Experiments reveal cognitive conflict enhances response inhibition in tasks involving incongruence, suggesting a positive role.
Cognitive conflict is often viewed as detrimental to performance, demanding effort, and emotionally aversive. However, when successfully resolved, it can also stimulate cognitive flexibility and adaptation. This raises a question: Can cognitive conflict positively influence subsequent cognitive processes and human behaviour, or is it inherently deleterious? We designed three independent experiments to investigate behavioural changes after congruent and incongruent Stroop items in speeded motor reactions, response inhibition and implicit memory retrieval. Results revealed that cognitive conflict had a beneficial impact selectively on response inhibition, while no impact was observed on speeded responses or memory. Our studies highlight the positive consequences of cognitive conflict in boosting human cognition and behaviour, beyond the classic conflict adaptation, but only when both tasks involve conflict.
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Pietra et al. (2025) studied this question.
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