Rebel Without a Cause: An Interpersonal CONflict Seeking (CONS) Scale

Abstract

Interpersonal conflicts constitute an essential component of everyday life. The present research aimed to create a measure of the general individual orientation towards conflict, of the individual tendency to seek conflict. We conducted three correlational studies (Ntotal = 652) in order to validate the CONS (CONflict Seeking), to study the associations between this new measure and other antisocial and conflictual positions, and to study associations with potential individual motivations and perception of one’s tendencies to get into conflicts. In addition to good internal consistency, the scale displayed adequate concurrent validity (e.g., coherent correlations with personality traits). Conflict seeking was found to positively correlate with need for chaos, anomia, and conspiracy mentality, and the tendency to actually experience conflict in everyday life. In addition, CONS scores correlated positively with need for uniqueness and dominance motivation. Thus, conflict seeking would be linked to status seeking, potentially referring to a way to promote one's identity as a rebel without a cause.