APS 12 : Conflict

The psychological aspects of conflict can be described where a situation arises which motivates a person to do two or more mutually exclusive activities. For example, in a strictly monogamous society, a man out of biological urge may seemingly wish to express his desire of sexual interest in multiple women at once; however the man cannot marrty two women nor engage in a mutual partnership between both women no matter how biologically attractive he is to them. A businessman may have to face a situation that arises where he either afflitates with a friend of his that is lazy or a complete stranger that is reputable on the basis of utility and efficiency. The soldier in combat may be torn between cowaring away from his comrades or suppressing his fear and attempting to survive in a monstrous battle. Responses cannot occur at a psychological level simultaneously.

Conflict does not exclusively happen on a psychological level, on a behavioral level, a council member or a political member of caucus may want to speak up about his or her opinion on a certain matter yet wish to avoid the taboo subject. On a sociolinguistical level, he or she may wish to speak the truth but to avoid offending. On an expressive level, a cognitive dissonance occurs. On the emotional level, the simultaneous input of both fear and digestion are imcompatible with one another. Motives are essential for all conflicts.

Social existence requires a great number of conflicts. Motives may produce incompatible response predispositions. A member in society may wish to avoid the pressure that he or she subjected by a group or members of society. The roles that are required, the attitude, the mannerisms that are emplaced may be imcompatible with the individual's goals, needs and desires. The proccess of socialization is an intricate one between the individual and society. The child begins to see the world and express him or herself without concern but is suddenly limited but his or her parent whom instructs appropriate social constructs and behaviors while instuitions and other members of society reinforce or instill a further level of social acceptance.

Psychological conflicts are attributed to psychosomatic diseases including sexual abbreviation, functional psychosis and neuroses. Psychoanalytically, a child may express devoted concern to his or her father suffering from a terminal illness who conceptualizes a love devoted to his or her father in a manner that involves tending. However, the child may have disturbing thoughts that are repressed and symptoms may appear.

Personality development could be viewed as a series of conflict resolutons. An effect method of conflict resolution involves sublimation whereby the individual's libidinal urge is discharged into socially usefula ctivities including but not witholding science, art and work. All neurotic conflict must nvolve an internal source of inhibition. For example, a person who has guilt feelings derived from performing certain actions which society disapproves or from his or her own values may internalize them. External blocking of a motive should be coined as frustration whereas internal blocking should be termed conflict. When an individual undergoes an elongated period of blocking, the individual may feel increased tension.

Developping personality may undergo a need for security concerned primarily with mutual social existence with others. When a social environment is threatened, the mechanisms associated with coping may come into conflict. The neurotic person may decide between hostility and helpness; however both are derived by insecurity which is derived from society.

Lewin, a social scientist posed a theory to explain the behavior of an individual with psychological forces. The psychological forces are highly dependent on the positive and negative valences attached to numerous goals within a circumstance or situation.

Lewin distinguished multiple types of conflicts. The first condition involving where a person faces two goals of positive balence, a second condition where a person must choose between a goal of positive and negative valence, a third condition arising from both goals of negative valence and the fourth known as double approach-avoidance conflict. These types of conflicts are now known as approach-approach, approach-avoidance, avoidance-avoidance and approach-avoidance conflicts.