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Avoidance-avoidance conflict refers to a psychological situation where a person must choose between two or more unpleasant alternatives. These conflicts are particularly stressful because neither option is desirable. This dilemma is often expressed in sayings like "caught between a rock and a hard place" or "between the devil and the deep blue sea." For instance, individuals who fear dental procedures may find themselves torn between enduring a painful toothache or facing the...

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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Aug 16, 2025

Author Spotlight: Unveiling Mechanisms of Stress Resilience - Significant Findings, Advancements, and Future Research

Author Spotlight: Unveiling Mechanisms of Stress Resilience - Significant Findings, Advancements, and Future Research

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Avoiding social interactions

Katherine Whalley¹

¹Nature Reviews Neuroscience, . nrn@nature.com.

Nature Reviews. Neuroscience

|December 21, 2022

Summary

No abstract available in PubMed .

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