• Asia Marketing Journal
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• v.15 no.4
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• pp.131-159
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• 2014

Corporate rebranding has been evident in the qualitative corporate rebranding studies as an imposed organizational change that induces mixed reactions and ambivalent attitudes among consumers. Corporate rebranding for the established and familiar corporate brands leads to more ambivalent attitudes as these companies represent larger targets for disparaging information. Consumers are found to hold both positive and negative reactions toward companies and brands that they are familiar with. Nevertheless, the imposed change assumption and ambivalent attitude, in particular corporate rebranding, have never been widely explored in the quantitative corporate rebranding studies. This paper aims to provide a comprehensive empirical examination of the ambivalence towards rebrandingrebranded brand attitude-purchase intention relationships. The author proposes that corporate rebranding for familiar corporate brands is a double-edged sword that not only raises the expectation for better performance, but also induces conflicted and ambivalent attitudes among consumers. These consumers' ambivalent attitudes are influenced by both the parent brands-related and general attitude factors which further affect their rebranded brand attitude and purchase intention. A total of 156 useable questionnaires were collected from Malaysian working adults; and two established Malaysian airfreight operators were utilized as the focal parent brands. The study found a significant impact of prior parent brand attitudes on ambivalence towards rebranding (ATR). The parent brand attitudes served as anchors in influencing how new information was processed (Mazaheri et al., 2011; Sherif & Hovland, 1961) and closely related to behavioral intention (Prislin & Quellete, 1996). The ambivalent attitudes experienced were higher when individuals held both positive and negative reactions toward the parent brands. Consumers also held higher ambivalent attitudes when they preferred one of the parent brands; while disliked the other brand. The study also found significant relationships between the lead brand and the rebranded brand attitude; and between the partner brands and ATR. The familiar but controversial partner brand contributed significantly to the ambivalent attitudes experienced; while the more established lead brand had significant impact on the rebranded brand attitude. The lead and partner brands, though both familiar, represented different meanings to consumers. The author attributed these results to the prior parent brand attitudes, the skepticism and their general ambivalence toward the corporate rebranding. Both general attitude factors (i.e. skepticism and general ambivalence towards rebranding) were found to have significant positive impacts on ATR. Skeptical individuals questioned the possibility of a successful rebranding (Chang, 2011) and were more careful with their evaluations toward 'too god to be true' or 'made in heaven' pair of companies. The embedded general ambivalent attitudes that people held toward rebranding could be triggered from the associative network by the ambiguous situation (Prislin & Quellete, 1996). In addition, the ambivalent rebranded brand attitude was found to lower down purchase intention, supporting Hanze (2001), Lavine (2001) and van Harreveld et al. (2009)'s studies. Ambivalent individuals were found to prefer delay decision making by choosing around the mid-ranged points in 'willingness to buy' scale. The study provides several marketing implications. Ambivalence management is proven to be important to corporate rebranding to minimize the ambivalent attitudes experienced. This could be done by carefully controlling the parent brands-related and general attitude factors. The high ambivalent individuals are less confident with their own conflicted attitudes and are motivated to get rid of the psychological discomfort caused by these conflicted attitudes (Bell & Esses, 2002; Lau-Gesk, 2005; van Harreveld et al., 2009). They tend to process information more deeply (Jonas et al., 1997; Maio et al., 2000; Wood et al., 1985) and pay more attention to message that provides convincible arguments. Providing strong, favorable and convincible message is hence effective in alleviating consumers' ambivalent attitudes. In addition, brand name heuristic could be utilized because the rebranding strategy sends important signal to consumers about the changes that happen or going to happen. The ambivalent individuals will pay attention to both brand name heuristic and rebranding message in their effort to alleviate the psychological discomfort caused by ambivalent attitudes. The findings also provide insights to Malaysian and airline operators for a better planning and implementation of corporate rebranding exercise.

• Korean Journal of Culture and Social Issue
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• v.26 no.4
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• pp.525-549
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• 2020

As the attitudes toward women is ambivalent (both hostile and ambivalent), people have a tendency to have ambivalent attitudes toward men. Despite conflicts between men and women caused by misogyny and misogyny have recently worsened in a Korean society, most of previous Korean studies have focused on the attitudes toward women. In addition, there has been no scale to measure such ambivalent attitudes toward men in Korea. Therefore, this study was designed to translate and validate the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory, a scale developed and currently utilized in the United State. Sample 1 (183 college students), sample 2 (300 college students), and sample 3 (317 adults) were used. Exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses resulted in 16 items and 2 factors. The tests of convergent and concurrent validity revealed strong evidence for the validity of the Korean version of the Ambivalence toward Men Inventory and the reliabilities of the two factors were .830~.917.

• Hwankyungkyoyuk
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• v.18 no.1 s.26
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• pp.120-133
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• 2005

This study investigated the changes of consciousness and ambivalent attitudes about the important environmental issues among the teachers who enrolled the environmental education training. Experimental and control groups were composed with 47 and 30 person, respectively. Environmental issues were constructions of sea-wall, nuclear power plant and dam. Cronbach alpha of the self-developed questionnaire was $0.6909{\sim}0.8992$. Score were made with 5 Likert scales for consciousness, and with semantic differential half scale for ambivalent attitudes. Almost teachers(94.0% and 97.1%) have above 10 years teaching career. Strangers in environmental program were 53.2%. After environmental training, teachers' consciousness was significantly changed to negative about the construction of sea-wall for the farm field and industry complex area(p=0.019), and about the construction of dam for disaster like flood(p=0.026), and for adverse effects of citizen by fog(p=0.042). They were also significantly changed to negative about the construction of nuclear power plant for economical energy(p=0.004)', no-emission of greenhouse gases(p=0.033)', 'alternative energy(p=0.000)', 'destruction of ecology(p=0.052)' and 'social fear(p=0.009)'. The consciousness of teachers who have the experience of environmental training, were significantly changed to negative about the construction of nuclear power plant. Scores of teachers' ambivalent attitudes were made lower in experimental than control group about the construction of sea-wall and nuclear power plant. After education training, they were made lower so much as -10.0% in control, but higher much as +4.4% in experimental, and severely higher much as 86.5% in teachers who had experienced the environmental training about construction of sea-wall. Their scores were made lower so much as -3.3% in control, but much as -6.4% in control.

• The Research Journal of the Costume Culture
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• v.21 no.4
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• pp.467-477
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• 2013

Retailers deploy new shopping value-additions to induce customers to shop more, thus driving compulsive buying tendencies, which lead to increased profits for them. Customers display their ambivalence in purchasing a product either through instantaneous consumption, such as when following the latest fashion trends, or methodical decision making. The aim of this study is to investigate the influence of consumers' ambivalent attitudes toward various aspects (brand, store, price, trends, and product types) of clothing shopping on compulsive behavior tendencies. Compulsive buying tendencies were analyzed in terms of the shopping value group and demographic characteristics. For the empirical research, a questionnaire was used. Data from male and female clothing shoppers were analyzed. Consumers were segmented into ambivalent consumption group, emotional value consumption group, rationality consumption group, and indifference consumption group. Results indicate that ambivalent consumption groups showed significantly higher levels of compulsive behavior tendencies in terms of brand, store, price, trends, and product types than other groups. Females showed more compulsive buying tendencies than males. Single people showed more compulsive buying tendencies than married.

• English Language & Literature Teaching
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• no.6
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• pp.25-34
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• 2000

This paper will examine the way Philip Larkin as a modern poet views unfavorable but inescapable past experiences with ambivalent attitudes. Larkin has written poems which concern the matters of time, aging, and death. Out of these related themes, the past has offered one major subject for Larkin's poems. Those poems on his personal experiences, coming out of his deep interest in the past and in the relationship the past has with his present and future life, reveal much of the poet's personality. Because of Larkin's conflicting attitudes towards past life, however, the poems about his past create both ambivalence and attraction in the readers' minds. The unusual restraint of emotion and conflict revealed in the poems about past life render rare modern lyrics that are unlike exuberant romantic poems.

• The Journal of the Korea Contents Association
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• v.20 no.7
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• pp.503-515
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• 2020

This study was conducted to find out the psychosocial-demographic factors affecting the ambivalent sexism and attitudes toward homosexuality of school health teachers. The data were collected from December 1^st to 31^st, 2019 by administering a structured online questionnaire for 138 school health teachers in S city. The data were analyzed via SPSS/WIN (25.0) to run Kruskal-Wallis 𝑥² test, Mann-Whitney U test, Spearman's rank correlation, and Stepwise multiple regression. The results showed that the influential factors on the hostile sexism include authoritarian personality, age, extrinsic religious orientation, and education. Compared to this, the benevolent sexism had the influential factors of authoritarian personality, age, and education. The influential factors to the attitudes toward homosexuality found to include authoritarian personality, whether or not have a religion, and intrinsic/extrinsic religious orientation. School health teachers affect the educational experiences of students of their gender stereotyping and prejudice in the school environments. Therefore, it is needed to establish and provide training programs for school health teachers so that they can have reflections on their gender perspectives themselves, which may lead to true educational changes based on gender equality.

• Information Systems Review
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• v.22 no.4
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• pp.93-113
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• 2020

This study investigates how the users' perceptions on like function in social media affect their attitudes toward the number of likes they receive from others. People conveniently believe that the number of likes is a significant measure of their online content quality and popularity. However, we take an ambivalent view that people do not settle their perceptions on the likes but change their like assessments according to circumstances. Specifically, we propose a model wherein emotional responses to the received likes may affect the value assessment of the likes. Our model shows how people resolve their internal contradiction on the value of the likes by flipping the traditional cognition-to-emotion mechanism to emotion-to-cognition mechanism. We validate the reversed dynamics between judgements and feelings using the data collected from 548 social media users. Results confirm that social media users' attitudes toward likes is largely affected by their emotional responses to their received number of likes. The implications of this study explain social media users' ambivalent attitudes toward likes by showing how they adjust their individual like valuation using their emotional responses.

• Journal of English Language & Literature
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• v.59 no.4
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• pp.593-617
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• 2013

Tales from Shakespeare, written by Charles and Mary Lamb in 1807, is an adaptation of Shakespeare's plays which was intended for children. Shakespeare's poetic language is transmitted into prose, which enables children to easily read his works. Charles and Mary Lamb collaborated in adapting Shakespeare's plays, but they undertook separate duties which revealed different attitudes in their approach to the adaptation. This dissertation examines Mary Lamb's adaption of Shakespeare's problem play All's Well That Ends Well and Charles Lamb's adaption of Shakespeare' tragedy King Lear, with an adapted pattern focusing on the plot and character. Charles Lamb stressed the "imagination of a fairy tale," which was against the trend in children's literature of the time, while Mary Lamb stressed "the moral and didactic element." Mary Lamb was concerned with the education of female children in the early nineteenth-century. As a result, the Tales presents "a double movement" or perspective, which stresses didactic elements, as well as imagination. These ambivalent attitudes caused critical debates in the nineteenth-century. However, the Lambs defended criticism against "the double movement," suspecting themselves to be "no bigger than a child," from the viewpoint of "the imagination," and reading the Tales to be effective at "making a child a virtuous man," from the viewpoint of "an education."

• Human Ecology Research
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.609-623
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• 2017

Fur apparel is a representative luxury item that displays wealth and social status; however, it is also recognized as an unethical product criticized for its animal maltreatment in the production process. Understanding consumer responses to an ambivalent object, such as fur apparel, is an important research topic both academically and practically. This study investigates the hierarchical effects of perceived benefits and risks of fur apparel on consumers' emotions and purchase intention by applying the ABC model of attitudes to identify the mediating effects of consumer emotions. An online survey was conducted on 390 female consumers that verified hypotheses through structural equation modeling and bootstrapping analysis using phantom variables. The initial results of the survey showed that the relationship between perceived conspicuous benefits and purchase intention towards fur apparel was partially mediated by positive emotion. Second, the relationship between perceived epistemic benefits and purchase intention was completely mediated by positive emotion. Third, the relationship between perceived ethical risk and purchase intention was completely mediated by positive and negative emotions. Fourth, perceived social risk did not affect the purchase intention of fur apparel significantly. The results support that cognitive beliefs about the subject have a significant positive effect on behavioral intentions through emotions as suggested in the ABC model of the attitude. This study provides an in-depth understanding of consumer responses to ambivalent objects by revealing the individual mediating effects of consumers' positive and negative emotions.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Nursing
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• v.41 no.4
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• pp.539-549
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• 2011

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to identify attitudes of adolescents toward suicide. Methods: Q-methodology which provides a method of analyzing the subjectivity of each item was used. Thirty middle and high school students classified 37 selected statements into a normal distribution using a 9 point scale. Collected data were analyzed using the Quanl PC Program. Results: Three types of attitudes toward suicide were identified. The first type (opposing suicide-moral minded) showed an attitude of opposing suicide and thinking that suicide is a sin. The second type (understanding-empathizing suicidal person) showed an attitude of understanding the situation of the adolescents who has suicidal ideation and empathizing with them. The third type (ambivalent attitude) showed an attitude of understanding the suicidal person but, at the same time, opposing suicide. Conclusion: Results of the study indicate that different approaches to suicide prevention programs should be developed based on the three types of suicide attitudes among adolescents.