For most of my adult life, I have felt pulled in different, sometimes opposite directions. Drawn to quietness, solitude, and routine while craving stimulation and a challenging environment. Pulled towards helping people while needing the rigour of scientific research. Making major personal or professional decisions has often meant feeling as though I was being asked to cut off part of myself.
For years I assumed this meant there was something wrong with me. That I was unable to have a clear preference, unable to take sides, that I needed to grow up and work out what I actually wanted. This is a typical internal dialogue of people experiencing ambivalence, one I often notice in the clients I work with. After all, we generally want to see ourselves as consistent and aligned. Ambivalence feels like a failure of self-knowledge.
At some point, I realised that it was OK to be ambivalent and that fulfilment for me meant nurturing ambivalence instead of fighting it.
What ambivalence actually means
Many people confuse undecidedness, neutrality and ambivalence, but they are not the same.
Ambivalence is being pulled strongly in different directions simultaneously. Undecidedness is not having reached a settled preference or decision, which may or may not be accompanied by conflicting feelings. You may be undecided, for instance, simply because you lack sufficient information. Neutrality is the absence of a strong preference.
Being ambivalent doesn’t mean that you don’t care. In fact, it’s quite the opposite. You care very deeply about more than one thing.
When facing a major decision, most people experience some version of this. But for some, the pull in different directions is more persistent, becoming a characteristic way of experiencing choices, relationships, and their own identity. This is called dispositional ambivalence, and it’s different from the transient, situational ambivalence that people may occasionally experience.
What psychology says about the ambivalent mind
For a long time, just as I did with my own ambivalence, decision-making psychologists viewed ambivalence primarily as a problem and focused on the negative outcomes associated with it, such as procrastination and vulnerability to persuasion.
This makes intuitive sense. When we feel strongly pulled in different directions, it can be difficult to know which way to go. Ambivalence can create uncertainty about outcomes and increase the fear of making the wrong choice. If the tension becomes overwhelming, it can lead to decision avoidance, procrastination or paralysis.
More recent research, however, has begun to highlight a different side of the ambivalent mind. Psychologist Laura Rees and colleagues, in a paper they deliberately titled “The ambivalent mind can be a wise mind,” found that ambivalence generates greater openness to multiple perspectives and increases judgment accuracy.
Research also shows that people who experience ambivalence are less likely to engage in biased reasoning. This is particularly interesting when we think about confirmation bias, the tendency to seek only evidence that confirms what is already believed. Research by psychologist Jana-Maria Hohnsbehn and collaborators found that people with high dispositional ambivalence tend to make more objective evaluations by considering disconfirmatory information, rather than focusing only on evidence that confirms their beliefs.
In other words, the discomfort of being pulled in different directions may sometimes have an unexpected benefit: it can make it harder to settle too quickly on one interpretation.
There is an important caveat. These benefits only materialise when people are aware of their ambivalence and reflect on its causes. In a study by Guarana and Hernandez, the reduction in biased reasoning occurred only when participants were asked to examine why they felt torn. Ambivalence without self-awareness tends to produce anxiety and paralysis. Ambivalence with self-awareness tends to produce something closer to wisdom.
What this means for major decisions
When ambivalence drives people to a crossroads, the instinct is usually to resolve it, to pick a side, to finally work out what they really want and commit to it. If ambivalence can sometimes make us more open to competing perspectives, resolving it too quickly may mean losing some of the information contained in the conflict.
A more useful question is not simply “which side do I choose?” but “what is each side of this ambivalence telling me about what matters to me?”.
Perhaps one side reflects a genuine value, while another reflects a fear of losing something important. Perhaps one represents a need for security and another a need for freedom. Perhaps one reflects what you want, while another reflects what you have learned to expect from yourself. Ambivalence can create an opportunity to examine both sides more honestly.
What you can do
If you are navigating a major decision and feel strongly pulled in more than one direction, start by acknowledging the competing pulls rather than trying to eliminate them.
Name each pull clearly. What specifically is drawing you toward each option? What would you lose if you chose the other?
Then ask what is driving each pull. Is it a value, a need, a fear, an expectation, an attachment to an identity, or something you have learned to believe about what you should do?
Finally, challenge both sides. What evidence supports each position? What evidence challenges it? What would you need to see to change your mind?
Ambivalence is not indecision. In the right conditions, with enough self-awareness and the right questions, it can be one of the more reliable compasses available to you.
In my own case, I realised that I did not have to choose between the need for solitude and the need for stimulation, or between research and people. I realised that nurturing both sides was actually what made me feel more fulfilled. From that point, I began to create a life and a career structured to hold both. That required understanding what each side of my ambivalence was actually about, rather than suppressing one in favour of the other.
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About the author
Dr Giulia Galli. An accredited coach, chartered psychologist, and academic neuroscientist with twenty years of experience in understanding people’s thinking, decisions and behaviour. You can read more about my story and my approach to coaching here.
