Iris Schneider

This blog was written together with Dr. Jana Hohnsbehn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/jana-h-611bba15a/ What makes a great leader? Confidence? Decisiveness? A firm stance? You might think “all of the above” and for good reason—leaders are expected to provide direction and certainty. But the issues leaders deal with are rarely straightforward. Many decisions are complex and involve competing priorities, conflicting information, and trade-offs. In these cases, leaders may feel ambivalent,...

Ambivalence encourages us to consider a wider range of information, promoting balance in the decision-making process and reducing one-sided thinking. When we experience ambivalence, we are aware of both the positive and negative aspects of our options, which helps us see the pros and cons of each option more clearly. Our recent study found that people who are high in trait ambivalence tend to make more balanced and fair judgments of other people. Moreover, we examined whether ambivalence...

Ambivalence refers to the experience of having both positive and negative thoughts and feelings about the same object, person, or issue. Traditionally, ambivalence has been seen as a negative phenomenon, leading to indecision and a lack of motivation. However, in recent work, we show that ambivalence can positively affect judgment and decision-making processes.