Final answer:
Defenses in the conflict model of personality are believed to arise as strategies to manage intrapsychic conflicts between the id, ego, and superego to reduce anxiety, as per Freud's psychoanalytic theory.
Step-by-step explanation:
In the conflict model of personality, defenses are believed to arise as strategies to manage intrapsychic conflicts. This model draws on the ideas of Sigmund Freud, who suggested that our personality develops from a conflict between our biological aggressive and pleasure-seeking drives and our internalized social controls over these drives. The components involved in this internal struggle include the id, ego, and superego. Defenses, or defense mechanisms, as conceptualized by Freud, are unconscious protective behaviors that aim to reduce anxiety when the ego struggles to mediate the conflict between the id and the superego. Essentially, these mechanisms are employed by the ego to protect the individual from experiencing the anxiety that arises from these conflicts.
Therefore, the correct option is C) They emerge as strategies to manage intrapsychic conflicts. Defense mechanisms are not seen as just innate biological responses, learned responses only due to societal expectations, or solely originating from external environmental influences. They are complex processes that emerge to help individuals deal with the anxieties produced by the psychological warfare going on within their minds.