Affective ambivalence: what it is, characteristics, and how it affects us

Human beings are strange animals. We are that species that can feel opposite emotions at the same time and towards the same thing. We can hate and love someone at the same time, feel affection and disappointment for what our children have done, illusion and sadness at the same time ...

We go from one extreme to the other in a matter of seconds, being receptacles for the coexistence of two emotions so contrary that surprises us that we can live them at the same time and, even, some may worry: Is this a trouble? Could it be what they call bipolar disorder?

We have all lived it, don't worry. It's called affective ambivalence, a psychological phenomenon as normal and human as the experience of any other emotion on its own. Let's find out what it entails and if it can lead to a problem.

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What is affective ambivalence?

Affective ambivalence is a complex emotional state, insofar as is made up of opposing feelings, opinions, and ideas. Contradiction, tension and indecision are situations that accompany this phenomenon.

A good example of this situation is when we feel great affection towards a very good friend but that, recently, he has hurt us even though it was unintentionally. We cannot stop loving him because we take into account all the good he has done for us, but we also do not disassociate ourselves from the resentment and hatred that his bad gesture has awakened within us. A thorn has stuck in us.

But... Is it normal to feel this? Does affective ambivalence bring with it a problem? In principle, we should not worry about feeling contadictory emotions at the same time, but we should pay attention to them. It is part of our nature to live in situations in which we do not know very well how to act, with indecision, tension and uncertainty. Life is never linear, monotonous, or unipolar, much less a bed of roses.

Every day we face a very complex reality, in which the same element, be it a person, thing or situation, can awaken in us positive emotions and negative emotions.

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Characteristics that define ambivalence in psychology

All human beings present affective ambivalence at some point in life, suffering and enjoying all kinds of experiences at the same time. Being a fairly complex emotional experience, first of all, what we know a little about the subject of emotions come to mind the names of great references in the scientific approach to emotions, among them Paul Eckman or Daniel goleman. However, this emotion seems to have been studied for quite some time, at least since the beginning of the 20th century.

But the first modern description of what we call "affective ambivalence" is attributed to someone who also has the merit of having coined terms like "schizophrenia", "schizoid" and "autism": Eugen bleuler. This Swiss psychiatrist (and eugenicist, by the way) spoke of affective ambivalence as a state of conflict of emotions, where opposing thoughts and emotions are experienced, such as love and hate.

Controversies over her persona aside, Bleuler's conceptualization of this kind of ambivalence has made that the field of psychology has been very interested in how it occurs in our species, since it is a phenomenon that represents our emotional and cognitive complexity very well. It has been of special interest in the field of social psychology, since it is frequent in affective relationships of all kinds, both with family and friends.

An example of affective ambivalence can be seen in some women who have just given birth, who are going through the puerperium. They love their newborn baby, but the physical pain they feel, the high demand and dependence that the little one supposes and the uncertainty of not knowing if they will be up to the task. Although they love their child, it causes them to experience a wide range of emotions, among which we can find exhaustion, tenderness, rejection, love, hate, hope and afraid. The first few months caring for your child are tough.

But we can also see it in common, more mundane situations and without other people involved. We feel affective ambivalence when we see a very fashionable outfit in a store window, we see its price and, although we want it, we know that if we spend that money we will not be able to save money.

Another example would be wanting to leave a job that burns us but feeling afraid to leave it because it would mean going into unemployment and not knowing when we would have a fixed salary again, although continuing in the current job causes us a lot of discomfort.

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Indecision causes us discomfort ...

Affective ambivalence It always brings with it a certain discomfort, the degree of which correlates directly with the importance of the issue that produces love and hate and how intense the emotions are during the process. Indecisions and contradictions do not get along very well with our brain, in fact, they drain it emotionally and cognitively. Although life is not unilinear, the truth is that we would like it to always be so and of course, when it is not, it causes us discomfort.

There are cases in which the dissonances are so immense that our mental health cannot avoid being affected, at least in the short term. Consider a person who wants to leave his partner, with whom he has been living for many years. There are many questions that go through his head, making him think about the good and the bad that could happen, but also the good and the bad that is already happening: “What if leave and never find anyone? " "If I break up, will I be a bad person?" “It is that he has done so many things for me… But the other day he did not do the dishes for the umpteenth time and I am Fed up!

Going from one side to the other generates a lot of wear and tear and consumes a lot of energy. So much so that we can even get stuck in the process of going from one extreme to another. Going from feeling great love and affection towards someone to passing in a matter of seconds to hatred, anger and rejection confuses us and can even make us think that something in our mind it is not working well that, although we insist that it does not have to be anything bad, the person who experiences it may see it as such an overwhelming feeling that it gives afraid.

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But we end up deciding

Affective ambivalence is synonymous with contradiction and that is lived and perceived as something bad, but we can really find something positive in it. This contradiction helps us to clarify, to look for pros and cons in a given situation and, once we have made something clear from all this, it prompts us to decide. Other times what happens is that we begin to downplay the bad and we see more positive sides to what we are living, as is the case with many mothers who have just given birth who, with the passage of time, can only see with good eyes your son.

Science seems to agree with this idea. In a 2013 study, business administration doctor Laura Rees concluded that affective ambivalence favors self-awareness and decision-making. The discomfort generated by the contradiction motivates us to do something, appeasing the doubt and trying to resolve the situation in which we find ourselves. It has been seen that the contradictions associated with these feelings can enhance creativity, making us look for new ways of thinking and opting for more original responses to see if they help us to resolve the situation.

Affective ambivalence can be adaptive, helping us face that big question: what do I want? For this reason, and by way of the end of this article, when we find ourselves at a personal crossroads and we don't know which way to go, it is worth stopping, reflectively thinking about what we want to do and pondering the advantages and disadvantages of our behavior. There are many mistakes that can be made when things are not clear to us and, therefore, before take risks, let's listen to what arguments our angry “me” and our happy “me” give us, let's see who Is right.