Modes of resolution of belief dilemmas

There are two levels of analysis of intrapersonal conflict: the action level and the belief level, the former dealing with external motor responses and the latter with internal affective and cognitive processes. Particular instances of conflict may, for theoretical convenience, be localized at one or another of these levels. For example, one may ask how a person acts when simultaneously motivated to approach and to avoid an external object (3, 9, 10). Or one may ask instead what happens to the cognitive representation of an external object when the object simultaneously incurs favorable and unfavorable cognitions (12). The present paper is addressed to the latter type of question. We shall not consider the problem of whether and how the action level is to be reduced to the belief level or vice