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Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin
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The Middlemost Choice on Attitude Items

Ambivalence, Neutrality, or Uncertainty?

Frederick J. Klopfer

Community Mental Health Center, Lawrenceburg, Indiana

Theodore M. Madden

Oregon State University

If respondents to a Thurstone-type attitude scale can make a middlemost response, in addition to agreement or disagreement, what concept underlies such responses when they are made? Ambivalence, neutrality, and uncertainty are three processes that can determine choice of the middlemost response. Definitions reflecting one of these processes or an innocuous control definition were presented to subjects as appropriate for a middlemost response on each of two attitude scales. The definitions presented differentially affected use of the middlemost response on one of the two scales. On that scale, an ambivalence definition yielded the greatest use of the middlemost response and differed from an uncertainty definition, which yielded the least use.

Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Vol. 6, No. 1, 97-101 (1980)
DOI: 10.1177/014616728061014
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Home page
 Educational and Psychological MeasurementHome page
S. J. Breckler
A Comparison of Numerical Indexes for Measuring Attitude Ambivalence
Educational and Psychological Measurement, June 1, 1994; 54(2): 350 - 365.
[Abstract]