Conflict and Restraint 197Figure 8.6 Conflict arises when two desired goals are incompatible for
some reason. For example, by working extra hours in order to further a ca-
reer aspiration, this woman may at the same time be having an adverse in-
fluence (indicated by the opposite-direction arrow) on another goal that is
also related to her ideal self—spending time maintaining a sense of related-
ness with her family.Scaling Back on Behavioral Goals
The principle of gradual adjustment of a standard also oper-
ates at the level of behavioral goals (Carver & Scheier, 1981,
1998). Sometimes progress is going poorly, expectancies of
success are dim, and the person wants to quit. Rather than quit
altogether, the person trades this goal for a less demanding
one. This is a kind of limited disengagement in the sense that
the person is giving up the first goal while adopting the lesser
one. However, this limited disengagement keeps the person
engaged in activity in the domain he or she had wanted to
quit. By scaling back the goal—giving up in a small way—
the person keeps trying to move ahead—thusnotgiving up, in
a larger way.
Small-scale disengagement occurs often in the context of
moving forward in broader ways. A particularly poignant ex-
ample comes from research on couples in which one partner
is becoming ill and dying from AIDS (Moskowitz, Folkman,
Collette, & Vittinghoff, 1996). Some healthy participants ini-
tially had the goal of overcoming their partner’s illness and
continuing active lives together. As the illness progressed and
it became apparent that that goal would not be met, it was not
uncommon for the healthy partners to scale back their aspira-
tions. Now the goal was, for example, to do more limited ac-
tivities during the course of a day. Choosing a more limited
and manageable goal ensures that it will be possible to move
toward it successfully. The result was that even in those diffi-
cult circumstances the person experienced more success than
would otherwise have been the case and remained engaged
behaviorally with efforts to move forward.
How does the scaling back of goals within a domain
occur? We believe that the answer is the same as in the case
of affect: If the loop’s output function is inadequate at mov-
ing the input toward the standard, a second (slower-acting)
process moves the standard toward the input. The scaling
back of behavioral goals thus would involve the same struc-
tural elements as are involved in the recalibration of the af-
fect system.
CONFLICT AND RESTRAINT
In thinking about the self-regulation of behavior, another set
of issues to be considered concerns the existence of conflict.
Conflict arises whenever two incompatible goals are held si-
multaneously and both are salient (see also Carver & Scheier,
1998, 1999b). It sometimes is possible to move toward two
goals simultaneously, but sometimes moving toward one
interferes with one’s ability to move toward the other. For
example, the woman who wants to develop her career and
also spend time with her family faces a conflict imposed by
the limited number of hours in the day and days in the week
(Figure 8.6). The effort to attain one (e.g., further the career
by working extra hours) can interfere with efforts to attain the
other (by removing the time available for family activities).
Given this structure, the experience of conflict naturally
produces negative feelings, as movement toward one of the
goals is impeded. If movement toward the active goal is rapid
(relative to the reference velocity) as movement toward the
other goal is stifled, the person may have mixed feelings,
feelings relating to each of the two goal values. It is no sur-
prise that people typically try to balance their conflicting de-
sires so that both goals are partly attained. It is also no
surprise that this strategy often feels unsatisfying, as the per-
son “almost” keeps up with goals in both domains but keeps
up fully with neither of them.
Often there is no structural basis for viewing one goal as
intrinsically more valuable than the other (as in Figure 8.6).
Sometimes, however, one goal has a kind of primacy because
it is reflected in an explicitly formulated intention to override
efforts to move toward the other goal. Sometimes the tenden-
cies involved are mental; sometimes they are behavioral.
Often, the attempt to override works for a while (sometimes
a long while), but sometimes it fails.Ironic Processes in Mental ControlOne literature bearing on this theme was developed by
Wegner (e.g., 1994) and his colleagues. The study that began
this work was simple. Some people were told not to think of
a white bear for 5 minutes. Then they were told to think about
the bear. When the thought was permitted, it came more fre-
quently than it did for people who had not had to suppress the
thought first. Something about trying not to think of the bear
seemed to create pressure to think of it.
This study was followed by others. Most of this research
looked not at rebounds, but at what goes on during people’s