Conflicts as Aversive Signals for Control Adaptation

• Published in: Current directions in psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society Vol. 24; no. 4; pp. 255 - 260
• Main Authors: Dreisbach, Gesine, Fischer, Rico
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Los Angeles, CA SAGE Publications 01.08.2015; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: Cognition & reasoning; Conflict; Self control; conflict monitoring; response conflict; cognitive control; aversive signal; affective counter-regulation
• ISSN: 0963-7214; 1467-8721
• DOI: 10.1177/0963721415569569

The dynamic adaptation of cognitive control in the face of competition from conflicting response tendencies is one of the hallmarks of flexible human action control. Here, we suggest an alternative framework that places conflicttriggered control adaptation into the broader context of affect regulation. Specifically, we review evidence showing that (a) conflicts are inherently aversive, that (b) aversive stimuli in the absence of conflict also trigger behavioral adjustments, and, finally, that (c) conflict stimuli do trigger processes of affective counter-regulation. Together with recent findings showing that conflict-triggered control adaptation depends on the subjective experience of the conflict, we suggest that it is the subjective aversive conflict experience that originally motivates control adaptations. Such a view offers new perspectives for investigating and understanding intra-and interindividual differences in the regulation of cognitive control by differentiating between the individual sensitivity to experience and the individual ability to utilize the aversive signal.