Overview
When you want and don’t want something. This is a difficult conflict to resolve.
Examples
- Getting help from someone who will gloat
- A good looking person with bad breath
- Tickets to a hot show but at full price
- A better job with a longer commute
- A new puppy you are allergic to
- Being sober but losing friends
Transcript
The fourth level of Conflict is called an approach-avoidance conflict. This involves getting something you like and something you don’t like at the same time.
In Dollard & Miller’s case with the rats in a maze, this is a long maze; at one end they would put the rat. At the other end, they would put food and shock. The rat will head toward the food because it’s hungry, and so it begins running toward the food, but as it gets closer it slows down. The closer it gets ,the slower it goes, because there is shock.
So the rat does what we do: we look forward to something and then the closer we get to it begin thinking: “Why did I agree to take the speaking engagement?” “Why am I gonna be in front of all these people?” “Why am I getting married?”
Whatever event is coming up looks really good from a distance, but the closer we get to it, it doesn’t look quite as good.
This is a difficult kind of conflict to resolve because we’re never in the same spot. When we’re away from the problem, and we’re away from the combination, the cheese (if we’re a rat) looks really good. But the closer we get, the more of the shock looks bad. So it changes depending on where we are in the maze, or where we are in the timeline. The closer we are to a deadline of something that we like but dislike
The more we are going to think about the negative aspects of it. The more we’re going to get cold feet and say let’s back out of this. This is a bad deal. I don’t want to do this. This is a really bad deal. It’s a horrible deal. Then you back off: “You know it doesn’t look like that bad of a deal.”
And we are constantly moving toward and then back it up a little bit, moving toward and backing up a little bit.
Audio
Infographic
