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Conflict modification: predictable production of congruent situations facilitates responding in a stroop task

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Abstract

Humans cope with cognitive conflict in various ways, such as focusing on task-relevant instead of task-irrelevant information or avoiding situations where conflict is likely. These adaptations to conflict resemble those used to cope with negative affect. We examined whether situation modification, a strategy derived from the extended process model of emotion regulation, may influence responding in cognitive conflict tasks. This should be evident by a facilitation of actions that consistently modify situations towards congruent (positive) situations rather than to incongruent (negative) situations. In four experiments, participants modified stimuli in a color-word Stroop task towards congruent or incongruent stimuli of (un)predictable identity. A modification effect emerged insofar as participants were faster when they foreseeably produced congruent stimuli of predictable identity than when they produced incongruent stimuli or stimuli of unpredictable identity. Our results add to the body of evidence connecting affect and cognitive conflict, and reveal a constraint when using situation modification as a means to regulate cognitive conflict.

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Funding

This research was partly funded by a grant of the German Research Foundation DFG Ku 1964/6-3.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Psychology III, University of Würzburg, Röntgenring 11, 97070, Würzburg, Germany

    Constantin Schmidts, Anna Foerster & Wilfried Kunde

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  1. Constantin Schmidts
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  2. Anna Foerster
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  3. Wilfried Kunde
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Correspondence to Constantin Schmidts.

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All procedures performed in studies involving human participants were in accordance with the ethical standards of the institutional and/or national research committee and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.

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Schmidts, C., Foerster, A. & Kunde, W. Conflict modification: predictable production of congruent situations facilitates responding in a stroop task. Psychological Research 83, 1722–1732 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1021-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00426-018-1021-8

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