Affection, anger, or ambivalence ? [Ressource électronique] : an examination of Tunisian students' attitudes toward the United States / Jonya A. Leverett

Bibliogr. p. 118-122

Master of arts : social psychology : Loyola University Chicago : 2010

Attitude ambivalence is the attitude actor's simultaneous possession of both negative and positive affect toward an attitude object. The competing affects produce tension, creating attitude ambivalence. In the present project, the attitude object is the United States of America. Students (n = 17) in Tunisia (a predominately Muslim nation) were asked specific questions about American foreign policy and American popular culture. These two aspects of the "America" attitude object are expected to produce attitude ambivalence as the Tunisian students should express positive affect toward American popular culture and negative affect toward American foreign policy. A pencil and paper survey was administered featuring several questions about specific foreign policy tenets (e.g., America's activities in the Middle East, America's diplomatic relationship with the Arab and Muslim world) and popular culture (e.g., attitudes about American movies, music, television, and the reconciliation of American values with the values of Islam in pop culture media). The study found that this demarcation of the "America" attitude object into foreign policy and popular culture is not one that produces ambivalence but rather strong feelings about foreign policy and indifference toward popular culture. Two groups of American students, one group with presumed foreign policy knowledge (n = 26) and one without such knowledge (n=29) were also questioned to provide contrast. An analysis of variance (ANOVA) found no statistically significant differences in attitude ambivalence scores among the surveyed groups