1. the tendency to act in opposite ways, based on conflicting behavioral motivations.

2. a pattern of incomplete motor responses in anticipation of a voluntary action. It occurs in catatonic states as a type of psychomotor retardation in which the individual appears motorically stuck and exhibits hesitant, indecisive motions in the absence of voluntary movement.

3. in Jungian psychology, the psychic ambivalence that is caused by the existence of opposing tendencies.