An essay which shows the relation between conflict with psychology.

1. ASSIGNEMENT: RELATION BETWEEN CONFLICTAND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RIJAN UPADHYAY
Relation between Conflict and Social Psychology
We, humans have been competent in public life since from the beginning. We are trained to live
and adapt with each other including cultures and trends as our identity in this already settled community.
But, it’s not possible for every individual to have similar perception as other belonging to relevant
group. Conflict is directly entrenched to psychology in numerous aspects. Every individual perceives
breach of faith and trust to another individual. When the trust is not maintained progressively, it creates
an emotional response that can elevate to conflict, or we can say psychosocial crisis.
To learn about the core relations between conflict and its impact from the psychology we should
have basic concept about the them. If we are able to distinguish among these terms, this will benefit us
to understand better of the respective topic. The basic definition of psychology is “the science
of behavior and mind, embracing all aspects of conscious and unconscious experience as well
as thought. It is an academic discipline and a social science which seeks to understand individuals and
groups by establishing general principles and researching specific cases”. (Source: Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychology). Also, Psychologists explore behavior and mental processes
including perception, cognition, attention, emotion, intelligence, phenomenology, motivation, brain
functioning, and personality. This extends to interaction between people, such as interpersonal
relationships, including psychological resilience, family resilience, and other areas. Psychologists of
diverse orientations also consider the unconscious mind. Psychologists employ empirical methods to
infer causal and correlational relationships between psychosocial variables. In addition, or in opposition,
to employing empirical and deductive methods, some especially clinical and counseling psychologists at
times rely upon symbolic interpretation and other inductive techniques. Psychology has been described
as a hub science, with psychological findings linking to research and perspectives from the social
sciences, natural sciences, medicine, humanities, and philosophy. Psychology is such a huge topic and
conveying the depth and breadth of the subject can be difficult. As a result, several unique and
distinctive branches of psychology have emerged to deal with specific subtopics within the study of the
mind, brain, and behavior. Psychology can be roughly divided into two major areas:
1. Research, which seeks to increase our knowledge base
2. Practice, through which our knowledge is applied to solving problems in the real world.

2. ASSIGNEMENT: RELATION BETWEEN CONFLICTAND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RIJAN UPADHYAY
Each field of psychology represents a specific area of study focused on a particular topic. Oftentimes,
psychologists specialize in one of these areas as a career. The following are just some of the major
branches of psychology. For many of these specialty areas, working in that specific area requires
additional graduate study in that particular field. Some of the major branches of psychology are
Abnormal Psychology, Behavioral Psychology, Biopsychology, clinical psychology, comparative
psychology, counselling psychology, cross-culture psychology, developmental psychology, Educational
psychology, experimental psychology, forensic psychology, health psychology, industrial-organizational
psychology etc. Psychology is always evolving, and new fields and branches continue to emerge. It is
important to remember that no single branch of psychology is more important or better than any other.
Each specific area contributes to our understanding of the many different psychological factors that
influence who you are, how you behave, and how you think. By conducting research and developing
new applications for psychological knowledge, professionals working in every branch of psychology
can help people better understand themselves, confront the problems they may face, and live better lives.
Whereas, learning about conflict the basic definition is A conflict is a struggle between people. The
struggle may be physical, or between conflicting ideas. The word comes from Latin conflingere
Conflingere means to come together for a battle. Upon various situations and circumstances conflicts
can either be within one person, or they can involve several people or groups. Conflicts arise because
there are needs, values or ideas that are seen to be different, and there is no means to reconcile
the dispute. Very often, conflicts lead to fights, or even wars (in the case where conflicts are solved
with weapons). Conflict between ideas is usually fought with propaganda. Before going any further, let
us first give a brief description of what conflict is. There are actually a lot of ways to define conflict due
to how it is used in many areas. Hence, to keep it simple for the layman, conflict pertains to the
opposing ideas and actions of different entities, thus resulting in an antagonistic state. Conflict is an
inevitable part of life. Each of us possesses our own opinions, ideas and sets of beliefs. We have our
own ways of looking at things and we act according to what we think is proper. Hence, we often find
ourselves in conflict in different scenarios; may it involve other individuals, groups of people, or a
struggle within our own selves. Consequently, conflict influences our actions and decisions in one way
or another.
Conflict is generally classified into the following four types:

3. ASSIGNEMENT: RELATION BETWEEN CONFLICTAND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RIJAN UPADHYAY
1) Interpersonal conflict: refers to a conflict between two individuals. This occurs typically due to
how people are different from one another. We have varied personalities which usually results to
incompatible choices and opinions. Apparently, it is a natural occurrence which can eventually
help in personal growth or developing your relationships with others. In addition, coming up with
adjustments is necessary for managing this type of conflict. However, when interpersonal conflict
gets too destructive, calling in a mediator would help to have it resolved.
2) Intrapersonal conflict: occurs within an individual. The experience takes place in the person’s
mind. Hence, it is a type of conflict that is psychological involving the individual’s thoughts,
values, principles and emotions. Interpersonal conflict may come in different scales, from the
simpler mundane ones like deciding whether to go organic for lunch to ones that can affect major
decisions such as choosing a career path. Furthermore, this type of conflict can be quite difficult
to handle if you find it hard to decipher your inner struggles. It leads to restlessness and
uneasiness, or can even cause depression. In such occasions, it would be best to seek a way to let
go of the anxiety through communicating with other people. Eventually, when you find yourself
out of the situation, you can become more empowered as a person. Thus, the experience evoked a
positive change which will help you in your own personal growth.
3) Intragroup conflict: is a type of conflict that happens among individuals within a team. The
incompatibilities and misunderstandings among these individuals lead to an intragroup conflict. It
is arising from interpersonal disagreements (e.g. team members have different personalities which
may lead to tension) or differences in views and ideas (e.g. in a presentation, members of the team
might find the notions presented by the one presiding to be erroneous due to their differences in
opinion). Within a team, conflict can be helpful in coming up with decisions which will
eventually allow them to reach their objectives as a team. However, if the degree of conflict
disrupts harmony among the members, then some serious guidance from a different party will be
needed for it to be settled.
4) Intergroup conflict takes place when a misunderstanding arises among different teams within an
organization. For instance, the sales department of an organization can come in conflict with the
customer support department. This is due to the varied sets of goals and interests of these different
groups. In addition, competition also contributes for intergroup conflict to arise. There are other
factors which fuel this type of conflict. Some of these factors may include a rivalry in resources or
the boundaries set by a group to others which establishes their own identity as a team.

4. ASSIGNEMENT: RELATION BETWEEN CONFLICTAND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RIJAN UPADHYAY
Conflict may seem to be a problem to some, but this isn’t how conflict should be perceived. On the
other hand, it is an opportunity for growth and can be an effective means of opening among groups or
individuals. However, when conflict begins to draw back productivity and gives way to more conflicts,
then conflict management would be needed to come up with a resolution.
Although there are differing ideologies, belief systems, cultures, histories and power structures at
the basis of violent conflict, ultimately people are the creators, benefactors and victims of this violence.
Much of the substance of conflict falls under the domain of social psychology, and previous research has
made great progress in understanding the processes that underlie intergroup relations. Several high-
status researchers have argued for the necessity of social psychological research to augment and inform
other theories of violent conflict, mainly those used by political scientists and International Relations
analysts. However, these interdisciplinary approaches are in their infancy. Moreover, social
psychological contributions to the understanding of war and other forms of violent conflict lack
integration with political theories of conflict resolution, and as such are often marginalized, ensuring
social psychology’s inability to inform and augment policy formation in this area. There are several
reasons for this. Traditional research paradigms, and most of contemporary endeavors, focus on a
laboratory based approach to understanding intergroup relations. This research typically involves
instrumental control of independent and dependent variables to find correlations between them. It is
assumed from understanding such processes at this level, a big picture of what is occurring during
interethnic, intrastate or international conflicts can be extrapolated. Certainly, laboratory work has been,
and will continually be, invaluable in understanding how individuals and groups act before, during and
after conflict. However, I suggest the emphasis on these approaches, which are removed from violent
conflict between real social groups, has limited the potential impact of social psychology in
understanding conflict and creating ideas to resolve it. The distance between laboratory studies and the
realities of actual conflict needs to be reduced, through theoretical integration and a refocus on the level
at which research is conducted, to generate and inform ideas and policies to reduce its prevalence. It is
necessary to take a step back, and look at the ‘big picture’. The world that we inhabit is constructed by
people. We form political, religious and cultural systems that are regulated and enforced by laws,
beliefs, power-structures and histories. Within these constructs, people live their lives; experiencing and
generating an amazing range of phenomena: from love to loss, youth to old age, security to injustice,
peace to war, and remembering to forgetting, to name just a few. Within this contextualized mix of

5. ASSIGNEMENT: RELATION BETWEEN CONFLICTAND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY RIJAN UPADHYAY
peoples, academia is borne out, with social psychologists given the responsibility to understand and
explain such phenomena. In general, such motivated researchers are taught to study human interaction in
a laboratory setting and somewhere between research, theory and policy, the influence of these
psychology & Society, findings become obscured to the world that people construct, give meaning to,
and experience. This is evident in the distance between social psychological findings, and meaningful
policy generation.
Although violent conflict is permeated from its inception to its proliferation and prolonging by
complex systems, essentially these are social psychological, and thus they are open to investigation and
understanding, which has the potential to generate meaningful policy solutions to reduce or end them.
The task is not straightforward, but essentially it is people who lie at the heart of conflict, and therefore
it is people who can stop it.
(Total Words Count: 1860)
Rijan Upadhyay
BCD (3rd Year)
KUSOA