The Attribution of Meaning and Causal Informations for Processing Psychological Conflicts

Our investigation is based on experimental and control groups, each containing adults examined individually, equated as regards age (18-38 y.), cultural background and gender. The recearch design include two conflict situations: one open conflict (incongruent object) and one latent conflict (masked figure). Participants evaluate the perceived incongruity, anxiety-arousing power, self-perceived state anxiety with seven point bipolar scales. For each conflict situations: a) a group of participants receive a written causal explanation, b) a different group of participants do not receive any explanation. Then all the participants re-assessed the conflict situation and their own emotional state. Results show that in case of open conflict, after the attribution of causal informations, the level of perceived conflict and tension is reduced. On the contrary, in case of latent situation, there is an increase of perceived conflict. Collected data underline the role of the attribution of meaning for processing different type of psychological conflict.