When companies speak out on hot political issues, they often get it wrong

They often feel they have no choice: Some consumers and employees demand these statements, so companies may feel compelled to speak out. But while such statements make some people happy, consumers who disagree with the company’s stance aren’t shy to express their outrage on social media—and with their wallets.

This puts firms in a tough spot. On the one hand, not speaking out on urgent political matters can be seen as apathy or sympathy toward a particular side. On the other hand, when firms do speak up, they are bound to anger some consumers, leading to backlash on social media, or even boycotts.

In an effort to please everyone—and offend no one—many businesses try to thread the needle by expressing some support for both sides of the issue. These ambivalent stances feel safer. For example, in trying to navigate the contentious debate over the Israel-Hamas war, many college presidents expressed sympathy for Palestinians while ultimately supporting Israel.

But does expressing ambivalence work? Along with Geoff Durso and Duane Wegener, we conducted research into just that question.

Immigration and masks

In a series of studies, we found that people generally expect that for politically polarizing topics like Covid-19 mask mandates and U.S. immigration policy, expressing ambivalence (that is, agreeing with some arguments on both sides, while still ultimately landing on one side of the issue) will win them plaudits from people with a range of different opinions.

For example, people who support expanding immigration to the U.S. might say they are pro-immigration and think it is moral to welcome people to their country, while also saying that immigration can harm the economy. Finding good words to say about both sides, they believe, will get more people to like and respect them than if they took a one-sided position.

It turns out, according to our experiments, that the opposite is true: On average, people expressing ambivalent (vs. one-sided) opinions tended to be less popular and respected.

In one study, we looked at how people reacted to another person’s position on Covid-19 mask mandates. There were four versions:

• In one version, the study participants were told about somebody whose position on mask mandates was completely aligned with their own position. This means that pro-mask people reacted to a completely pro-mask person and anti-mask people reacted to a completely anti-mask person.

• In a second version, the positions were completely unaligned with those of the study participants, meaning participants reacted to people they fully disagreed with.

• In the third version, the participants were presented with somebody who agreed with them, but expressed some ambivalence, saying that the other side had some good reasons for reaching the opposite conclusion. For example, the person might support mask mandates because masks protect people from disease, even though they also thought masks restrict people’s freedom.

• In the fourth version, the person came to the opposite conclusion from the participants, but they again expressed some ambivalence about it. So a pro-mask-mandate participant would react to a person who was against mask mandates, but had some ambivalence about it; the person felt mask mandates were too restrictive on individual liberties, but acknowledged they could protect people from disease.

The conclusions

When we asked people what they thought of the other person, we found that the people who expressed ambivalence took a hit. When the person was on the opposite side of the mask-mandate debate from our participants, participants didn’t like that person regardless of the ambivalence that was expressed. And when the person was on the same side, people liked the ambivalent version even less than if the person took a one-sided stance. They seemed to think ambivalent people aren’t committed enough on the issue.

In other words, ambivalence reduced respect from those who agreed with them while providing no benefit to those who disagreed. So, even though people expected that expressing ambivalence would help them be more liked and respected, instead, it had no upside—only downsides.

We replicated these results with another political issue, expanding immigration to the U.S. We found that yet again, the ambivalent person was liked less than the person who took a firm stance on the issue.

It could be, of course, that the best path is to not say anything—and that is certainly an option. Harvard University, for instance, recently announced it will no longer issue statements on political issues that don’t concern its "core mission," in an attempt to quell backlash over controversial political statements. But often, companies feel that isn’t a viable path, and that employees and consumers demand that they say something. So they do.

So when businesses address hot-button political issues, what should they say? Although making an ambivalent statement might seem like the safest and least offensive option, our research highlights the risks of doing so. If companies are going to speak up, consumers are likely to react better if they take a clear position and stick with it.

Aviva Phillip-Muller is an assistant professor of marketing at the Beedie School of Business at Simon Fraser University. Joseph Siev is a postdoctoral research associate in marketing at the University of Virginia’s Darden School of Business. 

They can be reached at reports@wsj.com.