Conflict behavior as a function of motivation and amount of training

93 Pages·4.345 MB·English

by  Andreas, Burton G

CONFLICT BEHAVIOR AS A FUNCTION OF &DTIVATIOR
"" AND AfOUNT OF TRAINING
&y
.
Burton Q6* Andreas
A dissertation submitted In partial fulfillm ent of the
requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy*
In the Department of Psychology In the Graduate
College of the State University of Iowa
June 1951
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Acmcwizmmm
l wish to thank Professor I*E* Farber for
suggesting the problem and for invaluable
criticism of the manuscript*
I want to thank Jan, my w ife, for the
numerous hours she spent in tabulating data*
TABLE Of CONTENTS
Chapter
I latreduetloti » * * * * * * » » • # » » * * t
II Experimental Procedure . . . . . . . . • 13
III Results. . . . . . . . . El
XV Discussion 49
V Summary. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . S5
Appendix A* * . » * . . » . . . . . . . 59
Appendix B.. ............ . . . . . @3
References ............................ 35
III
The University of IoWS
LIBRARIES
TABLE OF FIGURES
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TABLE OP TABLES
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XXIII* * * # * ♦ * * # * * # * * •
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XXV*! 11 * * « « • * • * * * * • * « S3
XXIX # * » * * # * # * . * « # * * *
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Chapter I
INTRODUCTION
A* Conflict as Competition Between Incompatible Responses
I* Antecedents of Conf 1 let
In a number of psychological experiments conflict
has been considered as resulting from competition between
incompatible response tendencies (1, Z9 6* 15)• Response
competition arises whenever two or more sets of cues tend
to e lic it responses which cannot be made simultaneously*
Since every environment contains a m ultip licity of stim uli
which may evoke incompatible responses, every situation
confronting an organism may be regarded as potentially in­
volving conflict* Usually such conflicts are readily re­
solved because one of the competing tendencies is much
stronger than the others* In experimental studies of con­
f lic t, however, the strengths of the separate motor response
tendencies may be brought to approximate equality* Then the
simultaneous presentation of the stim uli, which had been
used to evoke the differen t responses separately, creates a
conflict situation*
It is usually assumed that the amount of conflict
generated is a function of the absolute and relativ e
strengths of the competing tendencies* The resu lts of
ea rlier conflict experiments indicate the advisability of
2
testin g two such assumptions:
Assumption 1* With strengths of competing
tendencies equal, con flict increases
as the strengths increase in absolute
value*
Assumption Z* Conflict increases as the
strengths of unequal tendencies ap­
proach equality*
These assumptions are in general agreement with a more de­
tailed formulation recently presented by Brown and Farber
(4) in which fru stratio n is expressed a© a jo in t function
of the absolute and relativ e strengths of competing ten­
dencies* These w riters point out that fru stratio n and con­
f lic t may be regarded as equivalent, in the absence of d if­
ferentiating relations to other constructs or to behavior.
The strength of each competing tendency in a con­
f lic t situation may be considered to be a combination of an
associative factor and a motivational factor. It may be
assumed that the associative factor grows as a function of
the number of training tria ls* The m otivational factor may
be supposed to be a function of Instructions or of the
amount of punishment or reward employed. Insofar as
punishment or reward may be regarded as incentives, th is
assumption Is substantially in agreement with recent theo­
retic al formulations by Hull (7) in which incentive rein ­
forcement is assigned a non-associative ro le.
3
Response Measures of Conflict
Results of previous experiments (lf Zf 6, 15)
suggest that various deviations from the type of responses
made on training tria ls may he considered indices of con*
f l i c t * Among these are blocking and the partial* compro­
mise* and reversal types of responses* Blocking is failu re
to make any overt motor response in the time allotted# A
p artial response occurs 'when the subject in itia te s one of
the competing responses but does not complete it; such re­
sponses were categorised as ** incomplete** by Bilodeau (2).
In the compromise response* the subject makes neither of
the overt responses that were trained but moves instead to
an interm ediate point* The reversal type of response
occurs when the subject abruptly changes the direction of
movement* In effect abandoning one response tendency and
in itiatin g the other* It may be assumed that the frequency
of occurrence of blocking or any of the special types of
responses Is a measure of the amount of conflict present*
It may he assumed also that the time consumed in
making the response on the conflict tr ia l is d irectly re­
lated to the amount of co n flict in the situation* This re ­
lationship is supported by movement time data obtained by
Bilodeau (2). Bilodeau found that movement time was posi­
tiv ely correlated with the frequency of blocking when the