That's why I believe that talking about "conflict resolution as intrinsic" or an urge to "get resolution" is both unnecessary and erroneous: people DO experience negative reinforcement from conflict, but this is not the same thing as a desire for resolution.

A very good point. It's much more accurate to say that people have an aversion to internal conflicts, and that this is part of the inbuilt mechanism for mediating between conflicting desires. This is a better way to word what I am getting at. "Desire for resolution" can be easily misinterpreted. For example, I did not mean a "desire for a rational resolution in actuality." That would preclude the mechanism from being a factor in procrastination, and I believe it is a part of that. I think it is also related to the Paradox of Choice.

http://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/0060005688

As with many evolved mechanisms, it works imperfectly, but well enough (especially when viewed in the context of a Stone Age denizen's life).

If you have a goal to get a soda from the fridge, and therefore a subgoal of walking across the room, but there is something in your way, then you will desire to go around it. To posit even a "drive" to "get resolution" is adding unnecessary entities to the equation.

I don't think it's an unnecessary entity, merely a mis-stated one.

Remember the context of the OP. I thought we were talking about perceived conundrums. When a way to "go around it" is not immediately obvious, then one sometimes makes up an impractical subgoal, like "I want to want to have sex with women," from example 3. It's often the case that there is an awareness of the impracticality of such subgoals, and as such it offers inadequate relief, but the impractical subgoal still becomes a fixation. I have generally found myself in conundrums actively seeking some answer. But it seems reasonable that this is not going to be everyone's reaction, and the drive is actually avoidance of conflict.