The rational choice perspective maintains that disputes arise over conflicting issues and that the parties are seeking to satisfy their issues or interests. Resolution entails a problem-solving process in which the parties try to create mutually beneficial choices. The biogenetic approach believes that the conflict reaches to basic human needs which, unlike issues or interests, are ontological and must be pursued by all means at the parties' disposal. The linguistic metaphor applies to the first model, while the second holds a psychoanalytic metaphor. A stratigraphic view of human nature would place culture in a layer between interests and fundamental needs. The rational choice approach renders culture unproblematic by taking sociocultural context as a given; the biogenetic model considers culture irrelevant because its rules for conflict resolution are universal. 3 notes, 23 references.