Who feels more ambivalence? Linking dialectical thinking to mixed emotions

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 perceiver’s cognitive style affects mixed emotions. To partially fill this research gap, the present, 15-wave research tested the role of one’s dialectical thinking, which is defined 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. Specifically, 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 comparable 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.