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The Clinical and Cognitive Psychology of Conflict
The Clinical and Cognitive Psychology of Conflict A Parker, Gothenburg University, Gothenburg, Sweden ã 2012 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.
Glossary Cognitive factors Higher-order psychological factors relating to intellect, reasoning, belief, and construct systems which may have an influence on lower-order events such as learning, perception, and conflict resolution. Cognitive unconscious Information presented at a speed too rapid for conscious recognition nevertheless establishes some kind of memory trace. This information is subsequently learned more quickly than nonpresented information. The designation ‘cognitive’ is added to emphasize that the effect is in the area of learning and perception and is more limited in its motivational or an emotional influence than alleged to occur with the Freudian or dynamic unconscious. Conflict A perceptual state involving the executive function of the organism where the immediate choices in the organism’s repertoire, together with the outcome of these choices, are seen to involve incompatible motives and needs. Constructs A term promoted by the American psychologist George Kelly to describe the belief systems which individuals use to divide persons (and the world in general) into specific categories such as pleasant–unpleasant, attractive–repulsive, and honest–dishonest. Constructs are usually bipolar and characteristic of the individual. Coping skills The skills, including those known as defense mechanisms, for dealing with the demands (especially those that are psychologically threatening) of the environment. Defense mechanism The description of the various ways in which consciousness is said to defend itself against potential anxiety by distorting the perception of the situation to become a less or nonthreatening one. The usual defense mechanisms are denial, projection, displacement, sublimation, and rationalization. Emotional unconscious The evoking of activity in the deeper structures of the brain (the limbic system) which border on the cortex of the brain and communicate with bodily organs. While these brain structures mediate potential emotional experience, the experiences themselves may take the form of gut feelings or more generally, so-called somatic markers. They may unconsciously influence decision making and may be a part of what is experienced as intuition. Gestalt psychology Literally, the study of how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. An approach within psychology, which emphasizes a basic principle in facilitating
Conflict is an integral part of all human behavior, and its attempted resolution can be seen as a major part of the effort toward mastery of the environment. Unresolved and chronic conflicts are probably the most central problems that clinical psychology deals with.
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learning, perception, and even psychotherapeutic change, is to create a whole and meaningful image from its components. Conflictual aspects are resolved by combining their inherent polarizations or promoting a dialog between them. Mindfulness The focusing of attention on the flow of immediate experience in the here and now alongwith enabling the attitude of openness, acceptance, and curiosity as to the content of experience. It derives from the practice of Zen meditation. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy This is aimed at breaking habitual thought and reaction patterns and expanding awareness to include feelings and bodily reactions that would not otherwise be attended to: in short, access to otherwise nonconscious processes. Positive psychology A movement rather than a school, which derives from humanistic psychology, which aims to be a counterbalance to psychiatry by providing psychology with a positive and scientific base in cognitive psychology. It places an emphasis on the expression of higher motives and positive emotions involved in the search for meaningfulness, wisdom, and happiness in life. It is associated with the works and concepts of Philip Zimbardo, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Martin Seligman, and Albert Bandura. Psychoneuroimmunology The study of the way psychological factors interact via neural and chemical messengers (hormones) with the body’s immune system, thereby providing a pathway for psychological factors to have determining effects on illness. Social identity theory Social identity is composed of several different identities corresponding to the social groups of which we are a member. The more positive the images of these groups, the more positive is our self-esteem, and we strive to increase the status of our group membership by creating a series of ingroups and outgroups. This becomes a basis for social prejudice and group conflict. State-specific memory This concerns memory that is specific to a particular state of consciousness and is not retrievable or only partially retrievable in other states. For example, events which a person recalls in a drug-induced state may not be recalled in the normal waking state and vice versa. Stroop effect A technique for studying the effect of perceptual bias on recognition time and learning by using words for colors written in colors which are incongruous with their meaning: the word red, for instance, written in blue.
A conflict can be defined as a motivational and emotional state that challenges the cognitive resources of the organism and which can result in mental and bodily stress. The motivational aspect is due to the perceived nature of our goals to which we attribute polarized negative and positive loadings.
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This often means that there is an increase in emotions such as anxiety associated with nearing the goals and their associated loadings or with the threat of loss of the reward associated with goal. Conflicts, when they are experienced consciously, also involve a cognitive and executive aspect in terms of applying experience and eliciting skills which can lead to their resolution. Knowledge concerning conflicts and their effects can accordingly be organized under the aforementioned headings of motivational aspects and emotional aspects relating to their unconscious and dynamic significance, and the cognitive and executive aspects concerning how they are consciously conceptualized and resolved. Since conflicts inevitably produce bodily stress, this is also an important component. Axiomatic to the understanding of conflict behavior is the view first put forward by the philosopher of science John Dewey: “the brain is primarily the organ of a certain type of behavior, not an organ of knowing the world.” This is to acknowledge that with respect to evolutionary demands, the human psyche would seem to be best equipped for handling straight decision making in the face of practical conflicts and then carrying out these choices. The brain may not be designed to give any simple resolution of abstract philosophical and ontological problems such as the meaning of life. This apparent truism may explain not only why existential conflicts are the most intractable but also why behavioral conflicts appear to be the most readily amenable to psychological intervention. In this vein, it is true that early psychologists chose to study simple paradigms of conflict situations, often attempting to determine the variables governing their resolution or persistence in the form of symptoms. The approach known as behavioral psychology emerged from this with its foundations in the study of how rat behavior is determined by simple laws relating to the contingency and frequency of noxious and rewarding reinforcers. In contrast, the early psychoanalytic approach focused on the dynamic forces and defenses governing emotional conflict. Historically (with the exception of Gestalt psychology and a few partisan approaches such as Jungian psychology), it was much later that therapies and theories developed to take into account the unique nature of the human species: man’s ability to conceptualize the environment and enter into existential conflicts. Recent developments are, however, giving this aspect a central role in illness. Unresolved psychological conflict with its resulting long-term stress appears to be an important and sometimes a crucial determining factor not only in psychological disturbance but also in the genesis of a wide range of illnesses. However, rather than continuing to focus on diagnosis and disturbance, there is a contemporary focus, known as positive psychology, on the enormous human potential for change and on the importance of existential questions and conflicts.
The Motivational Aspects of Conflicts It was because of its simplicity that the behavioral approach made rapid progress in the study of learning; whenever it was applied to the study of conflict, it had to adapt to a more holistic approach, that of Gestalt psychology. One of the most influential gestalt psychologists, Edward C. Tolman, introduced concepts such as expectancies, signs, and cognitions as so-called ‘intervening variables’ placed in the middle of the simple
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stimulus-response analysis of behavioral psychology. For Tolman, even rats were cognizant of the salient features of their environment. Another gestalt psychologist, Kurt Lewin, proposed what is now regarded as the classic analysis of conflict in terms of conflicting goals. This was of the trilogy of approach– approach, approach–avoidance, and avoidance–avoidance goal conflict. In approach–approach conflict, both goals are accredited equal positive values and a choice naturally entails loss of one. Analogies are easy to find in the human situation, for example, when one is faced with a choice between equally attractive job offers or equally attractive roles, such as in career fulfillment and in parenthood. Approach–avoidance conflict involves by definition an aspect of punishment or loss in achieving the desired goal and evokes fear or anxiety. Challenges by their nature often entail fears and contemporary fears may not be only of physical harm but of psychological annihilation or humiliation, for instance as often experienced by the challenges and risks involved in the public performance of skills. Many life crises, from the first step the child makes to his or her first date, can be seen as conflicts of overcoming anxiety. Their attempted resolution creates the learning experience for future skills and confidence in dealing with the demands of the environment. Avoidance–avoidance conflict is often regarded as the most deleterious of conflict paradigms, since behaviorally, the organism cannot avoid punishment. Some conflicts can be of relatively minor significance: hard work or the prospect of exam failure. Other conflicts of this type can, however, have serious effects: a monotonous yet stressful work situation against the demeaning prospect of being out of work. (The situation is not helped by accumulating evidence of a rising incidence of myocardial disorders with this type of job.) The conflict can be one between physical harm and psychological damage. Consider the anxiety evoked by and the consequences involved in the choice between risking death and physical harm in war or alternatively refusing to take arms in war and undergoing group rejection and imprisonment. Nonresolution of all types of conflict in terms of an outcome in making behavioral choice (or at least some form of behavioral action) necessarily implies stress. Stress, independent of whether or not it is of a chronic nature, can produce a variety of behavioral and, as will be discussed later, physiological symptoms. Whereas the aforementioned conflict analysis can be regarded as a contribution from Gestalt psychology, the behavioral approach using animals resulted in some exact lawful relationships. For instance, in observations of animal behavior, whether in the laboratory or in a natural setting, one may speak of conflict between two incompatible types of behavior if tendencies for these two behaviors are simultaneously present. An approach–approach conflict involves two tendencies in conflict approaching two different objects some distance apart, which implies that the incompatibility is a physical one. Here, the animal may reach a point in between where there exists a balance between the tendencies to be drawn to each object. The position of this point will be unstable as the tendency to approach either goal increases with its proximity. Any departure from the point of balance toward one goal increases the
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tendency to approach the other goal with a concomitant decreased tendency to approach the other. In avoidance–avoidance conflict, an animal is confronted by two objects it attempts to avoid. The tendency to avoid either goal is likely to increase with its proximity. Therefore, any movement toward either object is then likely to result in a return to the point of balance. While behavioral psychologists initially studied these situations in terms of animal behavior, they eagerly sought parallels in humans. The Russian psychologist I.P. Pavlov described the behavior of his dogs when they were unable to discriminate between competing but similar stimuli as a basis for choosing one of them. He coined the term experimental neurosis to describe how they yelped, bit aggressively, or lay down and gave up the task. Many years later, the American psychologist, Martin Seligman, focused on behavior in the avoidance–avoidance paradigm and described a condition he termed learned helplessness. Seligman’s dogs, on successively receiving electric shocks at whatever end of the cage they chose to move to, finally gave up in their efforts to avoid the shocks and became passive and behaved as if they were resigned to their fate. This passivity continued even when the experimental paradigm changed and the active behavior of the animal would have removed it from the noxious stimulus. Theoretically, the learned helplessness condition assumes altered responding in at least three major categories of behavior: emotional, motivational, and cognitive. Seligman and his coworkers assume parallels here with the kind of reactive depression in humans that results from the carminative effects of negative life events. By this account, one develops the strategy of giving up in the face of apparently irresolvable conflict, becomes depressed, and loses the belief that own actions can change outcomes. This simple observation has become the cornerstone of a group of therapeutic approaches known as cognitive therapy. The underlying principle here is to teach the human patient alternative ways of viewing his environment, create new choice situations, and thereby encourage certain activities that may lead to positive reinforcement, either in purely behavioral or in conceptual (cognitive) terms. Another motivational behavior concerns fear and anxiety as a learned drive or secondary drive in which the first stage is shock fear and the second concerns the signs of fear. Fear or avoidance behavior becomes an acquired drive in its own right. In a classic experiment by Dollard and Miller, rats learned to work hard at pedal pressing for the ‘reward’ of being released from a cage they associated with electric shocks. Dollard and Miller regarded the dependency effects of drugs such as barbiturates as due to their reinforcement of drug using behavior via fear reduction. The behavioral psychologist, Hans Eysenck, emphasized that the persistence of neurotic behavior is due to avoidance of the feared object – by always running away at the first possible opportunity. For Eysenck, it is the first physiological signs of anxiety – increased pulsation of the heart or increased rate of breathing – that induce this behavior rather than fear as a learned drive. ‘Conscience’ for behavioral psychologists can be, to some extent, explained in terms of conditioning which occurred according to the reinforcement and contingency laws of learning or else through imitation as a basic form of social
learning. In these terms, neurosis is seen then as an internal conflict between conscience and drives. Motivation was until recent years studied either as a largely conscious process in terms of behavioral psychology or as largely unconscious process in terms of the psychodynamic psychology of Freud and his followers. However in recent years, there has been some rapprochement between these previously opposed views. Nowadays, cognitive behavioral psychology views defense mechanism as forms of copying (or noncopying) skills. Even the concept of nonintentional motivated behavior is used to describe motives that influence behavior but which cannot easily be consciously expressed or integrated into the self-concept or role. For instance, a person may deny what is seen by others as obvious flirtatious behavior by maintaining it was only innocent friendliness because this is not part of the person’s self-concept.
The Unconscious and Emotional Aspects of Conflicts Conflicts involve emotion, especially anxiety, which is disturbing to the psychological function and efficacy. There is little doubt that the major contribution of the psychoanalysis, and in particular that of Freud, is in having provided a rich catalog of the means of dealing with anxiety from conflicts between drives and the demands of reality and social learning (the superego). These are the classical defense mechanisms originated by the ego as strategies to defend it against the ensuing anxiety. Their common feature is that they result in an initial amelioration of the conflict by distorting the perception of reality to fit in with the needs of the individual. However, some defense mechanisms such as intellectualization can also be seen as adaptive coping strategies. As such, defense mechanisms may be regarded as the strategies an individual learns to enable personality to function in the face of conflict from the environment. Regression, for instance, often operates in situations where efforts at problem solving or conflict resolution, based on current learning, are blocked and frustration results. The individual then regresses to a behavior repertoire, which may have earlier given successful solutions. In the case of other defense mechanisms such as the denial of the conflict or its projection onto others, the price for their operation is a distortion of reality, and this is often in the long run rather maladaptive. An accurate perception of reality – and one which includes the individual’s own motives and behavior – is important from the point of view of successful conflict resolution and ultimately for the harmonious functioning of personality. Nevertheless, the primary function of defense mechanisms, as the term implies, is to protect the executive function of personality from threat and breakdown. Experimentally, there are techniques which demonstrate how defenses operate. Many years ago, the term perceptual defense was coined to describe the higher recognition threshold required for the identification of emotionally loaded words that were rapidly flashed (tachistoscopically presented) on a screen. To demonstrate this convincingly, one needs techniques that circumvent the problem of response bias. It might be that individuals recognize the emotionally taboo words but
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refuse to say them or even admit that they see them. One of the techniques that can demonstrate that genuine subliminal conflicts do occur makes use of the Stroop effect. In the Stroop effect, subjects are asked to read the names of various colors that are printed in colors that conflict with the meaning of the word, for instance, the word RED is printed in green. Normally, this interferes with the naming of the colors by delaying the naming response. The Stroop effect can be shown to operate even subliminally, that is below the threshold for conscious recognition. Subjects report they are unaware of when a clinically loaded word is being presented, but its interference on their performance can nevertheless be demonstrated if they were required to say the meaning of color words. Such experiments have led many authorities to reject the notion that perception is unitary and accept that degrees of perceptual processing or at least perceptual registration of events can occur without full conscious awareness. While some aspects of this approach may be intuitively appealing, the notion of the dynamic manipulation of the contents of consciousness by an all-powerful Unconscious lurking beneath its surface has never been accepted by mainstream psychology. Nevertheless, a concept known as the cognitive unconscious has come into vogue on the basis of experimental findings from the study of memory and perception. This notion describes how perceptions and learning can occur without the individual being cognizant of the information involved but nevertheless showing evidence of its acquisition in his or her behavior. There appears to be some form of unconscious monitoring and correctional activity present in routine decision making. The originator of the term the cognitive unconscious, John Kihlstrom, is a coauthor of a recent paper where he has expressed his contemporary view that “the unconscious is not just an oxymoron” but that nonconscious vigilance occurs for nonconsciously occurring biases and automatic compensatory processes can be unconsciously activated. It is well known that the skepticism toward this area owes its origin to the ill-founded claims for the subliminal effects on coca cola selling. Nevertheless, a current review of the literature by Ran Hassin, James Uleman, and John Bargh concludes that the outright dismissal of the claims was unwarranted. There appears now to be a consensus that information can be cognitively registered in this way as subliminal perception. It is often said that there is no evidence for subliminal perception effecting behavior or decision-making processes. Nevertheless, the rapid exposure (at nonrecognition threshold) of emotionally loaded words such as those relating to hostility, rudeness, or politeness and also of concepts relating to behavioral stereotypes such as ‘professor’ and ‘secretary’ or ‘soccer hooligan’ has been shown to have an effect on later behavior. When tested in staged ambiguous situations, it was found that, depending on the nature of the exposure, participants behave more politely or rudely, intelligently or aggressively, etc. than control groups. Another contemporary reconceptualization of unconscious processes is found in the work of Antoni Damascio. Damascio downplays the role of conscious processes in decision making and maintains that emotions often steer what we believe are our logical decisions. An important concept here concerns somatic markers, which means that emotions arise through the influence of bodily processes and the limbic system or deep
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structures in the brain and exert subtle effects on us without our knowledge. Nowadays, the term dynamic unconscious is restricted to the older Freudian use, while the terms cognitive and the emotional unconscious are generally reserved for the contemporary use of the unconscious. Some authorities prefer the more limited term learning without awareness. Damascio’s concept, often termed the emotional unconscious, is seen, at least in a limited sense, to be a neurobiological concession to Freud.
The Bodily Effects of Stressful Conflicts As has been described earlier, defenses are not just a liability but can also serve, at least in a limited way, a positive function in enabling the individual to cope with conflicts that would otherwise be overwhelming. It is then not surprising that several styles of coping have been identified which show differing relationships to mental and physical health. What are the ‘healthy’ ways of coping with stress and conflict? There are findings suggesting that both a goal-oriented and an emotionally reactive way of dealing with threats may be effective strategies. Both these strategies of handling threat show a positive relationship to indices of a healthy immune system. A fourth means of handling conflict is described as defensive hostility, which involves projection outward of hostility, related only negatively to psychosomatic health. Indeed, it appears likely that this means of defense, involving as it does the projection of threat and hostility, can hardly be considered to be adaptive as its effect would be most likely self-reinforcing, thereby leading to only more stress and conflict. The earlier-mentioned studies of the use of various defense mechanisms in handling threat and conflict indicate that stress is not just a mental and behavioral event but also has, in some cases, a profound and lasting physiological impact. Indeed, stress can be defined in terms of this threat (where the stimulus can be of an internal or external origin) to the psychophysiological integrity or well-being of the organism. Generally, chronic stress has profound deleterious effects on psychophysiology through increased release of corticosteroid hormones and catecholamines. Under normal conditions, the body is programmed to provide short-term muscular responses to stress situations. The short-term effect of the aforementioned hormones is vasoconstriction, and the increased mobilization of fat and protein provides energy to the tissues in order to meet the demands of conflict. However, these same mechanisms, through the action of the hormones, lead to hypertension and vascular disorders in the long term. In addition, a significant reduction in lymphocyte number and activity occurs, an effect which may explain the now well-established finding that chronic stress leads to increased susceptibility to a wide range of illnesses. The immune system is almost certainly phylogenetically older than the central nervous system and therefore is accredited as having the primary role of defending the organism against, as well as adapting it to, the environment. Like the nervous system, the immune system is also capable of learning, so much so that the term psychoneuroimmunology is now used to describe the study of how various components of the immune system learn to respond to conditioned stimuli. Stimuli
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that are consistently and associatively paired with those that previously induced a stress response come also to have a stress-inducing effect when presented alone. The significance of this can hardly be overstated since it implies a direct link between illness, hormones, and psychological factors. Already, two adaptive systems have been described. Allergic reactions can be seen as overreactions analogous to the nervous system’s anxiety states, and autoimmune diseases can be regarded as an analogy with depressive states in that the response becomes internalized and self-destructive. To quote the actor-cum-director Woody Allen: “I don’t get depressed, I develop a tumor.”
The Cognitive and Executive Aspects of Conflict A concept from cognitive psychology that has been frequently applied to the study of conflict is called attribution. The notion of attribution concerns the type of rationalizations that are given by individuals as explanatory hypotheses for their behavior. If the explanation for one’s behavior is said to be attributed to environmental causes and therefore beyond the control of the individual, then it is said to be externally determined. This contrasts with the attribution of personal responsibility for behavior whence the individual is said to be internally determined. Research indicates that the type of attributions individuals make predicts behavior. The positive loading of the events that are being attributed are of course crucial. For instance, patients who externally attribute positive events to others (external attribution) and negative events to themselves (internal attribution) are reported to score higher on scales of depression and hopelessness. By contrast, those who persistently attribute positive events to themselves and negative ones to others and to external forces, are more likely to score high on paranoia. The growth of attribution theory has been a major factor in leading to what is sometimes called the cognitive revolution. This is a mark of progress in psychology which to some extent stands in contrast to the other revolution taking place, that of reducing behavior to neurobiology. The pivotal question is of course ‘is the individual a victim of his neurology’ or can major changes in our concepts of ourselves and the world lead to changes in behavior and even in our neurological processes. Some leading authorities in the area of emotion, such as clini¨ hman, are impressed by the findings cal psychologist Arne O that argue that the brain appears to respond about a half second before consciousness reports making the decision (SEE LIBET EFFECT) and conclude therefore that the role of consciousness is merely to tidy-up afterward by creating meaning out of what has in fact already been decided by the brain. Yet, it cannot be denied that the recent history of psychology supports the cognitive revolution by the upsurge of interest in ‘consciousness’ as an object for scientific study. Max Velmans and Susan Schneider, the editors of a recent volume on Consciousness Studies, note how the field, during its 15 years of existence, has increased to 6 00 000 books and articles. Consciousness Studies gives organizing structures such as ‘the self’ and state of consciousness the individual is in, as having a determining influence on behavior. The issue, which naturally arises here concerning so-called nonconscious roots of behavior, is the supposition that not
all the contents of experience and perception are represented in the self-concept. Perceptions, which are in conflict with how the person has been taught to view himself and behave, are either reinterpreted in accordance with this or denied and therefore not given verbal identification. They are nevertheless present in the form of so-called nonverbal feelings. While the principles involved in this process appear similar to those postulated by the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories of Freud, the descriptive language is clearly different in terms of being a more humanistic and existential one. Defenses are thus seen as styles for handling perceptual data and arise in order to enable the self, as the organizing principle in consciousness, to cope with the demands of the environment. Defenses arise when the more biological side of personality (temperament) is in conflict with the ‘conditions of worth,’ that is the conditional demands from the environment governing the expression of love and care toward the individual. These demands lead naturally to the learning of self-concepts, social skills, and roles but, in doing so, lead also to the dissociation of the incongruous, nonaccepted self-experiences that are in conflict with the learned role. How can this approach deal with the problem that has beset psychoanalysis: the dubious ontological status of the unconscious? If one follows the phenomenology-cum-functionalism of William James and Carl Rogers, the solution may be to simply accept that consciousness exists in many different forms. Some of these are dissociated from one and another, and the various forms may utilize different languages of symbolic representation for memories and ranges of experiences. Supporting this conceptualization are the now well-established findings relating to state-specific memories. The study of altered states of consciousness and dissociated states sometimes reveals that these memories are organized as distinct and conflictual self-representations. According to this view, conflict and anxiety can then have a positive function since there is assumed to be a force for growth existing as a biological principle. This drive operates during the opportunity for change – in a crisis or in a therapeutic context – and strives after creating the reintegration of experiences and split-off parts of the self. Indeed, dissociated and altered states of consciousness have often been claimed to be associated with creative problem solving and therapeutic change. For many years, a medicopsychiatric view dominated clinical psychology, and the findings from behavioral research had an explanatory input limited to anxiety and phobic states. Even psychoanalytic categorizations were based on an essentially nineteenth century Kraeplian system of medical classification. During the 1980s, although retaining the spirit of the Kraeplian system of category thinking, there has been an attempt to produce a theory-free system known as DSM-IV. While the scientific validity of DSM-IV has been severely criticized, it is nevertheless generally agreed that the system has incorporated a more sophisticated view of how predispositional and situational factors interact. The consensus view among psychologists appears to be that long-term conflicts in the form of stress-related events – so-called life events – interact with biological (predispositional) factors to produce a variety of psychotic and neurotic disorders. In dealing with conflicts and ensuing stress, research has identified that there are some basic coping skills. Being
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successful at skilled performance, however, means not only learning from one’s own experience and gaining positive feedback from successes, but also being inspired and learning from others and then becoming fully involved in meeting the challenge. It is this combination of factors which Albert Bandura calls self-efficacy beliefs and enables people to overcome obstacles and reach goals. Bandura was one of the first to emphasize that the most effective source of learning in mammals and humans is not that of the classical conditioning but that of imitation and observational learning.
Positive Psychology A refreshingly new approach which incorporates much of the aforementioned points has enabled clinical and health psychology to build an alternative model to the medical one for the study of mental disturbance. This is known as positive psychology. Positive psychology approach combines the behavioral work on cognitive functioning with approaches that were more phenomenological in using terms like self-concept and self-esteem. Some of the research findings challenge the traditional ways of seeing mental illness. For instance, those of the English psychologist Richard Bentall and his coworkers give us good reason to question the unity and homogeneity of such disorders as schizophrenia and neurotic disorders. Their findings provide an alternative way of viewing these disorders to that of illness, in terms of degrees of cognitive dysfunction arising from biological predispositions and life events. By having a knowledge of biological factors such as temperament and important life events from early attachment onward, one can then see how certain patterns of dysfunction in beliefs, thought processes, and emotional expression – what one sees as ‘symptoms’ – can come to develop. Self-esteem and self-concepts are clearly part of the executive functioning of the organism and can be seen as closely connected to the process of attribution. As mentioned earlier, by using these concepts, it has been shown that patients with depressive ‘symptoms’ have excessive internal attributions in the form of being fixated on negative events relating to themselves and will tend to interpret events to conform to their preconceived self-concepts. In contrast, deluded and paranoid patients have been found to make excessive external attributions in the form of persecutory ideas, perhaps as a defense against impending depression and low self-esteem, by blaming others for negative events. Generally speaking, these types of attributions become the foundation for an optimistic versus a pessimistic lifestyle. A pessimistic lifestyle is an important predictor of later illness. Positive psychology is, however, not so much about illness per se but about our higher and healthy motives: the need for meaningfulness, happiness, and wisdom. In looking at what seems to be a healthy functioning style, a series of such relationships has recently been found by Trevor Archer and his colleagues at Gothenburg University. They discovered that an optimistic lifestyle and so-called intrinsic motivation which is the enjoyment of activities for their own sake rather than for external reward, together with the expression of positive emotions, were all closely related and formed a personality pattern of healthy functioning.
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The recent history of clinical psychology can be said to follow the career of one of its most esteemed leaders, Martin Seligman, who began his work as a behavioral psychologist contributing to the concept of learned helplessness. Seligman moved on to become one of the founders of cognitive psychology focusing on attributional styles and now finally is the major proponent of ‘positive psychology’ with its emphasis on existential problems and authentic happiness in life. This reflects how the old divisions between behavioral, psychoanalytic, and humanistic psychology have begun to fade away. Behavioral psychology used to have the dictum: change behavior and you change the way of seeing things. For psychoanalysis, it was first insight and then change. While the aphorism for today’s cognitive psychology is change the person’s constructs and you can change his behavior, it is probably true to say that in practice, most psychologists use all the three means where and when appropriate. The research behind this change has led to tangible effects and the current interest in Europe in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT ) is one outcome of this. Following the recent evaluation of antidepressive medication, showing this to be a costly and largely ineffective treatment, there is now governmentempowered support for providing the public with costeffective evidence-based treatment. CBT tends to be the most favored among the various therapies, although there is no decisive evidence for its superiority over the more personal and dynamic forms of therapy. Nevertheless according to leading psychologist and governmental advisor, David Clark, the UK government plans during the next 3 years to educate 3600 psychological therapists under the supervision of clinical psychologists with the aim of providing a treatment for the 900 000 citizens who are estimated to need it for the treatment of anxiety and depression. The enormous interest in consciousness and its role in cognitive processes mentioned earlier may be the reason why there is now an otherwise unlikely allegiance between Zen Buddhism and behavioral psychology teaching ‘mindfulness’ meditation. Mindfulness is the focusing of attention on the flow of immediate experience in the here and now along with openness, acceptance, and curiosity to its content. MindfulnessBased Cognitive Therapy is aimed at breaking habitual thought and reaction patterns and expanding awareness to include feelings and bodily reactions that would not otherwise be attended to: in short, access to otherwise nonconscious processes. Clearly, the current focus of psychology gives us reason to modify Dewey’s axiom, which we began with, as being a simplification. Humans may not be very effective as achieving it, but they do seek meaningfulness.
Resolving Social Conflict While it is a long way from the study of rat behavior and the psychoanalytic couch to the resolution of internal and group conflict, already during the 1960s psychologists were becoming interested in the application of theories about group identity to social behavior. This will be covered more fully in other articles, but some landmarks are worth noting. Muzafer Sherif and his coworkers carried out what is now regarded as a classic experiment in the resolutions of group
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conflict. Working with boys at a summer camp, the researchers followed the process of how group identity and rivalry arose. Different codes of behavior evolved and with it conflict and opposition. Open hostility developed between the groups. At this stage, various techniques for intervention and conflict resolution proved successful. One of these was the formation of superordinate goals that required the cooperation of both groups in order to resolve an externally imposed threat. Another was the introduction of methods to promote interaction and contact between the groups. There are a few examples of psychological intervention in real group conflict. One well-known example, albeit almost on an anecdotal scale, was the successful involvement of Carl Rogers in facilitating openness and communication between members of a small group of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Rogers relied on creating a therapeutic atmosphere of empathy, acceptance, and warmth. For many years, practical solutions to racial and group conflict were influenced by Gordon Allport and his suggestions for reducing conflict by increasing contact between groups and focusing on similarities between individuals. However, with the recent development of the approach known as Social Identity Theory, the emphasis has now shifted away from the individual toward dealing with intergroup differences and promoting an understanding of the need to maintain these in the face of threat and discrimination. Another major contribution came from social psychologist Irving Janis who described how group decisions often make systematic errors of judgment which he called groupthink and mindguarding. Groupthink refers to the pressures in the group to maintain an illusion of unanimity, and mindguarding refers to the efforts to maintain solidarity and protect the leader from stress and contradicting viewpoints. Irving recommended the use of a ‘devil’s advocate’ as a counter to groupthink. Other psychologists such as Max Bazerman have extended their expertise to the area of negotiations. Bazerman describes the common mistakes that negotiators make such as being locked in and committed to one perspective, seeing the others’ gains as their losses, and being overconfident of success. Although a strong case can be made for the involvement of a psychologist in international conflict, this seems to rarely occur. However, one psychologist who has made an important contribution in the global context is Albert Bandura who was mentioned earlier in the context of self-efficacy and observational learning. Bandura now works with the film media in the entertainment-education area, producing films in order to encourage social change. These are films intended primarily for third-world countries addressing major issues such as overpopulation, genital mutilation, the education of women, and
literacy. Role models, in the form of highly admired actresses and actors, and plot-lines are used to debunk false beliefs and encourage people’s beliefs about their own efficacy. There is a classical quotation from the days of behaviorism by the well-known psychobiologist, Frank Beach: “Psychology is the study of the white rat and the college sophomore.” Clearly, the aforementioned research shows that today’s psychology has come a long way and now is a dynamic and realityrelevant subject.
See also: Attribution; Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Gestalt Psychology and the Development of Perceptual Organization; Positive Psychology; Subliminal Perception.
Further Reading Bandura A (2009) Social cognitive theory goes global. The Psychologist 22(6): 504–506. Barsky AE (2000) Conflict Resolution for the Helping Professions. Stamford, CT: Thomson Learning. Baumgardner SR and Crothers MK (2010) Positive Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Bentall R (2009) Doctoring the Mind. London: Penguin Books. Dijksterius A and Van knippenberg A (1998) The relation between perception and behavior, or how to win a game of trivial pursuit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74: 865. Hassin R, Uleman J, and Barh J (eds.) (2005) The New Unconscious. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Janis IL (1972) Victims of Groupthink. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Kelly EF, Kelly W, Crabtree A, Gauld A, Grosso M, and Greyson B (2007) Irreducible Mind. Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. Kihlstrom J (1990) The psychological unconscious. In: Pervin L (ed.) Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. New York: Guilford. Kihlstrom JF, Mulvaney S, Tobias BA, and Tobis IP (2000) The emotional unconscious. In: Eich E, Kihlstrom JF, Bower GH, Forgas JP, and Niedenthal PM (eds.) Cognition and Emotion, pp. 30–86. New York: Oxford University Press. O¨hman A (2000) Fear and anxiety: Evolutionary, cognitive, and clinical perspectives. In: Lewis M and Haviland-Jones J (eds.) Handbook of Emotions. New York: Guilford Publications. Synder CR and Lopez SJ (2002) Handbook of Positive Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Velmans M and Schneider S (eds.) (2007) The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Oxford: Blackwell.
Relevant Websites http://crinfo.org/ – The Conflict Resolution Information Source. http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/ – Positive Psychology Center. http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/ – World Database of Happiness. http://mbct.co.uk/about-mbct/ – Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html – Martin Seligman on positive psychology.
Glossary Cognitive factors Higher-order psychological factors relating to intellect, reasoning, belief, and construct systems which may have an influence on lower-order events such as learning, perception, and conflict resolution. Cognitive unconscious Information presented at a speed too rapid for conscious recognition nevertheless establishes some kind of memory trace. This information is subsequently learned more quickly than nonpresented information. The designation ‘cognitive’ is added to emphasize that the effect is in the area of learning and perception and is more limited in its motivational or an emotional influence than alleged to occur with the Freudian or dynamic unconscious. Conflict A perceptual state involving the executive function of the organism where the immediate choices in the organism’s repertoire, together with the outcome of these choices, are seen to involve incompatible motives and needs. Constructs A term promoted by the American psychologist George Kelly to describe the belief systems which individuals use to divide persons (and the world in general) into specific categories such as pleasant–unpleasant, attractive–repulsive, and honest–dishonest. Constructs are usually bipolar and characteristic of the individual. Coping skills The skills, including those known as defense mechanisms, for dealing with the demands (especially those that are psychologically threatening) of the environment. Defense mechanism The description of the various ways in which consciousness is said to defend itself against potential anxiety by distorting the perception of the situation to become a less or nonthreatening one. The usual defense mechanisms are denial, projection, displacement, sublimation, and rationalization. Emotional unconscious The evoking of activity in the deeper structures of the brain (the limbic system) which border on the cortex of the brain and communicate with bodily organs. While these brain structures mediate potential emotional experience, the experiences themselves may take the form of gut feelings or more generally, so-called somatic markers. They may unconsciously influence decision making and may be a part of what is experienced as intuition. Gestalt psychology Literally, the study of how the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. An approach within psychology, which emphasizes a basic principle in facilitating
Conflict is an integral part of all human behavior, and its attempted resolution can be seen as a major part of the effort toward mastery of the environment. Unresolved and chronic conflicts are probably the most central problems that clinical psychology deals with.
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learning, perception, and even psychotherapeutic change, is to create a whole and meaningful image from its components. Conflictual aspects are resolved by combining their inherent polarizations or promoting a dialog between them. Mindfulness The focusing of attention on the flow of immediate experience in the here and now alongwith enabling the attitude of openness, acceptance, and curiosity as to the content of experience. It derives from the practice of Zen meditation. Mindfulness-based cognitive therapy This is aimed at breaking habitual thought and reaction patterns and expanding awareness to include feelings and bodily reactions that would not otherwise be attended to: in short, access to otherwise nonconscious processes. Positive psychology A movement rather than a school, which derives from humanistic psychology, which aims to be a counterbalance to psychiatry by providing psychology with a positive and scientific base in cognitive psychology. It places an emphasis on the expression of higher motives and positive emotions involved in the search for meaningfulness, wisdom, and happiness in life. It is associated with the works and concepts of Philip Zimbardo, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, Martin Seligman, and Albert Bandura. Psychoneuroimmunology The study of the way psychological factors interact via neural and chemical messengers (hormones) with the body’s immune system, thereby providing a pathway for psychological factors to have determining effects on illness. Social identity theory Social identity is composed of several different identities corresponding to the social groups of which we are a member. The more positive the images of these groups, the more positive is our self-esteem, and we strive to increase the status of our group membership by creating a series of ingroups and outgroups. This becomes a basis for social prejudice and group conflict. State-specific memory This concerns memory that is specific to a particular state of consciousness and is not retrievable or only partially retrievable in other states. For example, events which a person recalls in a drug-induced state may not be recalled in the normal waking state and vice versa. Stroop effect A technique for studying the effect of perceptual bias on recognition time and learning by using words for colors written in colors which are incongruous with their meaning: the word red, for instance, written in blue.
A conflict can be defined as a motivational and emotional state that challenges the cognitive resources of the organism and which can result in mental and bodily stress. The motivational aspect is due to the perceived nature of our goals to which we attribute polarized negative and positive loadings.
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This often means that there is an increase in emotions such as anxiety associated with nearing the goals and their associated loadings or with the threat of loss of the reward associated with goal. Conflicts, when they are experienced consciously, also involve a cognitive and executive aspect in terms of applying experience and eliciting skills which can lead to their resolution. Knowledge concerning conflicts and their effects can accordingly be organized under the aforementioned headings of motivational aspects and emotional aspects relating to their unconscious and dynamic significance, and the cognitive and executive aspects concerning how they are consciously conceptualized and resolved. Since conflicts inevitably produce bodily stress, this is also an important component. Axiomatic to the understanding of conflict behavior is the view first put forward by the philosopher of science John Dewey: “the brain is primarily the organ of a certain type of behavior, not an organ of knowing the world.” This is to acknowledge that with respect to evolutionary demands, the human psyche would seem to be best equipped for handling straight decision making in the face of practical conflicts and then carrying out these choices. The brain may not be designed to give any simple resolution of abstract philosophical and ontological problems such as the meaning of life. This apparent truism may explain not only why existential conflicts are the most intractable but also why behavioral conflicts appear to be the most readily amenable to psychological intervention. In this vein, it is true that early psychologists chose to study simple paradigms of conflict situations, often attempting to determine the variables governing their resolution or persistence in the form of symptoms. The approach known as behavioral psychology emerged from this with its foundations in the study of how rat behavior is determined by simple laws relating to the contingency and frequency of noxious and rewarding reinforcers. In contrast, the early psychoanalytic approach focused on the dynamic forces and defenses governing emotional conflict. Historically (with the exception of Gestalt psychology and a few partisan approaches such as Jungian psychology), it was much later that therapies and theories developed to take into account the unique nature of the human species: man’s ability to conceptualize the environment and enter into existential conflicts. Recent developments are, however, giving this aspect a central role in illness. Unresolved psychological conflict with its resulting long-term stress appears to be an important and sometimes a crucial determining factor not only in psychological disturbance but also in the genesis of a wide range of illnesses. However, rather than continuing to focus on diagnosis and disturbance, there is a contemporary focus, known as positive psychology, on the enormous human potential for change and on the importance of existential questions and conflicts.
The Motivational Aspects of Conflicts It was because of its simplicity that the behavioral approach made rapid progress in the study of learning; whenever it was applied to the study of conflict, it had to adapt to a more holistic approach, that of Gestalt psychology. One of the most influential gestalt psychologists, Edward C. Tolman, introduced concepts such as expectancies, signs, and cognitions as so-called ‘intervening variables’ placed in the middle of the simple
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stimulus-response analysis of behavioral psychology. For Tolman, even rats were cognizant of the salient features of their environment. Another gestalt psychologist, Kurt Lewin, proposed what is now regarded as the classic analysis of conflict in terms of conflicting goals. This was of the trilogy of approach– approach, approach–avoidance, and avoidance–avoidance goal conflict. In approach–approach conflict, both goals are accredited equal positive values and a choice naturally entails loss of one. Analogies are easy to find in the human situation, for example, when one is faced with a choice between equally attractive job offers or equally attractive roles, such as in career fulfillment and in parenthood. Approach–avoidance conflict involves by definition an aspect of punishment or loss in achieving the desired goal and evokes fear or anxiety. Challenges by their nature often entail fears and contemporary fears may not be only of physical harm but of psychological annihilation or humiliation, for instance as often experienced by the challenges and risks involved in the public performance of skills. Many life crises, from the first step the child makes to his or her first date, can be seen as conflicts of overcoming anxiety. Their attempted resolution creates the learning experience for future skills and confidence in dealing with the demands of the environment. Avoidance–avoidance conflict is often regarded as the most deleterious of conflict paradigms, since behaviorally, the organism cannot avoid punishment. Some conflicts can be of relatively minor significance: hard work or the prospect of exam failure. Other conflicts of this type can, however, have serious effects: a monotonous yet stressful work situation against the demeaning prospect of being out of work. (The situation is not helped by accumulating evidence of a rising incidence of myocardial disorders with this type of job.) The conflict can be one between physical harm and psychological damage. Consider the anxiety evoked by and the consequences involved in the choice between risking death and physical harm in war or alternatively refusing to take arms in war and undergoing group rejection and imprisonment. Nonresolution of all types of conflict in terms of an outcome in making behavioral choice (or at least some form of behavioral action) necessarily implies stress. Stress, independent of whether or not it is of a chronic nature, can produce a variety of behavioral and, as will be discussed later, physiological symptoms. Whereas the aforementioned conflict analysis can be regarded as a contribution from Gestalt psychology, the behavioral approach using animals resulted in some exact lawful relationships. For instance, in observations of animal behavior, whether in the laboratory or in a natural setting, one may speak of conflict between two incompatible types of behavior if tendencies for these two behaviors are simultaneously present. An approach–approach conflict involves two tendencies in conflict approaching two different objects some distance apart, which implies that the incompatibility is a physical one. Here, the animal may reach a point in between where there exists a balance between the tendencies to be drawn to each object. The position of this point will be unstable as the tendency to approach either goal increases with its proximity. Any departure from the point of balance toward one goal increases the
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tendency to approach the other goal with a concomitant decreased tendency to approach the other. In avoidance–avoidance conflict, an animal is confronted by two objects it attempts to avoid. The tendency to avoid either goal is likely to increase with its proximity. Therefore, any movement toward either object is then likely to result in a return to the point of balance. While behavioral psychologists initially studied these situations in terms of animal behavior, they eagerly sought parallels in humans. The Russian psychologist I.P. Pavlov described the behavior of his dogs when they were unable to discriminate between competing but similar stimuli as a basis for choosing one of them. He coined the term experimental neurosis to describe how they yelped, bit aggressively, or lay down and gave up the task. Many years later, the American psychologist, Martin Seligman, focused on behavior in the avoidance–avoidance paradigm and described a condition he termed learned helplessness. Seligman’s dogs, on successively receiving electric shocks at whatever end of the cage they chose to move to, finally gave up in their efforts to avoid the shocks and became passive and behaved as if they were resigned to their fate. This passivity continued even when the experimental paradigm changed and the active behavior of the animal would have removed it from the noxious stimulus. Theoretically, the learned helplessness condition assumes altered responding in at least three major categories of behavior: emotional, motivational, and cognitive. Seligman and his coworkers assume parallels here with the kind of reactive depression in humans that results from the carminative effects of negative life events. By this account, one develops the strategy of giving up in the face of apparently irresolvable conflict, becomes depressed, and loses the belief that own actions can change outcomes. This simple observation has become the cornerstone of a group of therapeutic approaches known as cognitive therapy. The underlying principle here is to teach the human patient alternative ways of viewing his environment, create new choice situations, and thereby encourage certain activities that may lead to positive reinforcement, either in purely behavioral or in conceptual (cognitive) terms. Another motivational behavior concerns fear and anxiety as a learned drive or secondary drive in which the first stage is shock fear and the second concerns the signs of fear. Fear or avoidance behavior becomes an acquired drive in its own right. In a classic experiment by Dollard and Miller, rats learned to work hard at pedal pressing for the ‘reward’ of being released from a cage they associated with electric shocks. Dollard and Miller regarded the dependency effects of drugs such as barbiturates as due to their reinforcement of drug using behavior via fear reduction. The behavioral psychologist, Hans Eysenck, emphasized that the persistence of neurotic behavior is due to avoidance of the feared object – by always running away at the first possible opportunity. For Eysenck, it is the first physiological signs of anxiety – increased pulsation of the heart or increased rate of breathing – that induce this behavior rather than fear as a learned drive. ‘Conscience’ for behavioral psychologists can be, to some extent, explained in terms of conditioning which occurred according to the reinforcement and contingency laws of learning or else through imitation as a basic form of social
learning. In these terms, neurosis is seen then as an internal conflict between conscience and drives. Motivation was until recent years studied either as a largely conscious process in terms of behavioral psychology or as largely unconscious process in terms of the psychodynamic psychology of Freud and his followers. However in recent years, there has been some rapprochement between these previously opposed views. Nowadays, cognitive behavioral psychology views defense mechanism as forms of copying (or noncopying) skills. Even the concept of nonintentional motivated behavior is used to describe motives that influence behavior but which cannot easily be consciously expressed or integrated into the self-concept or role. For instance, a person may deny what is seen by others as obvious flirtatious behavior by maintaining it was only innocent friendliness because this is not part of the person’s self-concept.
The Unconscious and Emotional Aspects of Conflicts Conflicts involve emotion, especially anxiety, which is disturbing to the psychological function and efficacy. There is little doubt that the major contribution of the psychoanalysis, and in particular that of Freud, is in having provided a rich catalog of the means of dealing with anxiety from conflicts between drives and the demands of reality and social learning (the superego). These are the classical defense mechanisms originated by the ego as strategies to defend it against the ensuing anxiety. Their common feature is that they result in an initial amelioration of the conflict by distorting the perception of reality to fit in with the needs of the individual. However, some defense mechanisms such as intellectualization can also be seen as adaptive coping strategies. As such, defense mechanisms may be regarded as the strategies an individual learns to enable personality to function in the face of conflict from the environment. Regression, for instance, often operates in situations where efforts at problem solving or conflict resolution, based on current learning, are blocked and frustration results. The individual then regresses to a behavior repertoire, which may have earlier given successful solutions. In the case of other defense mechanisms such as the denial of the conflict or its projection onto others, the price for their operation is a distortion of reality, and this is often in the long run rather maladaptive. An accurate perception of reality – and one which includes the individual’s own motives and behavior – is important from the point of view of successful conflict resolution and ultimately for the harmonious functioning of personality. Nevertheless, the primary function of defense mechanisms, as the term implies, is to protect the executive function of personality from threat and breakdown. Experimentally, there are techniques which demonstrate how defenses operate. Many years ago, the term perceptual defense was coined to describe the higher recognition threshold required for the identification of emotionally loaded words that were rapidly flashed (tachistoscopically presented) on a screen. To demonstrate this convincingly, one needs techniques that circumvent the problem of response bias. It might be that individuals recognize the emotionally taboo words but
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refuse to say them or even admit that they see them. One of the techniques that can demonstrate that genuine subliminal conflicts do occur makes use of the Stroop effect. In the Stroop effect, subjects are asked to read the names of various colors that are printed in colors that conflict with the meaning of the word, for instance, the word RED is printed in green. Normally, this interferes with the naming of the colors by delaying the naming response. The Stroop effect can be shown to operate even subliminally, that is below the threshold for conscious recognition. Subjects report they are unaware of when a clinically loaded word is being presented, but its interference on their performance can nevertheless be demonstrated if they were required to say the meaning of color words. Such experiments have led many authorities to reject the notion that perception is unitary and accept that degrees of perceptual processing or at least perceptual registration of events can occur without full conscious awareness. While some aspects of this approach may be intuitively appealing, the notion of the dynamic manipulation of the contents of consciousness by an all-powerful Unconscious lurking beneath its surface has never been accepted by mainstream psychology. Nevertheless, a concept known as the cognitive unconscious has come into vogue on the basis of experimental findings from the study of memory and perception. This notion describes how perceptions and learning can occur without the individual being cognizant of the information involved but nevertheless showing evidence of its acquisition in his or her behavior. There appears to be some form of unconscious monitoring and correctional activity present in routine decision making. The originator of the term the cognitive unconscious, John Kihlstrom, is a coauthor of a recent paper where he has expressed his contemporary view that “the unconscious is not just an oxymoron” but that nonconscious vigilance occurs for nonconsciously occurring biases and automatic compensatory processes can be unconsciously activated. It is well known that the skepticism toward this area owes its origin to the ill-founded claims for the subliminal effects on coca cola selling. Nevertheless, a current review of the literature by Ran Hassin, James Uleman, and John Bargh concludes that the outright dismissal of the claims was unwarranted. There appears now to be a consensus that information can be cognitively registered in this way as subliminal perception. It is often said that there is no evidence for subliminal perception effecting behavior or decision-making processes. Nevertheless, the rapid exposure (at nonrecognition threshold) of emotionally loaded words such as those relating to hostility, rudeness, or politeness and also of concepts relating to behavioral stereotypes such as ‘professor’ and ‘secretary’ or ‘soccer hooligan’ has been shown to have an effect on later behavior. When tested in staged ambiguous situations, it was found that, depending on the nature of the exposure, participants behave more politely or rudely, intelligently or aggressively, etc. than control groups. Another contemporary reconceptualization of unconscious processes is found in the work of Antoni Damascio. Damascio downplays the role of conscious processes in decision making and maintains that emotions often steer what we believe are our logical decisions. An important concept here concerns somatic markers, which means that emotions arise through the influence of bodily processes and the limbic system or deep
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structures in the brain and exert subtle effects on us without our knowledge. Nowadays, the term dynamic unconscious is restricted to the older Freudian use, while the terms cognitive and the emotional unconscious are generally reserved for the contemporary use of the unconscious. Some authorities prefer the more limited term learning without awareness. Damascio’s concept, often termed the emotional unconscious, is seen, at least in a limited sense, to be a neurobiological concession to Freud.
The Bodily Effects of Stressful Conflicts As has been described earlier, defenses are not just a liability but can also serve, at least in a limited way, a positive function in enabling the individual to cope with conflicts that would otherwise be overwhelming. It is then not surprising that several styles of coping have been identified which show differing relationships to mental and physical health. What are the ‘healthy’ ways of coping with stress and conflict? There are findings suggesting that both a goal-oriented and an emotionally reactive way of dealing with threats may be effective strategies. Both these strategies of handling threat show a positive relationship to indices of a healthy immune system. A fourth means of handling conflict is described as defensive hostility, which involves projection outward of hostility, related only negatively to psychosomatic health. Indeed, it appears likely that this means of defense, involving as it does the projection of threat and hostility, can hardly be considered to be adaptive as its effect would be most likely self-reinforcing, thereby leading to only more stress and conflict. The earlier-mentioned studies of the use of various defense mechanisms in handling threat and conflict indicate that stress is not just a mental and behavioral event but also has, in some cases, a profound and lasting physiological impact. Indeed, stress can be defined in terms of this threat (where the stimulus can be of an internal or external origin) to the psychophysiological integrity or well-being of the organism. Generally, chronic stress has profound deleterious effects on psychophysiology through increased release of corticosteroid hormones and catecholamines. Under normal conditions, the body is programmed to provide short-term muscular responses to stress situations. The short-term effect of the aforementioned hormones is vasoconstriction, and the increased mobilization of fat and protein provides energy to the tissues in order to meet the demands of conflict. However, these same mechanisms, through the action of the hormones, lead to hypertension and vascular disorders in the long term. In addition, a significant reduction in lymphocyte number and activity occurs, an effect which may explain the now well-established finding that chronic stress leads to increased susceptibility to a wide range of illnesses. The immune system is almost certainly phylogenetically older than the central nervous system and therefore is accredited as having the primary role of defending the organism against, as well as adapting it to, the environment. Like the nervous system, the immune system is also capable of learning, so much so that the term psychoneuroimmunology is now used to describe the study of how various components of the immune system learn to respond to conditioned stimuli. Stimuli
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that are consistently and associatively paired with those that previously induced a stress response come also to have a stress-inducing effect when presented alone. The significance of this can hardly be overstated since it implies a direct link between illness, hormones, and psychological factors. Already, two adaptive systems have been described. Allergic reactions can be seen as overreactions analogous to the nervous system’s anxiety states, and autoimmune diseases can be regarded as an analogy with depressive states in that the response becomes internalized and self-destructive. To quote the actor-cum-director Woody Allen: “I don’t get depressed, I develop a tumor.”
The Cognitive and Executive Aspects of Conflict A concept from cognitive psychology that has been frequently applied to the study of conflict is called attribution. The notion of attribution concerns the type of rationalizations that are given by individuals as explanatory hypotheses for their behavior. If the explanation for one’s behavior is said to be attributed to environmental causes and therefore beyond the control of the individual, then it is said to be externally determined. This contrasts with the attribution of personal responsibility for behavior whence the individual is said to be internally determined. Research indicates that the type of attributions individuals make predicts behavior. The positive loading of the events that are being attributed are of course crucial. For instance, patients who externally attribute positive events to others (external attribution) and negative events to themselves (internal attribution) are reported to score higher on scales of depression and hopelessness. By contrast, those who persistently attribute positive events to themselves and negative ones to others and to external forces, are more likely to score high on paranoia. The growth of attribution theory has been a major factor in leading to what is sometimes called the cognitive revolution. This is a mark of progress in psychology which to some extent stands in contrast to the other revolution taking place, that of reducing behavior to neurobiology. The pivotal question is of course ‘is the individual a victim of his neurology’ or can major changes in our concepts of ourselves and the world lead to changes in behavior and even in our neurological processes. Some leading authorities in the area of emotion, such as clini¨ hman, are impressed by the findings cal psychologist Arne O that argue that the brain appears to respond about a half second before consciousness reports making the decision (SEE LIBET EFFECT) and conclude therefore that the role of consciousness is merely to tidy-up afterward by creating meaning out of what has in fact already been decided by the brain. Yet, it cannot be denied that the recent history of psychology supports the cognitive revolution by the upsurge of interest in ‘consciousness’ as an object for scientific study. Max Velmans and Susan Schneider, the editors of a recent volume on Consciousness Studies, note how the field, during its 15 years of existence, has increased to 6 00 000 books and articles. Consciousness Studies gives organizing structures such as ‘the self’ and state of consciousness the individual is in, as having a determining influence on behavior. The issue, which naturally arises here concerning so-called nonconscious roots of behavior, is the supposition that not
all the contents of experience and perception are represented in the self-concept. Perceptions, which are in conflict with how the person has been taught to view himself and behave, are either reinterpreted in accordance with this or denied and therefore not given verbal identification. They are nevertheless present in the form of so-called nonverbal feelings. While the principles involved in this process appear similar to those postulated by the psychoanalytic and psychodynamic theories of Freud, the descriptive language is clearly different in terms of being a more humanistic and existential one. Defenses are thus seen as styles for handling perceptual data and arise in order to enable the self, as the organizing principle in consciousness, to cope with the demands of the environment. Defenses arise when the more biological side of personality (temperament) is in conflict with the ‘conditions of worth,’ that is the conditional demands from the environment governing the expression of love and care toward the individual. These demands lead naturally to the learning of self-concepts, social skills, and roles but, in doing so, lead also to the dissociation of the incongruous, nonaccepted self-experiences that are in conflict with the learned role. How can this approach deal with the problem that has beset psychoanalysis: the dubious ontological status of the unconscious? If one follows the phenomenology-cum-functionalism of William James and Carl Rogers, the solution may be to simply accept that consciousness exists in many different forms. Some of these are dissociated from one and another, and the various forms may utilize different languages of symbolic representation for memories and ranges of experiences. Supporting this conceptualization are the now well-established findings relating to state-specific memories. The study of altered states of consciousness and dissociated states sometimes reveals that these memories are organized as distinct and conflictual self-representations. According to this view, conflict and anxiety can then have a positive function since there is assumed to be a force for growth existing as a biological principle. This drive operates during the opportunity for change – in a crisis or in a therapeutic context – and strives after creating the reintegration of experiences and split-off parts of the self. Indeed, dissociated and altered states of consciousness have often been claimed to be associated with creative problem solving and therapeutic change. For many years, a medicopsychiatric view dominated clinical psychology, and the findings from behavioral research had an explanatory input limited to anxiety and phobic states. Even psychoanalytic categorizations were based on an essentially nineteenth century Kraeplian system of medical classification. During the 1980s, although retaining the spirit of the Kraeplian system of category thinking, there has been an attempt to produce a theory-free system known as DSM-IV. While the scientific validity of DSM-IV has been severely criticized, it is nevertheless generally agreed that the system has incorporated a more sophisticated view of how predispositional and situational factors interact. The consensus view among psychologists appears to be that long-term conflicts in the form of stress-related events – so-called life events – interact with biological (predispositional) factors to produce a variety of psychotic and neurotic disorders. In dealing with conflicts and ensuing stress, research has identified that there are some basic coping skills. Being
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successful at skilled performance, however, means not only learning from one’s own experience and gaining positive feedback from successes, but also being inspired and learning from others and then becoming fully involved in meeting the challenge. It is this combination of factors which Albert Bandura calls self-efficacy beliefs and enables people to overcome obstacles and reach goals. Bandura was one of the first to emphasize that the most effective source of learning in mammals and humans is not that of the classical conditioning but that of imitation and observational learning.
Positive Psychology A refreshingly new approach which incorporates much of the aforementioned points has enabled clinical and health psychology to build an alternative model to the medical one for the study of mental disturbance. This is known as positive psychology. Positive psychology approach combines the behavioral work on cognitive functioning with approaches that were more phenomenological in using terms like self-concept and self-esteem. Some of the research findings challenge the traditional ways of seeing mental illness. For instance, those of the English psychologist Richard Bentall and his coworkers give us good reason to question the unity and homogeneity of such disorders as schizophrenia and neurotic disorders. Their findings provide an alternative way of viewing these disorders to that of illness, in terms of degrees of cognitive dysfunction arising from biological predispositions and life events. By having a knowledge of biological factors such as temperament and important life events from early attachment onward, one can then see how certain patterns of dysfunction in beliefs, thought processes, and emotional expression – what one sees as ‘symptoms’ – can come to develop. Self-esteem and self-concepts are clearly part of the executive functioning of the organism and can be seen as closely connected to the process of attribution. As mentioned earlier, by using these concepts, it has been shown that patients with depressive ‘symptoms’ have excessive internal attributions in the form of being fixated on negative events relating to themselves and will tend to interpret events to conform to their preconceived self-concepts. In contrast, deluded and paranoid patients have been found to make excessive external attributions in the form of persecutory ideas, perhaps as a defense against impending depression and low self-esteem, by blaming others for negative events. Generally speaking, these types of attributions become the foundation for an optimistic versus a pessimistic lifestyle. A pessimistic lifestyle is an important predictor of later illness. Positive psychology is, however, not so much about illness per se but about our higher and healthy motives: the need for meaningfulness, happiness, and wisdom. In looking at what seems to be a healthy functioning style, a series of such relationships has recently been found by Trevor Archer and his colleagues at Gothenburg University. They discovered that an optimistic lifestyle and so-called intrinsic motivation which is the enjoyment of activities for their own sake rather than for external reward, together with the expression of positive emotions, were all closely related and formed a personality pattern of healthy functioning.
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The recent history of clinical psychology can be said to follow the career of one of its most esteemed leaders, Martin Seligman, who began his work as a behavioral psychologist contributing to the concept of learned helplessness. Seligman moved on to become one of the founders of cognitive psychology focusing on attributional styles and now finally is the major proponent of ‘positive psychology’ with its emphasis on existential problems and authentic happiness in life. This reflects how the old divisions between behavioral, psychoanalytic, and humanistic psychology have begun to fade away. Behavioral psychology used to have the dictum: change behavior and you change the way of seeing things. For psychoanalysis, it was first insight and then change. While the aphorism for today’s cognitive psychology is change the person’s constructs and you can change his behavior, it is probably true to say that in practice, most psychologists use all the three means where and when appropriate. The research behind this change has led to tangible effects and the current interest in Europe in cognitive behavior therapy (CBT ) is one outcome of this. Following the recent evaluation of antidepressive medication, showing this to be a costly and largely ineffective treatment, there is now governmentempowered support for providing the public with costeffective evidence-based treatment. CBT tends to be the most favored among the various therapies, although there is no decisive evidence for its superiority over the more personal and dynamic forms of therapy. Nevertheless according to leading psychologist and governmental advisor, David Clark, the UK government plans during the next 3 years to educate 3600 psychological therapists under the supervision of clinical psychologists with the aim of providing a treatment for the 900 000 citizens who are estimated to need it for the treatment of anxiety and depression. The enormous interest in consciousness and its role in cognitive processes mentioned earlier may be the reason why there is now an otherwise unlikely allegiance between Zen Buddhism and behavioral psychology teaching ‘mindfulness’ meditation. Mindfulness is the focusing of attention on the flow of immediate experience in the here and now along with openness, acceptance, and curiosity to its content. MindfulnessBased Cognitive Therapy is aimed at breaking habitual thought and reaction patterns and expanding awareness to include feelings and bodily reactions that would not otherwise be attended to: in short, access to otherwise nonconscious processes. Clearly, the current focus of psychology gives us reason to modify Dewey’s axiom, which we began with, as being a simplification. Humans may not be very effective as achieving it, but they do seek meaningfulness.
Resolving Social Conflict While it is a long way from the study of rat behavior and the psychoanalytic couch to the resolution of internal and group conflict, already during the 1960s psychologists were becoming interested in the application of theories about group identity to social behavior. This will be covered more fully in other articles, but some landmarks are worth noting. Muzafer Sherif and his coworkers carried out what is now regarded as a classic experiment in the resolutions of group
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conflict. Working with boys at a summer camp, the researchers followed the process of how group identity and rivalry arose. Different codes of behavior evolved and with it conflict and opposition. Open hostility developed between the groups. At this stage, various techniques for intervention and conflict resolution proved successful. One of these was the formation of superordinate goals that required the cooperation of both groups in order to resolve an externally imposed threat. Another was the introduction of methods to promote interaction and contact between the groups. There are a few examples of psychological intervention in real group conflict. One well-known example, albeit almost on an anecdotal scale, was the successful involvement of Carl Rogers in facilitating openness and communication between members of a small group of Catholics and Protestants in Northern Ireland. Rogers relied on creating a therapeutic atmosphere of empathy, acceptance, and warmth. For many years, practical solutions to racial and group conflict were influenced by Gordon Allport and his suggestions for reducing conflict by increasing contact between groups and focusing on similarities between individuals. However, with the recent development of the approach known as Social Identity Theory, the emphasis has now shifted away from the individual toward dealing with intergroup differences and promoting an understanding of the need to maintain these in the face of threat and discrimination. Another major contribution came from social psychologist Irving Janis who described how group decisions often make systematic errors of judgment which he called groupthink and mindguarding. Groupthink refers to the pressures in the group to maintain an illusion of unanimity, and mindguarding refers to the efforts to maintain solidarity and protect the leader from stress and contradicting viewpoints. Irving recommended the use of a ‘devil’s advocate’ as a counter to groupthink. Other psychologists such as Max Bazerman have extended their expertise to the area of negotiations. Bazerman describes the common mistakes that negotiators make such as being locked in and committed to one perspective, seeing the others’ gains as their losses, and being overconfident of success. Although a strong case can be made for the involvement of a psychologist in international conflict, this seems to rarely occur. However, one psychologist who has made an important contribution in the global context is Albert Bandura who was mentioned earlier in the context of self-efficacy and observational learning. Bandura now works with the film media in the entertainment-education area, producing films in order to encourage social change. These are films intended primarily for third-world countries addressing major issues such as overpopulation, genital mutilation, the education of women, and
literacy. Role models, in the form of highly admired actresses and actors, and plot-lines are used to debunk false beliefs and encourage people’s beliefs about their own efficacy. There is a classical quotation from the days of behaviorism by the well-known psychobiologist, Frank Beach: “Psychology is the study of the white rat and the college sophomore.” Clearly, the aforementioned research shows that today’s psychology has come a long way and now is a dynamic and realityrelevant subject.
See also: Attribution; Cognitive Behavior Therapy; Gestalt Psychology and the Development of Perceptual Organization; Positive Psychology; Subliminal Perception.
Further Reading Bandura A (2009) Social cognitive theory goes global. The Psychologist 22(6): 504–506. Barsky AE (2000) Conflict Resolution for the Helping Professions. Stamford, CT: Thomson Learning. Baumgardner SR and Crothers MK (2010) Positive Psychology. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pearson. Bentall R (2009) Doctoring the Mind. London: Penguin Books. Dijksterius A and Van knippenberg A (1998) The relation between perception and behavior, or how to win a game of trivial pursuit. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74: 865. Hassin R, Uleman J, and Barh J (eds.) (2005) The New Unconscious. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Janis IL (1972) Victims of Groupthink. Boston, MA: Houghton Mifflin. Kelly EF, Kelly W, Crabtree A, Gauld A, Grosso M, and Greyson B (2007) Irreducible Mind. Toward a Psychology for the 21st Century. Lanham, MD: Rowan & Littlefield. Kihlstrom J (1990) The psychological unconscious. In: Pervin L (ed.) Handbook of Personality: Theory and Research. New York: Guilford. Kihlstrom JF, Mulvaney S, Tobias BA, and Tobis IP (2000) The emotional unconscious. In: Eich E, Kihlstrom JF, Bower GH, Forgas JP, and Niedenthal PM (eds.) Cognition and Emotion, pp. 30–86. New York: Oxford University Press. O¨hman A (2000) Fear and anxiety: Evolutionary, cognitive, and clinical perspectives. In: Lewis M and Haviland-Jones J (eds.) Handbook of Emotions. New York: Guilford Publications. Synder CR and Lopez SJ (2002) Handbook of Positive Psychology. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Velmans M and Schneider S (eds.) (2007) The Blackwell Companion to Consciousness. Oxford: Blackwell.
Relevant Websites http://crinfo.org/ – The Conflict Resolution Information Source. http://www.ppc.sas.upenn.edu/ – Positive Psychology Center. http://www1.eur.nl/fsw/happiness/ – World Database of Happiness. http://mbct.co.uk/about-mbct/ – Mindfulness-Based Cognitive Therapy. http://www.ted.com/talks/martin_seligman_on_the_state_of_psychology.html – Martin Seligman on positive psychology.