The Cognition of Conflict: Ontology, Dynamics, and Ideology - Conflict and Multimodal Communication: Social Research and Machine Intelligence - page 15

behavior as a well-grounded choice, rather than change our behavior. Paradoxically,
action adjusts cognition to its needs: instead of being the result of our beliefs
and goals, our actions become their cause [Festinger's ( 1957 ) cognitive dissonance
effect].

1.5 Social, External, or Inter agent Conflicts: Their Cognitive

and Structural Foundation

1.5.1 Sociality and Prosociality

“Sociality” is not a synonym for “cooperation” or “pro-social behavior”; it is
frequently misused and misunderstood. Conflict is a basic form of sociality.
Competition and hostility are two of the sources of social relations, actions, and
minds and are interesting for social or evolutionary theory. Cooperation is just one
way of improving the performance of a cluster of systems living in a common world.
Conflicts are not important just for conflict resolution or for (sometimes) improving
groups' and organizations' results; they are important in and of themselves.

1.5.2 Definition and Kinds

I call social or interpersonal conflicts those conflicts that arise between two agents
with their own goals; they do not necessarily occur between two “persons” (as
persons): such conflicts can be between, for example, two groups or teams, two
companies, two states, or two institutions, as well as between two “roles” or between
two conventions or norms.
Any “entity” that is defined in terms of certain goals and functions in terms of
goals and is aimed at realizing those goals can be in conflict with other analogous
entities .
For a social conflict we need not just two incompatible goals but two subjects
guided by those goals: the conflict is no longer between the goals; it is also between
the subjects.
However, clearly, any conflict between subjects A and B presupposes a conflict
between a goal of A and a goal of B. Conflicts are always between goals.
For social conflicts, too, it is crucial to make the distinction shown in Fig 1.1 , that
of intrinsic vs. extrinsic conflict; however, also very important is the intersection of
other dimensions (Fig. 1.4 ):
Objective conflicts . A social conflict can just be there “objectively”: to have
a conflict, it is not necessary that one or both subjects be aware of it. As stated
earlier, the two subjects can compete with each other and thwart or harm each other