Internal conflicts are inherent to individuals' everyday experience. In this paper, we present the idea of the “conflict mindset.” We argue that internal conflicts evoke a unique information processing strategy that builds on the simultaneous accessibility of two (or more) conflicting alternatives. Once a conflict is activated, the procedure underlying it is primed and can be applied to any relevant subsequent judgment that need not overlap in content with the conflict that originally gave rise to the mindset. We present research demonstrating that the conflict mindset broadens cognitive scope, as well as serves a proactive function for resolving subsequent conflicts. We further describe both intra‐personal and inter‐personal implications of the conflict mindset on an array of variables. We briefly discuss other mindsets that share common features with the conflict mindset, elaborate on the uniqueness of the conflict mindset compared to other cognitive and motivational processes, and present lingering questions and future directions.

One of the prominent, by now seminal, paradigms in the research tradition of cognitive dissonance (Festinger, 1957) is the free-choice paradigm developed by Brehm (1956) to measure choice-induced preference change. Some 50 years after Brehm introduced the paradigm, Chen and Risen (2010) published an influential critique arguing that what the paradigm measures is not necessarily a choice-induced preference change, but possibly an artifact of the choice revealing existing preferences. They showed that once the artifact is experimentally controlled for, there is either no or very little evidence for choice-induced preference change. Given the prominence of the paradigm, this critique meant that much of what we thought we knew about the psychological process of cognitive dissonance might not be true. Following the critique, research using the paradigm applied various corrections to overcome the artifact. The present research examined whether choice truly changes preferences, or rather merely reflects them. We conducted a meta-analysis on 43 studies (N = 2,191), all using an artifact-free free-choice paradigm. Using different meta-analytical methods, and conceptually different analyses, including a Bayesian one, we found an overall effect size of Cohen’s d = 0.40, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.32, 0.49]. Furthermore, we found no evidence for publication bias as an alternative explanation for the choice-induced preference change effect. These results support the existence of true preference change created by choice.

The seminal theory of motivational conflicts distinguishes between Approach-Approach conflicts, in which a decision is made between desirable alternatives, and Avoidance-Avoidance conflicts, in which a decision is made between undesirable alternatives. The behavioral differences between Approach-Approach and Avoidance-Avoidance conflicts are well documented: both Lewin’s and Miller’s original conceptualization, as well as abundant empirical research that followed, showed that Avoidance-Avoidance conflicts are more difficult to resolve than Approach-Approach ones. However, there is little to no research looking into the neural underpinnings of the differences between the two conflict types. Here, we show that midfrontal theta, an established neural marker of conflict, distinguished between the two conflict types such that midfrontal theta power was higher in Avoidance-Avoidance conflicts than in Approach-Approach conflicts. We further demonstrate that higher midfrontal theta power was associated with shorter decision times on a single trial basis, indicating that midfrontal theta played a role in promoting successful controlled behavior. Taken together, our results show that Approach-Approach and Avoidance-Avoidance conflicts are distinguishable on the neural level. The implications of these results go beyond motivational conflicts, as they establish midfrontal theta as a measure of continuous degree of conflict in subjective decisions.