We’re all familiar with the agony of ambivalence.16 The vicious cycle of internal conflict, avoidance, rationalization, impulsive action, and self-blame, driven by the anxiety of freedom, mortality, and the limits of our foresight, can paralyze us and harm our well-being.

Perhaps because of this familiarity, we’ve tended to overlook the positive face of ambivalence. But over the past decade, researchers have come to recognize ambivalence’s dual nature13 and highlight the important benefits that being ambivalent can bring.

Being ambivalent improves our judgment and results in more successful problem-solving.

As Daniel Kahneman famously showed8, our thinking relies on two complementary systems. System 1, which we use most of the time, is reactive, fast, and efficient because it relies on intuition, rules of thumb, and gut feelings. System 1 works well in familiar situations, but it falls prey to bias and error in situations that are unfamiliar. That’s what System 2 is for; slower and requiring more effort, it utilizes thoughtful analysis and critical evaluation of the information and evidence at hand. One of our most common sources of mistakes in judgment is the tendency to rely on System 1 when it’s System 2 that’s needed.

Ambivalence triggers the use of rational, calm11 systematic processing characteristic of System 2 thinking. It motivates and enables us to slow down, process information more thoroughly and carefully, question our assumptions, and weigh the merits of the arguments in favor of or against the options before us.10,17 (There’s even brain imaging research that shows this happening.3) This results in better decisions and more reliable connections between the decisions we make and the actions we take.7 And if something interferes with our accessing System 2? We are less able to resolve our ambivalence.16

The positive effects of ambivalence on decision-making are not a purely cognitive phenomenon, however. The conflicting reactions that comprise ambivalence include not only positive and negative thoughts about the choices we’re facing but also positive and negative feelings about........

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