Many opinion polls have shown that the majority of Hong Kong citizens support the institutionalization of direct elections for the Chief Executive as soon as possible, but that there are also many citizens who support the SAR government’s arguably conservative political reform bill introduced in late 2005. Does this represent a case of self-contradiction among the citizenry? Or should we adopt a different perspective to understand the complexities of public opinion? This study attempts to analyse and understand public opinions towards democratic reform through the concept of attitudinal ambivalence. In recent years, much research on political psychology has illustrated that many citizens hold simultaneously conflicting views and sentiments on complicated social and political matters. They may even experience subjective feelings of internal conflict. This study shows that many Hong Kong people also demonstrate objective and subjective ambivalence on the issue of democratic reform. Regarding the reform bill put forward in late 2005, many citizens did not one-sidedly support or oppose the reform bill, and some even felt that it was difficult to make an overall judgement on the matter. However, ambivalence is not the result of a lack of information and judgement. On the contrary, people who were more active in communicating politically were more likely to feel ambivalent. At the same time, an analysis of the data shows that ambivalence will reduce the extremeness of attitudes, as well as the impact of the relevant attitude on political behaviour. These findings are consistent with research in the US. Nevertheless, ambivalence did not reduce people’s intentions to engage in political participation. In fact, those who had participated in pro-democracy demonstrations exhibited higher levels of ambivalence than non-participants. The implications of these findings are discussed.

是自相矛盾還是顧慮周全?：香港市民對政制改革的意見的兩難性

在政制改革的問題上，雖然民意調查顯示大部分香港市民都支持盡快普選行政長官，但很多市民亦同時支持特區政府在二零零五年底提出的步伐頗為緩慢的政改方案。這是否顯示香港市民的意見自相矛盾？抑或我們應該從另外的角度去了解民意的複雜性？本文嘗試透過心理學中態度「兩難性」（attitudinal and ambivalence）的概念，去理解和分析香港市民對政制改革的意見。近年，不少政治心理學研究指出很多市民在面對複雜的社會和政治議題時，會同時接納正反雙方的一些觀點，甚至在主觀感受上覺得模稜兩可。本研究顯示，不少香港市民在政改問題上的意見亦具有客觀和主觀兩難性的特徵：很多市民並非一面倒支持或反對政改方案，一些市民甚至感到對錯難分。不過，感到兩難並不是缺乏資訊和判斷力的後果。相反，愈積極參與政治傳播行為的市民感到兩難的機會愈高。同時，數據分析顯示，意見的「兩難性」會減弱有關意見的強烈程度，亦會減弱有關意見對政治行為的影響力。這些結果跟西方政治心理學研究的發現吻合。不過，跟西方研究不同的是，兩難性並沒有直接減低市民的政治參與意欲。相反，在政改方案爭議上愈感到兩難的市民，其參與遊行爭取民主的意欲愈高。本文對這些研究結果的理論意義以及其對香港政制發展過程的啟示分別作出討論。