted to provide
answers by exploring the role of dispositional motivations and cognitive representations. Little is known
about how the perceivers cognitive style affects mixed emotions. To partially ll this research gap, the
present, 15-wave research tested the role of ones dialectical thinking, which is dened as the tolerance
of apparently contradictory or ambivalent beliefs, on mixed emotions in 15 positive and 15 negative life
events. The study demonstrated an interaction effect between dialectical thinking and event valence on
mixed emotions. Specically, non-dialectical thinkers tended to experience more mixed emotions in
positive than in negative events. This pattern is consistent with the notion that individuals use positive
emotions to oppose or repair the pain of aversive events. However, dialectical thinkers experienced com-
parable levels of mixed emotions in both positive and negative events. This pattern is consistent with the
notion that individuals balanced appraisal of events can create ambivalence.
2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
1. Introduction
Social psychologists have debated the possibility of positive and
negative emotions coexisting for a decade (Russell & Barrett, 1999;
Watson, Wiese, Vaidya, & Tellegen, 1999), a debate that has in-
cluded discussion on methodological artifacts, such as biased sam-
pling of emotion items and unfair statistical treatments (Green,
Salovey, & Truax, 1999; Yik, 2007). Contemporary neuropsycholog-
ical research has provided more conclusive evidence that positive
and negative emotions are not ends of a bipolar continuum, but, in-
stead, separable dimensions corresponding to different neurologi-
cal substrates of approach and avoidance systems (Cacioppo &
Gardner, 1999). This neurological division of labour allows for in-
stances of mixed emotions.
Recent experimental manipulation and longitudinal studies
have provided convergent evidence. Mixed emotions have been
successfully provoked through experimental inductions, such as
nostalgia (Wildschut, Sedikides, Arndt, & Routledge, 2008), disap-
pointing wins and relieving losses (Larsen, McGraw, Mellers, &
Cacioppo, 2004). Moreover, in eld studies, mixed emotions were
found in graduation days and move-out days (Larsen, McGraw, &
Cacioppo, 2001). In sum, the existence of mixed emotions is well
substantiated by the recently growing body of research.
Mixed emotions have a broad array of behavioral implications.
For instance, mixed emotions increase resistance against persua-
sion (e.g., Cavazza & Butera, 2008), creativity (Fong, 2006), and
devaluation of novel objects (Williams & Aaker, 2002). Remarkably,
and despite its psychological importance, most research has exam-
ined positive and negative emotions separately; mixed emotions
toward particular events or objects have seldom been tested.
Only a few studies, such as representations of self and emotions
(Rafaeli, Rogers, & Revelle, 2007), epistemic motivations (Newby-
Clark, McGregor, & Zanna, 2002), and age (Ong & Bergeman,
2004), have examined the dispositional tendency to experience
mixed emotions. Among the dispositional constructs tested, most,
if not all, tend to represent the individuals egoistic projections into
certain events. Little is known about how the individuals style of
cognitive event appraisal, in particular balanced attention to con-
tradictory or ambivalent information, relates to the likelihood of
experiencing mixed emotions. Our study addresses this question
with a recently-proposed construct, namely dialectical thinking.
1.1. Dialectical thinking
Dialectical thinking refers to the tolerance of apparently contra-
dictory or ambivalent beliefs (Peng & Nisbett, 1999; Peng, Spencer-
Rodgers, & Zhong, 2005). Specically, Peng and Nisbett (1999)
suggested that dialectical thinking features three principles of con-
tradiction, i.e., two opposing positions may be both true, change,
i.e., two opposing positions may lie on different points of a tempo-
ral continuum, and holism, i.e., all things in the universe are inter-
related, such that goods and bads are dened in relative instead of
absolute terms. With these three philosophical principles, dialecti-
cal individuals tend to embrace apparent contradictions and dene
self-concepts uidly and exibly in proximal and immediate
0191-8869/$ - see front matter 2008 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.paid.2008.11.022
* Corresponding author.
E-mail address: cmhui1226@gmail.com (C.M. Hui).
Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 493498
Contents lists available at ScienceDirect
Personality and Individual Differences
j our nal homepage: www. el sevi er . com/ l ocat e/ pai d
contexts (Chen, English, & Peng, 2006; English & Chen, 2007; Spen-
cer-Rodgers & Peng, 2005). Despite its origin from the Asian philos-
ophy (Peng & Nisbett, 1999), empirical studies suggest that
dialectical thinking is also prevalent in Western cultures and
serves similar psychological functions (English & Chen, 2007;
Spencer-Rodgers, Peng, Wang, & Hou, 2004).
Dialectical thinking is widely presumed to be responsible for
providing a balanced view on self-relevant information or the
endorsement of positive and negative self-attributes (Choi & Choi,
2002; Spencer-Rodgers & Peng, 2005). For instance, compared with
non-dialectical thinkers, dialectical thinkers have a more balanced
view of values (Wong, Rindeish, & Burroughs, 2003), and the po-
sitive and negative aspects of the self (Hamamura, Heine, & Paul-
hus, 2008; Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2004). Moreover, dialectical
thinking is presumably related to a balanced view of costs and ben-
ets, such as in assessments provided in the period just after the
SARS outbreak (Ji, Zhang, Usborne, & Guan, 2004).
As it facilitates balanced appraisals of contradictory, positive
and negative information, dialectical thinking is expected to asso-
ciate with subsequent mixed emotions (Bagozzi, Wong, & Yi,
1999). Indeed, some indirect evidence from cross-cultural research
suggests that mixed emotions are more prevalent in dialectical cul-
tures such as Buddhist countries (e.g., Bagozzi et al., 1999; Schim-
mack, Oishi, & Diener, 2002). Still, to our knowledge, no study has
directly examined the role of individual differences in dialectical
thinking on mixed emotions.
1.2. The present study
This study aimed at providing direct evidence on whether and
how dialectical thinking relates to mixed emotions in daily life.
We addressed these questions with a 15 week, longitudinal design
measuring participants emotional responses to one positive and
one negative event that they encountered each week. Thus far,
we have argued that, compared with non-dialectical thinkers, dia-
lectical thinkers experience mixed emotions because they pay
equal attention to positive and negative facets of an object or
event.
Some studies have suggested that mixed emotions are more fre-
quent in negative events than in positive events, suggesting the
presence of self-afrmation motives (Larsen, Hemenover, Norris,
& Cacioppo, 2003; Roese & Olson, 2007). That is, individuals repair
their negative experiences and shore up their integrity by elevating
their self-esteem and positive mood (Steele, 1988). We argue that
dialectical thinking is not a tool of self-afrmation, however. Evi-
dence suggests that dialectical thinking actually lowers ones
well-being because it creases ambivalence towards ones self
(Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2004). In line with this reasoning, it is pre-
dicted that, driven by self-afrmation motives, non-dialectical
thinkers may experience more mixed emotions in negative than
positive events. But, dialectical thinkers do not exhibit this ten-
dency. Instead, dialectical thinkers experience comparably high
levels of mixed emotions in both types of events.
We also explored mechanisms to explain the processes con-
necting dialectical thinking and mixed emotions. Recently,
Hamamura et al. (2008) proposed the mediating role of a moderate
rating style between dialectical thinking and ambivalence towards
the self. Moderate rating style refers to a tendency to endorse the
scale midpoints. Hamamura et al. (2008) believe that dialectical
thinkers tend to endorse the midpoint versus extreme position of
a scale, because they tolerate contradictions and counter-positions.
Thus, they may tend to report ambivalent attitudes towards the
self, as they do not endorse either extreme position of the scales
for positive and negative items (i.e., they may not readily agree
with positive/negative items while disagree with the other). For
exploratory proposes, then, we also examined whether the moder-
ate rating style can explain the association between dialectical
thinking and mixed emotions.
Finally, dialectical thinking is more prevalent in collectivistic
cultures than in individualistic cultures (Peng & Nisbett, 1999). It
remains a question whether the effect of dialectical thinking is
accountable by an individualistic versus a collectivistic cultural ori-
entation. To address this question, independent and interdepen-
dent self-construals (Singelis, 1994), as proxies of these cultural
orientations, were included as control variables. Independent
self-construal refers to ones orientation to be a unique and self-
reliant social agent, while interdependent self-construal refers to
ones orientation to be socially connected to other individuals (Sin-
gelis, 1994).
2. Method
2.1. Participants
One hundred and eighteen university students (56 male and 62
female) were recruited for a 15-week longitudinal study through
yers and campus e-mail. The mean age of the participants was
20.50 (SD = 1.20). Data of ve participants were not available due
to their withdrawal at some stage from the longitudinal part of
the study. Data of eight more participants were discarded, as they
did not complete the requisite number of questionnaires for anal-
ysis. We ended up with a nal sample of 105 participants.
2.2. Materials and procedures
The recruited participants rst attended a brieng session for
the experiment to learn about the aims and receive the instruc-
tions for the longitudinal study. They also lled out some initial
questionnaires in the brieng session.
Subsequently, participants were asked to report their emotional
experiences to a positive and a negative event each week over the
following 15 weeks. Participants were instructed to write down
positive (or negative) events, and then report their emotional expe-
rience to that event. They repeated a similar process for the nega-
tive (or positive) event. The reporting order of positive and
negative events was randomly determined each week. Participants
were asked to ll out the questionnaire on each Sunday and return
the questionnaire on the following Monday. Though the partici-
pants did not report the events immediately after they happened,
the delay of reporting may not lead to biases. A recent review sug-
gests that emotional reaction can be recalled fairly accurately
within a week (Robinson & Clore, 2002).
After 15 weeks, participants were asked to attend an experi-
mental session to ll out a number of personality questionnaires,
including the dialectical self-scale and a self-construal scale. There-
after, they were debriefed and paid for their participation.
2.2.1. Dialectical self-scale
Participants were administered the dialectical self-scale (Spen-
cer-Rodgers, Srivastava, & Peng, 2001) with 32 items rated on a se-
ven-point scale (1 = strongly disagree to 7 = strongly agree). Sample
items include, I often nd that things will contradict each other,
and If there are two opposing sides to an argument, they cannot
both be right (reverse-scored).
2.2.2. Self-construal scale
Singelis (1994) 31-item version of the self-construal scale was
used. The scale consists of two factors, namely independent and
interdependent self-construals. Sample items include, I enjoy
being unique and different from others in many respects (indepen-
dent self-construal), and I will sacrice my self-interest for the
494 C.M. Hui et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 493498
benet of the group I am in (interdependent self-construal). Partic-
ipants were asked to report their endorsement on the items on a
seven-point Likert scale (1 = strongly disagree and 7 = strongly
agree).
2.2.3. Emotion measures
Participants reported their emotional experiences to each of the
positive and negative events. We used six items to capture these
emotional experiences. Specically, we used two items for general
emotions, namely positive feeling and negative feeling. In addition,
we also used four additional emotion items, namely happy, sad,
calm, and tense (Higgins, Shah, & Friedman, 1997; Larsen et al.,
2004), tapped using ve-point scales (1 = not at all and 5 = very in-
tense). The conventional scale, positive and negative affect schedule
(PANAS), was not used because it only consists of a biased sample of
high-arousal positive and negative emotions (Yik, Russell, &Barrett,
1999). The scale used in this study includes emotions with both
high- and low-arousal levels, as did the past studies of mixed emo-
tions. Positive affect (PA) and negative affect (NA) are separately
averaged by averaging the three corresponding items.
2.3. Calculation of mixed emotions and moderate rating style
A number of statistics have been used to calculate scores for
mixed emotions in previous studies: (1) the conventional formula,
PA + NA |PA NA| (Kaplan, 1972); (2) absolute differences be-
tween positive and negative scores, |PA NA| (Hamamura et al.,
2008); (3) and other formulae (Spencer-Rodgers et al., 2004). The
rst method was employed for our analyses, as preliminary analy-
ses with other indices yielded convergent results.
The moderate rating style was operationalized by the number of
times participants endorsed midpoints (i.e., the anchor of 3) of
the six emotions rated for each event (Chen, Lee, & Stevenson,
1995; Hamamura et al., 2008).
3. Results
3.1. Preliminary analyses
The participants reported an average of 13.58 negative events
and 13.46 positive events. This pattern of results suggested a high
compliance rate in this study. Descriptive statistics and reliability
indices, and correlations were reported in Table 1, based on the
sub-sample of 105 participants. A total of 3000 events (1507 neg-
ative and 1493 positive events) were reported by these 105
respondents.
3.2. Analysis 1: mixed emotions
Given that state mixed emotions were repeatedly measured
within-individuals across 15 weeks, the observations are not sta-
tistically independent of each other. Hence, to manage the statisti-
cal dependency among observations, we performed multilevel
analyses instead of multiple regression analyses. We examined
whether state mixed emotions were associated with event valence,
and whether this association was moderated by dialectical think-
ing and self-construals.
We used HLM 6.0 (Raudenbush, Bryk, Cheong, & Congdon,
2004) to analyze the data. At the within-person model, the state
emotion indices were predicted by a dummy variable of event va-
lence (0 = negative, 1 = positive) and an error term. This dummy
variable was not centered. At the between-individual level, person-
ality measures of dialectical thinking (DT), interdependent and
interdependent self-construal were grand-mean centered and en-
tered concurrently to predict the intercept and coefcients at Level
1. The specic details are presented below:
Within-person level: Emotion b
0j
b
1j
Valence r
ij
Between-person level: b
0j
c
00
c
01
DT c
02
Independence
c
03
Interdependence u
0j
b
1j
c
10
c
11
DT c
12
Independence
c
13
Interdependence u
1j
The results of these analyses are presented in Table 2. They
showed that state mixed emotions are more prevalent in negative
than in positive events, c = .110, t = 3.09, p < .01. Moreover, the
association between event valence and state mixed emotions was
moderated by dialectical thinking, c = .080, t = 2.35, p < .05. To
examine the nature of this interaction effect, we adopted the pro-
cedure recommended by Aiken and West (1991). As shown in
Fig. 1, non-dialectical thinkers (1SD below mean) experienced
more state mixed emotions in negative than in positive events,
c = .192, t = 4.02, p < .001. This asymmetric pattern is typically
found and explained as a self-afrming mechanism (Larsen et al.,
2003; Roese & Olson, 2007). In contrast, dialectical thinkers (1 SD
above mean) experienced similar levels of state mixed emotions
in both positive and negative events, c = .031, t = .60, ns.
Another way to decipher the interaction is to examine how dia-
lectical thinking relates to state mixed emotions in positive and
negative events. In negative events, dialectical thinking was unre-
lated to state mixed emotions, c = .005, t = .16, ns. By contrast,
in positive events, dialectical thinking was positively related to
the incidence of state mixed emotions, c = .075, t = 1.94, p = .05.
In sum, the data suggested that dialectical thinking is related to
the experience of state mixed emotions depending on event
valence.
3.3. Analysis 2: does moderate rating style mediate the effect?
Hamamura et al. (2008) found that a moderate rating style
mediated the effect of dialectical thinking on self-evaluative
ambivalence. We examined whether moderate rating style can
Table 1
Descriptive statistics and between-individual correlations among variables.
Reliability M BIV WIV 1 2 3 4 5 6
Dialectical thinking .75 4.25 .189
Independence .66 3.42 .142 .38
***
Interdependence .69 3.62 .130 .07 .18
Positive mood .63 2.54 .079 1.190 .15 .28
**
.22
*
Negative mood .78 2.25 .155 1.065 .27
**
.06 .11 .05
Mixed emotions .90 1.46 .075 .209 .08 .09 .08 .54
***
.57
***
Moderate rating .79 1.04 .132 .882 .03 .12 .10 .19
*
.13 .32
***
BIV = between-individual variance; WIV = within-individual variance.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.
C.M. Hui et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 493498 495
mediate the effect of a dialectical thinking style on mixed emo-
tions. To test this proposal, we replaced state mixed emotions with
the index of moderate response style, i.e., number of endorsements
of a scale mean, in the regression equations above. As shown in Ta-
ble 2, dialectical thinking and event valence did not show any main
or interaction effects on moderate rating style. Thus, according to
Baron and Kenny (1986), a moderate rating style was not a medi-
ating mechanism of the interaction effect between dialectical
thinking and event valence on the likelihood of experiencing state
mixed emotions.
4. Discussion
This study documented an interaction effect between dialectical
thinking and event valence on mixed emotions. It was shown that
non-dialectical thinkers may experience more mixed emotions in
negative than positive events, while dialectical thinkers experience
comparable levels of mixed emotions in both types of events. Inter-
estingly, it was also shown that dialectical thinkers and non-dialec-
tical thinkers differ in their level of mixed emotions only in
positive events, but not in negative events. The similarity of mixed
emotions between dialectical and non-dialectical thinkers in nega-
tive events may be due to different mechanisms. Specically, non-
dialectical thinkers may be motivated solely by self-afrmation to
generate positive thoughts and emotions in response to aversive
events (Larsen et al., 2003). Nonetheless, dialectical thinkers may
be driven by both self-afrmation and their balanced event apprai-
sal style to experience mixed emotions.
This pattern of results has several important implications. First,
though dialectical thinking is in general related to mixed emotions
(e.g., Bagozzi et al., 1999; Schimmack et al., 2002), this study has
shown that, at least in some occasions (e.g., some negative events),
non-dialectical thinkers also experience a comparable level of
mixed emotions. Previous research on dialectical thinking and
mixed emotions has tended to neglect situational factors, so that
this situational account may explain some previous null ndings
on dialecticism and mixed emotions (Scollon, Diener, Oishi, & Bis-
was-Diener, 2005; Yik, 2007).
But, why do dialectical thinkers experience mixed emotions in
both positive and negative life events? Hamamura et al. (2008)
have suggested that moderate rating style may explain the ambiv-
alent attitude toward the self associated with dialectical thinking.
However, this study shows that moderate rating style did not
mediate between dialectical thinking and mixed emotions. One
plausible alternative mechanism is that dialectical thinkers habit-
ually process both positive and negative information about any ob-
ject or event. Subsequently, the processed positive and negative
information simultaneously trigger positive and negative emo-
tions. Research is required to verify this hypothesis.
These results shed light on an additional dispositional account
for why some individuals experience mixed emotions more often.
Previous studies on mixed emotions have focused on dispositional
factors, such as cognitive representations of the self and emotion
(Rafaeli et al., 2007), epistemic motivations (Newby-Clark et al.,
2002), and age (Ong & Bergeman, 2004). To our knowledge, this
study is the rst attempt to examine how an individuals cognitive
style of appraising events, specically the balanced versus biased
processing of positive and negative information, leads to mixed
emotions. Indeed, some studies have suggested that attention allo-
cation mediates emotional experience (Derryberry & Reed, 1994).
However, little is known about dispositional factors, such as dialec-
tical thinking, that shape parallel processing of both positive and
negative information, and this study is a rst exploration of this
process.
We have explored the association of dialectical thinking and
mixed emotions, and demonstrated that contextual factors, such
as event valence, can moderate the association. Nonetheless, the
study is correlational, and thus we cannot draw causal inferences
until experimental support is provided. Notwithstanding this lim-
itation, this study involved samples of real-life events in the on-
going lives of individuals to demonstrate the ecological validity
about the association between dialectical thinking and mixed
emotions.
Moreover, from the situational perspective, it is presumed that
the relative mundaneness of life events might weaken the effect of
dialectical thinking that we found. Specically, when some life
events are trivial and less ego-involving, individuals, regardless
of their level of dialectical thinking, may not process the events
deeply. Accordingly, trivial life events may not provoke mixed
emotions for either dialectical or non-dialectical thinkers. Further
research is encouraged to explore this important aspect and other
properties of life events that may elicit mixed emotions.
Table 2
Multilevel analyses of emotions and moderate style ratings.
Emotion indices Moderate rating
Positive Negative Mixed
Intercept (c
00
) 1.605
***
3.082
***
1.525
***
1.058
***
DT (c
01
) .017 .169
*
.005 .021
Independence (c
02
) .075 .029 .058 .012
Interdependence (c
02
) .011 .064 .020 .082
Valence (c
10
) 1.879
***
.166
***
.110
**
.045
DT (c
11
) .007 .084 .080
*
.045
Independence (c
12
) .003 .027 .049 .095
Interdependence (c
12
) .103
*
.054 .014 .065
DT = dialectical thinking.
*
p < .05.
**
p < .01.
***
p < .001.
0. 5
0. 6
0. 7
0. 8
0. 9
1
1. 1
1. 2
1. 3
1. 4
1. 5
Negative Positive
Event valence
M
i
x
e
d

e
m
o
t
i
o
n
Nondialectical
Dialectical
*
Fig. 1. Mixed emotion as a function of dialectical thinking and event valence.
496 C.M. Hui et al. / Personality and Individual Differences 46 (2009) 493498
Additionally, this study only examined the degree of coexis-
tence of positive and negative emotions without considering the
onset, duration, or temporal change of mixed emotions, features
recently explored by Larsen et al. (2004) and by Larsen, Norris,
McGraw, Hawkley, and Cacioppo (in press). We believe that these
dimensions of emotional experience may further unveil dynamics
between the dialectical self and mixed emotions. Does dialectical
thinking represent an automatic or effortful process? Considering
positive events, for example, if dialectical thinkers automatically
process both positive and negative cues simultaneously, then the
onset of positive and negative emotions should be the same. Addi-
tionally, if dialectical thinking is an effortful correction process,
then positive emotion should precede negative emotion in tempo-
ral sequence. Further research is encouraged on this important
question.
Finally, the construct of dialectical thinking was developed in
part to illuminate EastWest differences in psychological processes.
Interestingly, dialecticism is not necessarily a facet of well-known
collectivismindividualism at the cultural level (Schimmack et al.,
2002; Spencer-Rodgers & Peng, 2005). Similarly, our study showed
that dialectical thinking is unrelated or weakly related to indepen-
dent and interdependent self-construals, the proxies of cultural
individualism and collectivism at the individual level. Moreover,
among these three variables, only dialectical thinking predicts
mixed emotions. Thus, the pattern of results showed divergent
validity between dialectical thinking and cultural orientations con-
sidered at the individual level of analyses. While this study estab-
lished the connection between dialectical thinking and mixed
emotions in one culture, researchers are encouraged to examine
the generalizability of present ndings to different cultures. In addi-
tion, when emotions are inputs of judgment and decision making
(Forgas, 1995), it is important to examine how dialectical versus
non-dialectical thinkers utilize the information provided by mixed
emotions (Williams & Aaker, 2002).
We have provided the rst attempt to address the association
between dialectical thinking and mixed emotions in real-life
events. While past research on personality and mixed emotions
has focused on established cognitive representations of self and
emotions, this study addressed how a holistic, event-appraising
style relates to mixed emotions. Results showed that, although dia-
lectical thinkers experience mixed emotions most of the time, non-
dialectical thinkers experience comparable mixed emotions in
some situations, such as negative events. These ndings together
contribute towards future theorizing on social cognition and
emotion.
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