The Cognition of Conflict: Ontology, Dynamics, and Ideology - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 4

1. Two or more goals (e.g., desires, needs, intentions, plans, norms, duties, orders )
or interests (potential goals and relative to goals) (Sect. 1.2.6 )
2. that are incompatible
3. if carried out or pursued in the same/common world.

This is the notion we will use. However, the commonsense meaning is broader
and can also be psychologically relevant. We may have conflicts not just between
true goals but between goals (like intentions) and impulses, or there may be S-R
reactions, automatic routines and habits, or conflicts with or between emotions (with
their goals and impulses).
More generally, there is a possible conflict between the two control systems of our
actions: explicit (reason-based) true “decisions” and other interfering mechanisms
(either conscious or unconscious). 3
Thus, a more general definition might be as follows:
A conflict exists when two mechanisms or processes or entities that control
or activate/orient behavior would lead to incompatible conduct either from the
executive point of view or in terms of their outcomes (for intrinsic, logical reasons
or for extrinsic, practical ones).

1.2.2 Conflict (Cognitive) Ontology: Individual, Internal,

or Intra agent Conflicts

Conflicts exist because we are multipurpose systems , not simply guided by stimuli
or by a momentary impulse or “choosing” between several activated goals randomly
or by design. Conflict is cognitively fundamental and behaviorally adaptive because
it allows us to deal with several active goals at the same time, to discover con-
tradictions, and to anticipate self-defeating behaviors; further, it makes it possible
to exploit predictions, reasoning, problem solving, cognitive evaluations, and, thus,
real formulate reason-based preferences and choices.
By grounding conflict theory on goal theory (Castelfranchi and Paglieri 2007 )
we can introduce the following categories.
I call individual/private or so-called intrapersonal conflicts those that arise
between two goals in the same mind: X has both the goal (desire, intention, duty,
need) P and the goal (desire, intention, duty, need) Q, but P prevents the realization
of Q (and vice versa).

3 See “dual system” or “processing” theories by Evans; Kahneman; Sloman; Stanovich and others.
For a review, see Evans ( 2008 ).