Conceptualizing Psychology as the Science of Conflict Resolution

Abstract

This essay introduces psychological concepts based on the scientific analysis of the creative process as a conflict resolution entity. This conceptualization was founded on Formal Theory’s examining emotions as energetic entities and the unconscious, as manifested in creativity, as an energy and attitude transformation homeostatic mechanism. The theory evolved based on two observations: periodicity of a pattern and formal analysis of alternative cultural patterns. The unconscious therefore became a natural science, moral order measurable, qualifiable, graphically portrayable unit entity integrating art and science, psychology and morality. The benefit of this conceptualization is in its capacity to analyze the creative process utilizing a self-assessment, the Conflict Analysis Battery and playing Moral Monopoly, studying cultural stories reconciling religions. The scientific analysis of the conflict resolving unconscious transformed psychology into the Science of Conflict Resolution, the Moral Science. Accordingly organizational happiness examines social systems: the family, religions and ideologies as normative systems that are diagnosable, measurable, graphically portrayable, conflict resolving systems. Mindfulness, and Coping Strategies are examined in the context of a concise program of emotional education integrating art and science, using the self-assessment for self-discovery, and studying cultural stories examining the evolution of religions into the Moral Science.

1. Introduction

The unconscious has been abandoned by contemporary psychology. Psychology has become an agnostic medical specialty, not interested in conflict, insight, and sociological changes. Psychology, as neuroscience, has been looking for answers studying the brain and utilizing medical interventions. This psychology focuses on illness rather than on wellness, diagnostic categories identify clusters of symptoms as stigmatizing illness diagnoses, assessments identify traits, not helping people to understand their personalities, and therapies address symptoms, not resolution of conflicts. Contemporary psychology is deprived of both basic science and the understanding of morality. Psychology’s failure is manifested in the inability to educate students in achieving the three objectives of education: integration of art and science, self-knowledge and clarity of moral values [1].

Psychology’s challenge in our times is in the scientific conceptualization of the unconscious. This is the conceptual focus of the Formal Theory of Behavior [2]. It advances a radically different position, presenting psychology as the exact Science of Conflict Resolution, the Moral Science.

The science begins by analyzing emotions as energetic and the unconscious as a conflict resolution energetic transformation mechanism.

The Formal Theory identified the unconscious as a natural science and moral order entity, conducting an energetic transformation consisting of a syndrome of emotions, a six-role state dialectic, leading to four types of conflict resolution social/moral adjustments, attitude changes. These are recognized as four relational modalities, a wellness personality typology. The wellness diagnoses account for pathology by distinguishing intensity of emotions. The unconscious as a natural science entity is measurable. A psychological self-assessment generates insights and guidance for changes. By understanding morality as conflict resolution, the Formal Theory recognizes religions as formally interrelated complementary discoveries of science that can be integrated into the new Moral Science.

The Moral Science Primer [1], presents multiple validations of Formal Theory’s premise on the creative process as a conflict resolution energetic entity reflecting the unconscious. It is shown to integrate art and science, psychology and morality, religions among themselves, biology, sociology, and anthropology. This evidence validates the Formal Theory into the Moral Science.

Formal Theory’s object of study has been the creative process; its method of study has been relational logic [3], as opposed to the currently used axiomatic or propositional method departing from arbitrary hypotheses to develop comprehensive models. Axiomatic statements vary as theories or stories, the relational method’s alternative focus is on the universal structure, the plot of stories, identified as an energetic transformation, experienced emotionally and socially as conflict resolution. This emotional process accounts for the psychic origin of moral reasoning and also for pathologies.

The energetic and formal analysis of the creative process identified the unconscious as consisting of two entities: an emotional dialectic of six-role states, a syndrome, and an equilibrial transformation system of four types of conflict resolutions, the relational modalities. This premise is validated by identifying the six-role process syndromal structure of stories and the relational modality resolutions of the heroes of stories.

The Moral Science Primer [1] presents four types of validations of the theory:

1. Examining the art exhibits of the Museum of the Creative Process identifying the syndromal dialectic and the relational modalities in the analysis of multiple art exhibits [4];

2. Reviewing case studies using creativity for self-discovery again identifying the dialectic and the relational modalities structure of personal samples of creativity [5];

3. Reconciling religions as sanctifications of the four alternative types of conflict resolution, which thus may be integrated into the Moral Science.

4. A new validation has also been contributed by artificial intelligence, chat bots, through the analysis of any natural language text as consisting of the six-role syndromal process and the characters of texts diagnosed correctly as relational modalities [6].

The orderly formal analysis of conflict resolutions replaces the need for biological or neuroscientific attribution of psychopathology and the metaphysical attribution of morality. The shift of focus comprehending the structure of emotions as scientific energetic conflict resolution transformations following two phenomena of science leads to identifying meaning in software versus attributions to neuroscience, that is hardware, and theistic attributions to account for morality. The impact of this transformative research on psychology is like transforming astrology to astronomy, alchemy to chemistry and philosophy to clear principles of logic and physics. The Moral Science comprehends personal and sociological conflict choices founded on normative determinations thus placing ethics on the principles of the conflict resolution respecting laws of science.

2. Conflict Analysis, the Formal Theory of Behavior

The formal theoretical position studying emotions as energy and the creative process as a conflict resolution phenomenon evolved based on two observations: the first was of the recurrence of a pattern in the Greek creation stories. I puzzled over the cross-generational transmission of the pattern identifying the process as a syndrome consisting of six interrelated emotions (Figure 1) [7].

Figure 1.

The two observations that inspired the Formal Theory: periodicity and formality of alternative approaches to the apple metaphor as murals #1 and #6 the Sanctuary of Wisdom, at the Museum of the Creative Process.

Stress, Role Oppression, was induced by a father, considering a son as a potential murderer, leading the father to oppress his son. The Role Oppression elicited in the son a Role Assumption, killing the father. The killing led to anxiety in the mind of the transgressor as Anticipations of a Role Reversal, being killed by one’s children. This anxiety led to averting one’s demise by a Counterphobic Role Assumption: killing one’s children. This action provoked mothers to empower children to kill fathers, causing the hero’s Role Reversal. Fathers were killed by their sons. One’s demise, at the end of the cycle, elicited a Compromise Role Assumption: fathers cursing their children to be killed in their turn.

The cross-generational transmission of the six-role pattern accounted for the periodicity of the pattern. Upon the fourth repetition, Zeus swallowed Metis, his wife, averting being killed by her child; the child was Athena, who eventually was appointed as the goddess of Athens by her son, Erichthonius. The pattern was modified, leading to a conflict resolution, the creation of a religion, that of the Greek gods thriving on Olympus [4]. The conclusion from this observation was that religions are psychological sociological conflict resolution phenomena (Figure 2).

Figure 2.

The six roles of the conflict resolution process as detected with the analysis of the Greek cosmogony pattern, illustrated above in mural #1 of the Sanctuary of Wisdom, at the Museum of the Creative Process.

The second observation that inspired the Formal Theory was the relationship between four different cultural stories in dealing with power, or temptation; Figure 1 identifies four interrelated types of dealing with the apple metaphor as alternative types of conflict resolution. The Greek apple inscribed ‘to the fairest’ generated competitiveness; it led to the Trojan War. The Judaic apple was forbidden; it led to cooperation. The Hindu apple was the sacred cow, which led men to austere asceticism, while the Aztec apple was a person’s bleeding heart extracted from a victim, offered to the gods, thus eliciting maximal antagonism between parties. All these metaphors corresponded to alternative relational modalities, religions were normative institutions in formal relationship to each other. They embraced formally related types of resolving conflict. The apple metaphors were in formal relationship with each other. I recognized in the alternative choices three formal operations: reciprocity, negation and correlation, the formula of the formal operations restoring balance to the trays of a scale: I = RNC. (Identity is equal to the product of three operations: reciprocity, negation and correlation [7].

The first observation about periodicity was attributed to the transformation of emotions as energetic forms of the oscillating pendulum. The second observation pointing to formal alternatives between cultures represented the operations restoring the balance to the trays of a scale (Figure 3). The psychic scale’s equilibrium could be restored with three operations: the first was the opposite behavior, removing the weight, transforming antagonism to cooperation, the second was the reciprocal change, placing a weight on the other tray of the scale; passivity was corrected by activity, and the third operation was shifting the weight on the fulcrum of the scale, the correlative change, the psyche evolving from alienation to mutual respect. The three operations corresponded to the syndromal emotional sequence summed up as attitude change, normative compliance, reduction of social conflict.

Figure 3.

The two phenomena of science corresponding to the two aspects of the unconscious, the syndromal six role process and the four relational modalities.

The two observations, periodicity and formality of equilibrial principles, led me to identify physical phenomena transforming energy as well as attitude as characteristics of the creative process. These were the operations underlying conflict resolution. The formal operations of the equilibrial scale accounted for the alternative types of conflict resolution as attitude change. The formal operations transformed a state of passivity to one of activity, one of antagonism to its opposite, cooperation, the third changed a state of alienation to one of mutual respect. The conclusion was that the unconscious consisted of a syndrome of six emotions: stress and response, anxiety and defense, reversal and compromise, leading to four relational modalities: dominance versus subordinacy, in two variations: cooperative versus antagonistic.

The two phenomena of science conceptualized the unconscious as an energetic and attitude transforming entity beginning from a conflict, identified as passivity, antagonism and alienation, transformed to resolution as activity, cooperation and mutual respect. The attitude change restructured a person’s disposition in the normative system. This energetic attitude transformation explained the adaptive and moral function of the unconscious. It conceptualized catharsis, the Greek word described by Aristotle as attitude change by identifying with the play’s tragic hero [8], upon watching a Greek tragedy and experiencing an energetic modification. Psychic tension was released for the hero and for the audience, leading to catharsis, attitude change, an emotional sociological normative adjustment.

This scientific explanation clarified the unconscious as consisting of two components: 1. an energetic transformation syndrome of six-role states, six emotions, and 2. of the four relational modalities, the four types in resolving conflict, the diagnostic categories of wellness. Conflict resolution therefore corresponds to attitude change. The unconscious is defined then as a homeostatic function reducing psychic tension by modifying one’s attitude. Homeostasis, conflict resolution, reduces psychic tension and increases social adjustment.

The unconscious transforming conflict related emotional energy to moral growth, conducts psychosynthesis, like chlorophyll’s capturing solar energy in photosynthesis transforming it to physical growth. Religions have identified the alternative resolutions and sanctified them [1].

The equation of a psychological entity with the phenomena of science introduced constructs and formulas of science into the study of individual behavior as well as that of religions. This meant that the human unconscious as well as the cultural systems could be conceptualized with the constructs and formulas of the two scientific phenomena. Accordingly, the unconscious is graphically portrayable, it is measurable, and it leads to morality, conflict resolution as advocated by the respective religions.

The Moral Science’s concepts represent a scientific breakthrough: unifying psychological disciplines through the scientific analysis of the creative process (Table 1).

1. Epistemology; Motivation is driven by the need to reduce psychic tension and improve social adjustment.	2. Diagnoses; Personality typology consists of syndromes and four relational modalities, wellness and pathologies accounted for by a personality typology.
3. Assessment; The Conflict Analysis Battery is a self-assessment that is didactic, diagnostic and therapeutic.	4. Morality; Religions are normative institutions that identified and deified sequentially the four relational modalities. They evolved in abstraction and fairness, but have remained moral monopolies that may be integrated into the Moral Science.

Table 1.

The Moral Science Primer’s [1] four sections integrate the disciplines of epistemology, diagnosis, assessment and morality.

italics added for emphasis.

The Formal Theory revamps psychology by introducing the study of the creative process as the object of formal analysis. It defines the unconscious as an energetic transformation, manifested as attitude change abiding by the constructs and formulas of two phenomena of science. This unconscious is graphically portrayable, it is qualifiable as wellness diagnoses; it is measurable with a self-assessment, generating insights, and guidance for changes. It clarifies the evolution of religions as discoveries of the alternative types of conflict resolution. The study of the creative process is the core for a new science [9].

The two observations are illustrated in two murals of the Sanctuary of Wisdom of the Museum of the Creative Process (Figure 1). The one presents the six-role syndrome, the second the four modalities as choices in dealing with the apple metaphor. The observations conceptualize psychology and religions by identifying the study of the creative process as a scientific conflict resolution measurable and graphically portrayable mechanism representing the unconscious. The unconscious pattern as a natural science energy transforming becomes the unit order of the social sciences, placing psychology and morality on the analysis of the creative process as a natural science moral order phenomenon (Figure 4).

Figure 4.

The graphic representation of the unconscious as the unit integrating the four disciplines of psychology.

Epistemology: Epistemology identifies the unconscious by observing the creative process as a scientific conflict resolution mechanism consisting of an emotional six-role state dialectic leading to four alternative conflict resolutions. The process abides by two phenomena of science. It consists of a six emotions energy transforming dialectic guided by two innate formal principles, reciprocity and negation, leading to four alternative types of conflict resolution and a third formal operation correlation accounting for wellness versus pathologies.

The Formal Theory defines the unconscious as a physiological processor of energy; the six-role process converts conflict energy into emotional and social adjustment or personal growth. The function of the unconscious process is homeostatic; it reduces unpleasant psychic tension by converting conflict or displeasure, maladjustment, through attitude change to order, restoring the rest state as normative relational adjustment. This energetic transformation unfolds as a syndrome, a constellation of emotions and behaviors existing as a circumscribed pattern consisting of six-role states: stress, response, anxiety, defense, reversal and compromise guided by three formal attitude-modifying formal operations to four alternative types of relational modalities.

Thus, the unconscious is a conflict resolution or moral order equilibrial phenomenon that has energetic, physical and formal, relational dimensions allowing its qualitative and quantitative measurement. The six-role state emotional continuum predictably unfolds upon any stressor as emotions and associations in one’s mind as well as through interpersonal exchanges as three emotional oscillations guided by the three formal equilibrial operations seeking restoration of emotional balance as relief of tension.

The unconscious resolves conflicts as a syndrome guided by the three formal equilibrial operations of the restoration of balance to the trays of a scale. The three formal operations transform passivity to its reciprocal, activity, antagonism to its opposite, cooperation, and alienation to its correlative: mutual respect. Accordingly, the unconscious self-adjustment, the conflict resolution process, propels the individual one directionally to increased inner order, transforming stress energy into internalized and externally reinforced organization of behaviors along three formal operations each having a dichotomy.

Diagnosis: The Formal Theory innovates the field of diagnoses introducing two components in the analysis of diagnostic categories, syndromes and relational modalities. We identify four relational modalities unfolding as syndromes. These represent a personality typology, a new set of wellness diagnostic categories. Hence diagnosis is about identifying these two components of the unconscious. They are of psychodynamic nature accounting for pathogenesis, psychopathology and for psychotherapeutic interventions. The typology of wellness diagnoses as syndromes of four relational modalities is the relational alternative to the axiomatically established mental illnesses diagnoses, Diagnostic Statistical Manual 5 [9]. Of course, we recognize the medical nature of certain major psychopathologies independently of the relational psychodynamic make up of wellness diagnoses.

Diagnostic categories are determined by the innate formal distinctions. The operation of reciprocity introduces two distinctions: passivity versus activity; the operation of negation distinguishes the alternatives of cooperation and antagonism; these two formal operations lead to four conflict resolution modalities: the dominant and submissive relating; the formal operation of negation qualifies each one of the two reciprocal responses along the opposite directions of cooperation and antagonism. The four relational modalities are viewed relationally as power distinctions: dominance and subordinancy and attitude distinctions: as their cooperative and antagonistic variations. These four entities represent four wellness diagnostic categories. The psychic, emotional load, intensity of responses is addressed by the third operation: correlation, whose dichotomy is alienation versus mutual respect as high versus low psychic tension, wellness versus illness. The third formal operation allows the measurement of the individual’s psychic tension, reflecting the intensity of conflict experienced as maladjustment or neuroticism. Dominant individual’s pathology is in generating societal conflicts, while submissive individuals generate inner or psychic conflicts. Alienation, as increased intensity, may manifest with clinical symptoms as illness.

Assessment and therapy: The Conflict Analysis Battery [10] is a self-assessment leading to self-knowledge, becoming conscious of the unconscious and aware of the need to modify one’s power, attitude and intensity of emotions. The assessment is deliverable online and as a workbook. It is introduced by an essay explaining the scope of the evaluation, then it combines a personality inventory, which is diagnostic with a set of creativity exercises, which are therapeutic. The inventory measures the modalities and also the psychic tension, pertaining to the intensity of conflicts experienced; it identifies relational modalities as qualitative distinctions, it also measures intensity of relational choices be those of dominance, submission, cooperation, and antagonism. The creativity tests, use metaphors to capture the six emotions of the syndromal structure of the process. They reconstruct the process, which generates insights and motivation for changes. The online delivery of the assessment is completed with a seven point report that is diagnostic and therapeutic.

The Conflict Analysis Battery helps the test taker to learn about the process, then to become conscious of the personal pattern, providing insights and guidance for relational changes. The assessment thus, is didactic, diagnostic and therapeutic. It represents a concise program of emotional education [11] that reconciles the humanities and the rigorous disciplines, delivers self-knowledge and clarity of moral values.

Morality: Religions are normative institutions seeking the reduction of personal and sociological conflicts. They command absolute authority on the faithful based on dogma. They do not allow critical analysis of the thought process. The science integrates religions as discoveries of the alternative ways of resolving conflicts by identifying progressively the three formal operations of resolving conflict: moderation, cooperation and mutual respect. The formal analysis of cultural stories integrates religions as moral monopolies into the Moral Science. Moral Monopoly is an educational game that recognizes religions as sanctifying the compliment of relational modalities in a progression of improving the family institution. Now religions reduced to particular conflict resolutions become accountable to the Moral Science determining the ultimate ethics. The public and the nations have now the rational analysis of morality as the charted paths to conflict resolution [12, 13].

Conceptual equivalences, Tables 2 and 3, wherein the unconscious process has been identified both by religions and psychoanalysis descriptively. These descriptions represent insights into science. Religions deified the moral authority of the unconscious, while psychological theorizing introduced clinical and philosophical explanations.

God	The unit of the creative process unconscious
Genesis	The six-role process and the formal operations leading to catharsis, energy transformation
The Ten Commandments	The formal operations of conflict resolution, moderation, cooperation and mutual respect
The four children asking ‘what is special this night?’	Four relational modalities and syndromes
Celebration of the texts and the commandments	Moral education with Creativity and Power Management
Yom Kippur	The importance of introspection
Passover	Emotional education: assertiveness as the value system, confronting unjust authority empowered by principles of justice

Table 2.

Contrasting equivalent concepts of religion and the formal theory.

Observation	Hysteria	Periodicity of cosmogony
Object of study	Oedipus complex	The formal connection of the cultural metaphors of dealing with temptation.
Methodology	Propositional axiomatic method	Relational method
Unconscious	Defined as generating conflicts	Defined as reducing conflicts as adaptive attitude change
Motivation	Drives of libido and thanatos	Transforming conflict energy along three relational operations.
Energy	Cathexis and catharsis, the structural model	Emotions are energetic quantities. Catharsis is in the processing of emotions.
Structure	Id, ego, and superego	Six-role energetic transformation process, as continuity of action.
Relational principles	Defense mechanisms	Formal operations binding the six-role states: Identity = Reciprocity x Negation x Correlation
Graphics	Non-existing	Sine curve and concentric circles and ellipses with vectors
Diagnostic distinctions	Transference determined by formative experiences	Relational modalities are innate syndromal patterns of conflict resolution, personality types.
Developmental model	Oral, anal, phallic	Symbolic fixations upon traumatic experiences
Diagnostic therapeutic model	Couch, object relations, analysis of transference	Conflict Analysis Battery, combines a diagnostic inventory and therapeutic metaphors.
Morality	Moses as Oedipal dynamics	Morality is determined by the unconscious need of resolving conflicts
Civilizations	Philosophical analysis of discontents	Religions evolved as sanctification of the alternative ways of resolving conflicts.

Table 3.

Contrasting equivalent concepts of psychoanalysis and the formal theory.

2.1 Organizational happiness: formal analysis of sociological systems

This section is an essay about the integration of psychological and sociological conceptual languages on the foundation that the unconscious creative process, a scientific conflict resolution phenomenon, is the integrative paradigm of both psychic and societal systems. The syndromal structure and relational modality function is the unit of the social sciences measuring individuals and organizations alike. The conceptualization of the unconscious as the unit order allows the integration of the disciplines of psychology: epistemology, wellness diagnoses, assessment, and therapeutic modalities with the study of cultural systems. Thus, all sociological phenomena such as the family, the organization, the culture, become measurable and graphically portrayable conflict resolution entities.

In this section we introduce the conflict resolution process analysis of social systems utilizing two metaphors of sociological reality. The first is the symbolism of the American Flag as reflecting the two components of the unconscious in the analysis of social systems. The stars of this flag correspond to relational modalities in relationship with each other and the stripes of the flag correspond to syndromes of social systems examined. The second symbolic system is the deck of cards examining the formal interrelation of four suits as reflecting the four types of conflict resolution. The signs of the deck of cards indicate the relational modalities, while the suits represent the syndromes of the relational alternatives.

The flag presents three sections of the syndromal process to illustrate the shift from art to science, the cross-generational transmission and the versatility of the graphic portrayal of alternative types of conflict resolution.

Mural #2: The Flag of the United Metaphors of the World, Figure 5, shows that the Conflict Resolution Process is the common denominator of all social systems, indeed of all moral paradigms [4]. This flag celebrates the discovery that the unit process, the measurable entity of moral order by integrating the diversity of hitherto alienated belief systems into a familiar image that now is given physical and formal dimensions measuring religions and ideologies as graphically portrayable natural science phenomena [13]. The formal methodology reconciles the diversity of value systems as merely different approaches to conflict resolution. The unit of the unconscious is the structure underlying religions as well as those based on ideologies, such as economic paradigms of capitalism and communism. The revised American flag unites all religions and ideologies through the scientific interpretation of moral paradigms based on the measurability of the formal operations of power, attitude, and intensity and of their syndromal unfolding as a system of six role states. The flag illustrates the formal and natural scientific graphic composition of cultures as measurable syndromes and identifiable relational modalities (Figure 6).

Figure 5.

The Flag of the United Metaphors illustrates the two components of the unconscious, the six-role syndromal process as stripes, and the relational modalities as stars placed in measurable parameters.

Figure 6.

The star section of the flag of the united metaphors presents religions and ideologies as having measurable dimensions.

Thus, the cultural metaphors placed on the power field in the context of each other’s dimensions are given an accurate social/emotional formal qualitative and quantitative description. I.e., the Judaic system, qualified as cooperative dominance (or assertiveness), is positioned on the dominant cooperative quadrant. Islam and Greece, characterized as valuing dominance and competitiveness, are placed on the second quadrant. Christianity and Buddhism characterized as the cooperative subordinacy choices are placed on the submissive cooperative third quadrant. The matriarchal submissive antagonistic modality is placed on the fourth quarter. Each normative system is then interrelated to each other as stars placed on suitable orbital positions and as stripes with different undulations. This implies that the constellations of the symbols of religions and cultures, the metaphors of the cultures of the world: the Cross, the Star of David, the Islamic Crescent and Star, the Oriental Yin-Yang, the bear brandishing the communist hammer and sickle, and the capitalist eagle, are all measurable alternative paths to conflict resolution [1, 13]. The four corners of the star section of the flag are occupied by four relational alternatives. The matriarchy and patriarchy on the left side indicate the antagonistic and polarized nature of the primitive religions. The Abrahamic religions on the right represent the dominant.

The striped section of the flag represents the syndromal process. It is the universal harmonic reflecting the graphic representation of the six-role process. The flag’s stripes consist of variations of the Conflict Resolution Process, the common denominator, the atomistic unit of all moral metaphors, religions, and ideologies. The stripes of the flag are modifiable. There are three sets of stripes illustrating the unit, the unit’s cross-generational transmission, and its variability.

• One set interprets the unit process from art to science as a syndrome of six-role states.

• The second set focuses on the cross-generational transmission of the pattern, as observed in the four consecutive generations of the Greek Cosmogony. This set of stripes interlock cross-generationally along with the six-role states transmitting the process. The interlocking of the four generations of the Greek Cosmogony determines the qualities of the transmitted pattern.

• The third set of stripes in the flag addresses the cross-cultural variability of the unit process as it is used to depict four principal cultural relational alternatives. The modification of the sine wave eases the recognition of four pronounced variations corresponding to the four major cultures: the Greek sine curve is a snake, the Mexican Indian is a feathered serpent, the Judaic is a scroll, and the Oriental is a dragon. These four cultural paradigms illustrate four relational modalities or diagnostic categories of everyday cultural normative structuring of role relations (Table 4).

Integrating art and science	Greek cosmogony	Cross cultural study
The flag presents the unit in full detail as the evolution from art to science.	The flag displays the unit in its cross-generational transmission and evolution.	The flag shows the unit’s cross-cultural variability.

Table 4.

The stripes illustrate the syndromal structure integrating art and science, cross-generation transmission and cross-cultural variability.

2.1.1 Three symbolisms of the game as the template of the unconscious

In parallel to evolving creation stories revamping norms in family relations, the public explored conflict resolution playing table games about family feuds. Chess is a game of family conflicts with clearly assigned roles for the members of the family as chess pieces. Another symbolic system, the deck of cards addresses four types of conflict resolutions between four cultures as representative royal families representing four cultures’ alternative types of resolving conflicts as identified by the signs symbolic system. The four signs: the spade, the club, the diamond and the heart may be viewed as formally interrelated representing the four relational modalities. The signs structure the deck along formal distinctions.

• The colors red and black symbolize an opposite relationship: cooperation in red and antagonism in black. Accordingly spade and club in black, diamond and heart in red, may be viewed as symbolizing the opposites of antagonism and cooperation. Both the diamond and the heart as red denote cooperation.

• We may infer a reciprocal interrelation between the same-colored signs: The spade is an upside-down heart in black, needled by an arrow, portraying passivity. The club in black represents an explosion, activity, the reciprocal to the passivity state of the spade. Similarly, the diamond as straight lines, symbolizes containment, passivity, while the heart is a symbol of activity in a reciprocal position to the diamond.

• Both spade and diamond on the left quadrants reflect passivity and as opposite in color, reflect the opposites of antagonism and cooperation.

• Similarly, the heart and the club, both in mastery positions differ in color as the opposites of cooperation and antagonism.

• While the spade symbolizes conflict as passivity, antagonism, and alienation the heart symbolizes conflict resolution: mastery, cooperation and mutual respect.

• We may infer in the symbolism of the signs as a system, the continuity of emotional growth. Resolutions of conflict seem to evolve along the power and attitude formal distinctions from the conflictual spade to the resolved heart. Thus, the deck of cards brings together in one symbolic system the microcosm of the unconscious as seeking amelioration in resolutions of cultural relational alternatives.

2.1.2 Moral monopoly: analysis of the deck’s gameboard retraces the evolution of religions as discoveries of the relational modalities

The card game template, Figure 7, presents metaphorically three features of the human unconscious: The suits, as a six-role process, the signs as the four relational modalities, and third, the systemic evolution of signs from the spade to the heart as the amelioration of the system. This structuring entails the evolution of attitudinal improvements based on scientific principles that may be used as the template of orderly sociological and also individual emotional developments.

Figure 7.

The game-board of the card game as the template of the unconscious as captured by the evolving religions as discoveries of science.

Moral Monopoly is an educational game created as modification of the original deck of cards. The deck’s four suits correspond to the four relational modalities. Each suit leads to a different type of conflict resolution. The alternatives are portrayed in the images illustrating the family dynamics between the key figures: kings, queens, and Jacks. Each suit with its set of cards represents the unfolding of the six-role conflict resolution process, as a syndrome modified by the signs.

• In rethinking the game of cards we divide the numbered cards into two stories: a mythic and a historic one. The mythic is about the culture’s conflict and the historic about the conflict’s resolution. The two stories have different face or family figures cards: The mythic story presents a conflict from the culture’s mythology; the role model card portrays the image of family relations. The historical story is from the culture’s documented record, the role model image illustrating the culture’s dealing with power as in the apple of temptation metaphor, conveying the culture’s relational modality. Thus, the new suit has two face cards representing the role models of the suit, and two sets of numbered cards as six-role state sequences. The relation between the two stories mythic and historic represents the culture’s own conflict and type of resolution accomplishment.

• The four cultures of the card game are shown to be formally interrelated as reflected in the signs as the four types of conflict resolution. The symbols are formally related beginning from the spade as a black, upside-down heart that is poked, evolving to the upright red heart. The signs connect the four modalities into a cyclic evolutional dynamic.

• The two jokers are interpreted as representing the two phenomena of science underlying the orderly game of morality.

• The template of the new deck presents the two features of the game graphically: eight sine curves with undulations for the six episodes of stories, and two concentric circumferences with vectors clarifying the power and attitude dimensions of the four relational modalities. The figures of the signs, identifying the modalities are inserted diagonally on the template. The evolutional dynamic of the modalities is like the four seasons of the year, evolving sequentially toward optimizing conflict resolution in relational systems. They illustrate the references of periodicity in the cyclic improvement of conflict resolution. The power, attitude and intensity are graphically portrayable variables of the measurable relational operations. The six-role process is an emotional dialectic, the mental heartbeat, driven by the three formal operations, the steering mechanism as the moral compass.

The natural science dimensions of the game-board.

The game board is the map of the unconscious integrating society’s relational modalities in the mode of a continuum of transformations. The game board is a field that has measurable dimensions determined by the two scientific phenomena pertaining to the analysis of the thought process:

• The Simple Harmonic Motion as a six-part pendulum oscillation as a sine curve is the structure of every one of the eight stories. The oscillations represent the emotional heartbeat as the six episodes resolving conflict transforming energy from chaos to order. The process corresponds to motivation as the driving force to reduce psychic tension, conflict energy, displeasure as psychic tension, and to increase pleasure as social adjustment.

• The laws of the equilibrial scale as a set of four formal attitude-changing equlibrial operations divide the board into four quadrants corresponding to the four relational modalities. The four relational modality dichotomies are presented graphically as a system of horizontal distinctions in power, as dominance versus subordinancy. Vectors within the circles present the opposites of cooperation as clockwise and antagonism as counterclockwise directions. The concentricity of circles and ellipses is used to indicate intensity differentials in mythic versus historical circles, reflecting alienation versus mutual respect within a system.

The relational modality distinctions of the normative totality make the game-board into the map of the unconscious as well as the map of measurable societal reality. In the game of Moral Monopoly the suits placed on the quadrants represent four religions as discoveries of the respective relational modalities.

2.1.3 The three features of the game-board: syndromes, relational modalities and ongoing healing

The four syndromal relational alternatives combined with the eight harmonics of the process provide the graphic dimensions of the societal unconscious (Figure 8). This structuring is of educational value. It represents becoming conscious of social order in continuity with psychological order. The map helps to retrace the evolution of the religions of the world as the continuum of the alternative ways the human mind has evolved historically in identifying alternative paths of resolving conflicts. Thus, the template identifies the three key scientific variables of the unconscious thought process.

Figure 8.

Representation of the three scientific features of the unconscious unit conflict resolution process: The six-role state syndrome, the set of the four types of relational modalities as the four signs, and the sequencing of the four modalities as the periodicity of the self-improvement dynamic.

The game presents the evolution of the religions/suits as formally connected relational modalities.

Reviewing what has been described above we identify in the composition of each of the eight stories representations of a family conflict resolutions (Figure 9). Each suit begins with a face card, here on the right of the image, illustrating the family configuration of roles. The ensuing cards present the episodes of stories as a conflict resolving process. Twelve cards of each suit present two stories, one from mythic times identifying the cultural conflict, the other, a story from historic times presenting the conflict’s resolution.

Figure 9.

A sample set of storytelling cards of the Greek culture representing patriarchy’s contribution in improving family relations.

The card game presents the self-improving, self-adjusting unconscious.

The deck uses the distinctions of the four signs: the spade, club, diamond and heart symbolizing the four alternative ways of resolving conflicts, the relational modalities, identifies four quadrants of the circle in the center of the game board. Each quadrant representing a relational modality their names are spelled out in the respective quadrant. The signs introduce the periodic transformation of relational modalities reflect the evolution of the optimization of the conflict resolution process. It is predictable like the seasons of the year. The signs are indicators of the periodicity. The sequencing of the four modalities is indicated as a periodic phenomenon. The red heart conclusion of one cycle becomes the spade departure for a new cycle of transformations. The game thus becomes a metaphor of the structure of the syndromal process, of its four relational modalities, and also of the evolution of the modalities of conflict resolution as a system that automatically progresses to self-improvement.

The story cards on the orderly template of the game board, establish the formal structure of the deck along the three components of the unconscious; they establish the psychological correspondence of stories to the scientific variables of the template and reflect the order provided by the psychological science to the analysis of sociological systems. Each culture exemplified by two stories, the eight stories reflect how religions evolved, improving the family institution from matriarchy to patriarchy, to asceticism and monotheism. The players examine the formal attributes of each cultural story beginning from the antagonistic Aztec, then the Greek culture, then the cooperative Indian, and Judaic variations.

The signage of the suits, spade to heart, reflect symbolically incremental effectiveness. The modalities evolve, improving relations in the family along the signage from the black upside-down heart of the spade, to the black explosive club, through the red diamond to the upright red heart.

The compounded image features the four suits dividing the power field into four quadrants for each of the four relational modalities; these are then populated by the stories of the four cultures presented as harmonics for each of the cultural stories. The game-board illustrates the self-improving moral unconscious encompassing all religions as an orderly progression improving family relations redefining the divine. According to the imagery, religions are integrated as complementary discoveries of the Moral Science, which clarifies the six-role process evolving along the three attitude-changing principles of conflict resolution. The cultures evolved seeking mastery, cooperation, and mutual respect. The Moral Monopoly board then, as the map of the unconscious, bridges science and psychology into the Moral Science. The game allows the scientific interpretation of religions as metaphors of an organic system of interrelated self-improving conflict resolutions. The study of cultures is relevant in the training of employees of an organization as a model of ongoing emotional growth process putting resolution of conflicts in a long-term evolutional perspective.

2.2 Mindfulness, and coping strategies

2.2.1 Introducing a concise program of emotional education

The public needs to be emotionally prepared in dealing with the dilemmas of everyday life. How can the individual be prepared to deal with psychological and sociological realities? The individual needs an emotional education in handling responses to stressors be those caused by inner conflicts or external such as dealing with the family, the nation, the city, and multiplicity of moral systems, religions? The individual needs help in interacting within the contemporary organizational and political systems; especially police officers and soldiers need training in dealing with armed conflict, dealing with personal feelings, traumas, aggressions, guilt for inflicting death, and suffering losses through death of comrades, dealing with suicidal thinking. More servicemen die from inner conflicts than from combat. The learning program should educate the person about oneself, and also about understanding alternative normative systems.

Social systems have an etiquette, norms of conduct, such as dealing with sexual behavior, civil rights as defined by the constitution, soldiers must obey military discipline, such as laws in handling prisoners etc.; investors need to conduct business ethically. Individuals differ in conforming to norms; failing individuals feel emotionally disturbed, may experience remorse and social punishments.

Traditional preparations in entering the adult community is learning about rules of conduct in a number of training experiences. The Bar Mitzvah ritual trains youth to be able to read a foreign language, indeed singing it, but also assuming power by assuming a critical position in a related speech. There are no formal trainings for most normative systems. But such training is useful. Psychotherapy services patients; but the well public needs training in wellness as explanations about emotions, about modalities, clarifying the nature of the unconscious as the innate processor of emotions. The public needs to understand the alternative ways of resolving conflicts. Contemporary emotional education has been assumed by organizational training such as mindfulness, a well-accepted spirituality. New progress has been offered by Daniel Goleman’s Emotional Intelligence and Ariane Huffington’s Thrive. The problem of these training alternatives is that they do not understand the unconscious as a dialectic of emotions and as alternative modalities. This is the focus of ‘Creativity and Power Management’ a concise program of emotional education.

2.2.2 The emotional education curriculum

My vision is to create awareness of the scientific study of behavior shifting the focus of education from encyclopedic knowledge to learning about the Science of Conflict Resolution and experiencing its applications in the analysis of emotions and of normative systems. It is important to recognize how our emotions affect our perception of reality, and how understanding the distortions of perceptions can improve communications and reduce personal and interpersonal pathology. Education may reduce conflicts and make the world a safe place for all.

Based on the findings of the Moral Science studying the unconscious as a scientific conflict resolving entity through the analysis of the creative process an emotional education program has been developed identified as ‘Creativity and Power Management’. It is a well-structured emotional education program founded on the analysis of the creative process as a scientific conflict resolution mechanism. The curriculum is defined as a concise program of science-based emotional education suitable for the classroom, useful for patients as well as for the training of professionals and the general public. The curriculum consists of three segments pursuing the three objectives of the core curriculum of universities: integrating art and science, delivering self-knowledge and clarifying moral values. The integration of art and science is facilitated by viewing the art exhibits of the Museum of the Creative Process. The art exhibits demonstrate the scientific and moral nature of the unconscious. The objective of self-knowledge is attained by examining the personal creativity utilizing the Conflict Analysis Battery. The self-assessment makes a person conscious of the unconscious as an emotional education. It consists of completing creativity tasks reconstructing the syndromal process to identify one’s dialectic pattern of emotions, and in completing a personality inventory to identify one’s relational alternatives and pathology in terms of intensity of conflicts experience. The third component is the examination of normative systems by studying the evolution of religions as discoveries of the alternative ways of resolving conflict increasing in abstraction of the divine and by improving the resolution of conflicts of the family. We study normative systems in the Moral Monopoly game retracing the evolution of religions as complementary discoveries of conflict resolutions redefining the moral authority of the divine. The study demystifies religions and unites them into the abstract science of the human unconscious. Moral values are identified as the universal scientific principles of conflict resolution. Accordingly, mindfulness is a unifying spirituality approach promoting self-restraint, as reduction of conflict evoking desires. Mindfulness values compassion as the response to reality reducing competitiveness and alienating, antagonistic desire for power. Science clarifies the science underlying the moral values of mindfulness as moderation, cooperation and mutual respect.

The Moral Science concepts and practices challenge agnostic medicalized psychology and theistic religions by introducing clear parameters in examining psychological and sociological wellness, pathology, and morality. Science challenges both current therapeutic interventions and belief systems. Scientific parameters introduce accountability for both individual and ideological relational choices. The science introduces the abstract analysis of psychological and sociological reality through the examination of the creative process, reflecting the unconscious objectively as having a structure, a six-role process leading to four relational modality choices. We identify accordingly issues of power and attitude that interfere with optimal performance. The emotional education prepares a person by knowing about oneself and about social systems. It prepares a person to navigate life’s journey consciously about choices of power and attitude.

2.2.3 Online validation studies

The key educational device in becoming self-aware of one’s emotional pattern is in completing the Conflict Analysis Battery, a self-assessment. The process captures the person’s syndrome as the correlation of the six-role states as an emotional dialectic simply by completing a set of creativity exercises. The metaphor tests depart from a conflict, stress and end with a compromise. The analysis of the metaphor exercises generates emotions and also insights and recognition of needed changes. The personality inventory (Relational Modality Evaluation Scale, RMES) is diagnostic; it identifies one’s modality or spectrum thereof. The two instruments: the inventory and the projectives identify the unconscious as a meaningful emotional cathartic experience.

The completing the self-assessment without any professional services is attested in the statements of 47 individuals who completed the assessment online compensated with the method of Amazon’s group of test takers, Mechanical Turk. The statements of these individuals identify the clinical function of the experience in two approaches. One, is examining three areas of emotional growth fulfilling the program’s three objectives by using a query of 19 statements. Has the experience been didactic by learning about the new concepts of the unconscious and relational modalities, has it been diagnostic by identifying one’s psychodynamic relational pattern, and has it been therapeutic by generating insights and guidance for changes? Another approach to evaluate the experience is by seeking comments from the test takers about the impact of the testing’s emotional experience.

Summary of statistics on a group of 47 test takers regarding the assessment experience [13]. The query results confirm the effectiveness of the online delivery of the battery as an emotional education program that is educational, diagnostic and therapeutic.

The query results of the online delivery of the testing yield statistical evidence that we have a didactic, diagnostic and therapeutic instrument. The results attest that the Formal Theoretical hypothesis on the nature of the human unconscious is correct. The Query results validate the formal theoretical conceptualization and the assessment technology. It is important to consider this conceptual and technological approach as providing clarity on behavior as a science and also as generating an effective clinical and therapeutic intervention through an educational delivery.

Participants’ query responses, excerpted from [13] are presented as follows:

2.2.4 The program was didactic

The Power Management Program was informative about the concept of the unconscious as a conflict resolving entity. Agree: 91%.

The Power Management Program provided clear information about relational modalities as well- ness categories. Agree: 77%.

I felt the Power Management Program helped me gain understanding about the nature of the un- conscious as an orderly conflict resolution mechanism. Agree: 87%

2.2.5 The program was diagnostic

It helped me to identify my relational pattern. Agree: 86%

Identifying my relational pattern helped me to better understand myself. Agree: 87%

The Power Management Program helped me understand the conflict resolution process as a sequence of six emotions: stress, response, anxiety, defense, reversal, and compromise. Agree: 76%

This program helped me to identify changes to improve my relational adjustment. Agree: 83%

I found that the six-role template, combining images and text, integrated fragments of my life into a meaningful conflict resolution pattern. Agree: 75%

2.2.6 The program was therapeutic

Completing the creativity component was an emotional experience. Agree: 83%

I identified with one or both of the characters in the narrative stories that I created. Agree: 96%

This program offered me new information about myself. Agree: 79%

I was surprised by the personal relevance of the creativity component. Agree: 70%

The creativity component was therapeutic; the metaphors helped me to better understand myself and to also think of making changes. Agree: 70%

I was surprised by how much insight I gathered. Agree: 80%

This program helped me identify how to better manage power. Agree: 70%

After taking this survey, I feel more motivated to make changes in my life. Agree: 85%

I think that this survey would be useful for high school students. Agree: 75%

I think that this survey would be useful for clinical evaluations. Agree: 89%

The program offered me both diagnostic and therapeutic information about myself. Agree: 83%

2.2.7 Comments of test takers upon completing the online self-assessment as an emotional experience

While we seek the technical evidence of the process examining the associations generated as a scientific mechanism, the syndrome and the relational modalities, we also examine the clinical benefit of insights generated by the assessment. The test taker experiences clinically emotional relief and insights about one’s unconscious pattern through the assessment. S/he identifies one’s personality type as a relational modality resolving conflicts, and also identifies changes that can reduce discomfort or maladaptive adjustment (Table 5).

Reflecting on the program as a whole, please share your thoughts and feelings about this learning experience.

“It really makes you look at yourself and assess what’s going on in your life. It was a good experience and I hope I can improve my quality of life by making gradual changes to how I think about things.”

“It’s been an interesting experience! I feel like I’ve learned some new things about myself and had the chance to look at myself in a new way. I definitely feel emotionally exhausted, so I think my emotions and inner self got a good workout in!”

“I thought this experience was very unique. I am surprised I was able to learn so much about myself that I didn’t realize. I never knew that events from my past really shaped the life I have now. You don’t really see the connections as you are going through them but see the pictures and what I wrote laid out in a sequence was eye-opening.”

“It was fun but very strange.”

“This helped get a lot of feeling out. i learned somethings about myself like I’m not a good drawer, but i digress. This was a fun and interesting way of learning those things. I feel like some weight has been lifted.”

“It was hard at times, but there was a reoccurring theme throughout my life that became more apparent as the study progressed. I will continue to be kind to myself, and to protect myself from people that are not healthy for me.”

“This was very interesting! I did not know what to expect going in, but I actually had a lot of fun participating. I knew a lot of these things already, but some of my drawings really surprised me when I was asked to talk more in depth about them.”

“I really enjoyed it. I am not very good at the drawing part of it but i enjoyed trying and thinking about the different scenarios.”

“I think it was a great program to find out about oneself. It was kind of like digital meditation. I was able to recall and think about past memories and visualize them with the drawings.”

Table 5.

Comments of test takers about the self-assessment experience.

Note: Iitalics added for emphasis.

3. Conclusion: the conceptual revamping of psychology into the Moral Science

This essay introduces the formal theoretical conceptualization of the unconscious as the unit order of the social sciences integrating the disciplines of psychology into the Science of Conflict Resolution, abbreviated as the Moral Science. The key premise of the Formal Theory is that emotions are energetic entities and that the unconscious is a conflict resolving energy and attitude transformation mechanism founded on two phenomena of science. Three pendulum oscillations capture energy and three formal operations change a person’s attitude, experienced as catharsis. The energized and formalized unconscious accounts for wellness diagnoses as the alternative ways of resolving conflicts, the development of a self-assessment identifying the two components of the unconscious, syndromal structure and relational modalities, and the understanding of religions as complementary discoveries of the sanctified four key conflict resolution alternatives.

The practical significance of the new conceptualization is in its capacity to deliver clinical and educational services illustrated with the application of the new concepts in a self-assessment for the meaningful understanding of oneself. The effectiveness of the self-assessment as a concise program of emotional education is demonstrated in the statistical analysis of responses to a query, and the personal comments on the experience. These testimonials present convincing evidence of the self-assessment’s effectiveness as a didactic, diagnostic and therapeutic online intervention providing a meaningful emotional experience without requiring professional services. Self-awareness of the unconscious leads the person to conceive relational modifications optimizing relational choices. This sample delivery of the assessment is relevant for the delivery of a more extensive program of emotional education to the general public and for the delivery of the program for therapeutic services.

The effectiveness of the assessment experience validates the formal theoretical premise on the nature of the unconscious as the unit of the social sciences. The entity is shown to be a measurable natural science, conflict resolving phenomenon that leads to wellness diagnostic categories, the four relational modalities.

The conclusion from this essay and the brief sample of its validation is that the formal conceptual position challenges current diagnostic, therapeutic, educational and religious concepts and practices by introducing a promising alternative paradigm, identifying the unconscious rigorous conceptualization founded on the study of the creative process. We may conclude that this conceptual innovation challenges current psychological theory and practices [14], and that it demystifies religions as biased dogma based psychological theories. The formal theoretical conceptualization introduces a quantum leap in the social sciences by reconciling psychology and morality, art and science, biology and sociology, and integrating religions into the Science of Conflict Resolution, the Moral Science.

4. Limitations

This model’s impact may be constrained by individuals’ cognitive ability, willingness to engage in training program, and emotional readiness to experiment with self-examination. Accessing the online program, requires some technical skills and internet availability.