On the meaning of the notion of conflict and its study in social psychology.

This study is an attempt, based on historical materialism (the science of the history of social formations), to critically analyse the notion of conflict as social psychology has defined it and as social psychology has developed it with models of non-zero sum games imported from game theory. Whether it concerns the postulate of conflict resolution (which governs this domain of social psychology), or the ideological foundations of the notion of conflict, the structure of a game of the 'PDG' type and the imaginary trap it forms, or even the staging which the psycho-sociologist produces in utilizing this model, it is shown that this whole proceeding is an ideological construction which functions principally as an obstacle to true scientific knowledge of the field it covers-which can be defined as constituted by the relationships between the subjective and the political-and secondly as the raw material for a theory of ideology, which is understood as having the double function of recognition and misappreciation. Both tasks demand intensive theoretical study as part of the development of historical materialism and, from that point of view, this work should be considered only as a preliminary study. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]