Complex Interpersonal Conflict Behaviour

Theoretical Frontiers

Evert Van der Vliert

• Publisher: Psychology Press
• Year: 2013
• Print ISBN: 9781138877238
• eBook ISBN: 9781134839650
• Topic: Psychology
• Subtopic: History & Theory in Psychology
• Index: Psychology

This book is about reactions to interpersonal conflict such as avoiding, negotiating, and fighting. It breaks away from the prevailing assumption that conflict behaviours are mutually isolated reactions having mutually isolated effects. Instead, reactions are viewed as components of complex conflict behaviour that influence each other's impact on the substantive and relational outcomes. The simultaneous and sequential occurrence of, for example, problem solving and fighting should therefore be studied together and not separately. The author presents a ladder of stepwise increases in theoretical quality, and designs the sequence of chapters in such a way that the theoretical value increases step by step. The lower steps lead to the description of behavioural components and to a model of integrative and distributive dimensions. The upper steps lead to the dimensions of dual concern for one's own and the other's goals and to complexity explanations in terms of the novel paradigm of conglomerated conflict behaviour. The chapters are summarised into thirty-four interrelated propositions. Six empirical studies demonstrate the validity of crucial propositions at each level of the theoretical framework. This monograph primarily reaches out to an academic readership. However, due to its clear structure, its comprehensive propositions, its frequent use of figures, and its glossary, the book will also provide an invaluable resource for any student and practitioner interested in conflict management and negotiation.

Part One

Introduction

Chapter One

Preview

Social conflicts abound. Conflict-free families, organisations, or nations do not exist. We detect conflict in people’s frustrations and actions. Conflict becomes perceptible when individuals are annoyed by the actions of another person or a group. This is a phenomenon so omnipresent in social life that we too easily take it for granted. People react by choosing from well-trodden paths: they avoid a reproach, they accommodate a poor plan, they negotiate on a price or a problem, and sometimes they fight an opponent on principle. Social scientists first describe such conflict behaviour, then try to explain it. They picture behavioural outcomes and then recommend or prescribe effective methods of conflict management.

This book, written primarily for social and organisational psychologists and advanced psychology students, covers the domain of interpersonal conflict behaviour. Its six chapters challenge common typologies and models, which implicitly assume that a conflicting individual uses only one distinct mode of behaviour. Building on a decade of research, a new perspective is suggested. I assume that nearly every individual reaction to a conflict issue is complex. It consists of multiple components of behaviour rather than a single and pure mode of behaviour. That is, mixtures of avoiding, accommodating, compromising, problem solving, and fighting are the rule rather than the exception (cf. Blake & Mouton, 1964, 1970; Falbe & Yukl, 1992; Knapp, Putnam, & Davis, 1988; Rubin, Pruitt, & Kim, 1994; Van de Vliert & Euwema, 1996; Van de Vliert, Euwema, & Huismans, 1995; Williams, 1983, 1993; Yukl, Falbe, & Young Youn, 1993). For example, “tacit coordination” is a merger of reactions in which one sticks to one’s guns and withholds relevant information while revealing obligingness and real interests through nonverbal cues (e.g. Borisoff & Victor, 1989; Pruitt, 1981; Putnam, 1990). Such intertwinements of several reactions are the subject matter of the current monograph.

The introductory chapter presents my own definitions of conflict, conflict issue, conflict behaviour, and conflict outcome. The conflict definitions are followed by a brief discussion of two-, three-, four-, and five-part taxonomies of conflict handling. These taxonomies are then contrasted with the novel paradigm of complex conflict behaviour, which asks for the description and explanation of multiple behaviours rather than pure types of conflict handling. It will be argued that one particular theory, Blake and Mouton’s (1964, 1970) “conflict management grid,” presents the most promising descriptive and explanatory framework for future work in the area of complex conflict behaviour. As will be discussed in detail, the visual representation of the conflict management grid allows four figure-ground articulations, or faces. These differ in degree of theoretical value; that is, the extent to which they represent useful rules of correspondence between manifestations of behaviour, as well as between these behavioural manifestations and their antecedents and consequences. These grid faces serve as the basis for the design of the book in such a way that each chapter aims to add theoretical value to the preceding chapters.

Conflict Definitions

Conflict refers to a person’s experience of discord due to a socially induced subject matter. It elicits complex, goal-directed reactions and produces benefits or costs for all people involved. This fairly extensive definition is not public property. For most people, “conflict” is just another word for fighting in the sense of attacking and defending actions. They are right, of course, in that any conflict with other people involves social behaviour. They are wrong, however, in that they conflate the issue and the reaction of fighting. Scientists working in the field of social conflict have made a sharp distinction between conflict issue and conflict behaviour. This distinction broadens one’s perspective on conflict management from attacking and defending to alternative modes of conflict handling such as nonconfrontation and negotiation (Bartunek, Kolb, & Lewicki, 1992; Lax & Sebenius, 1986; Lewicki & Litterer, 1985; Rubin, Pruitt, & Kim, 1994; Wall, 1985). Here I shall use the following more specific concepts of conflict, conflict issue, conflict behaviour, and conflict outcome.

Conflict. Individuals are in conflict when they are obstructed or irritated by another individual or a group and inevitably react to it in a beneficial or costly way. If a husband is annoyed because he has wishes different from those of his wife about the desirable number of children, if a manager accuses a subordinate of laziness, or if ministers of two countries are seeking hegemony over the same piece of land with military aid, the parties have a conflict. Obviously, this concept is much too broad to be scientifically useful. It thus needs specification. Nevertheless, we can derive some preliminary insights from it. Important aspects and implications of this general definition of conflict include:

• a conflict is social because another individual or a group is involved;
• a conflict can be one-sided, when only one party experiences discord but avoids any communication about the problem;
• the existence of one-sided conflicts asks for a conceptualisation of conflict handling in terms of one-sided rather than two-sided response.

Conflict issue. A conflict issue is an experience of a subject matter of discord due to obstruction or irritation by one or more other people. In the above illustrations, the desired number of children, the laziness of the subordinate, and the ownership of the piece of land are the issues. One is taking them personally if one feels threatened, anxious, damaged, devalued, or insulted (Dallinger & Hample, 1995). Important aspects and implications of this specific definition of conflict issue include:

• a conflict issue is a subjective experience and does not necessarily have a real objective basis;
• the nature of a conflict issue may be cognitive or affective, or both (perception of blocked goals and disagreement, or feelings of repulsion, hostility, fear);
• the magnitude or intensity of a conflict issue may vary: a conflict de-escalates when the discord decreases, but it escalates when the discord increases;
• a conflict issue is not necessarily coupled with particular conflict behaviour toward the other party.

Important types of conflict issues are: incompatible beliefs about reality, disagreement about goals or actions, competition for scarce resources, and discontent bringing a person’s identity into play (similar and other typologies may be found in Coombs, 1987; Deutsch, 1973; Fink, 1968; Glasl, 1980; Rahim, 1992; Walton, 1987). Deutsch (1973) called such issues veridical conflicts when they exist objectively and are perceived accurately. Additionally, he distinguished them from illusory conflicts based on misperception, misunderstanding, or displacement of the discord.

Conflict behaviour. Conflict behaviour is defined as an individual’s intended or displayed outward reaction to the conflict issue experienced. As a rule, people intend or display several reactions in varying degrees, which they aggregate into a unique manifestation of components of conflict behaviour, henceforth referred to as conglomerated conflict behaviour. For example, a seller who sees a stalemate coming will often threaten a potential buyer with the existence of alternative buyers, which represents an interesting mixture of seeking a settlement, attacking the opponent, and possible withdrawal. Similarly, when a manager accuses a subordinate of laziness, this predominant reaction of fighting will almost always be bound up with smaller or larger, verbal or nonverbal, components of compromising or problem solving, or even accommodating.

Each component of such conglomerated conflict behaviour may be either goal-directed or an expression of one’s feelings. The current text deals exclusively with goal-directed behaviour. This is not to say that all components of conflict behaviour are driven by a conscious plan to achieve certain outcomes. Reactions may be strategic or spontaneous; that is, deliberately or not deliberately directed at the realisation of certain outcomes. The terms conflict behaviour, conflict handling, and conflict management are used interchangeably for both strategically and spontaneously goal-directed reactions aggregated into conglomerated conflict behaviour. Moreover, unless otherwise stated, these terms will refer to both covert behavioural intentions and overt actions.

Experienced conflict issues and enacted conflict behaviour are unique ingredients of tense human interaction. The issue represents a predominantly intrapersonal experience, whereas the behaviour is interpersonal in the first place. Also, predominantly, the issue is seen as “received” from the other party, and one’s own behaviour as “sent” back to the other party. Most importantly, different issues may be reacted to in roughly the same way. Conversely, the same issue may elicit quite different behaviours from different people or from the same person at different times. In other words, conflict issues and conflict behaviours are basically independent phenomena. When authors discern only compounds of issue-plus-behaviour (e.g. anger-plus-fighting), connections such as anger-avoiding and anger-compromising, or disappointment–fighting and distrust-fighting are excluded. As a case in point, Burton (1990) couples issue and behaviour by contrasting negotiable “dispute issues” and intractable “conflict issues” deeply rooted in human behaviour (e.g. role negotiation versus ethnic discrimination).

Conflict outcome. Outcomes as a consequence of both parties’ behaviour are end states of benefits or costs for both oneself and one’s opponent. For example, the husband and wife who disagree about the desirable number of children might end up with no offspring at all and a mutual relationship that has taken a turn for the worse. Similarly, the manager and the “lazy” subordinate might end up with a settlement about the appropriate level of work effort, and the disputed piece of land might be occupied by one country’s army. Taken together, the total chain of causation consists of issue-based desired outcomes, conglomerated conflict behaviour, and ultimately resulting benefits or costs. It implies that complex conflict handling is viewed as capable of fulfilling one’s own desires and/or the desires of the other party.

My definitions of issue, behaviour, and outcome relate to conflict in terms of an individual rather than a collective level of analysis. They reflect my viewpoint that a group cannot experience discord and cannot display conflict behaviour. Only the individual members of a family, organisation, or nation can experience conflict and can produce interactions and outcomes. Consequently, intergroup conflicts are conflicts only because they are carried by individuals who manifest conglomerated conflict behaviour vis-à-vis other individuals. Of course, this viewpoint does not ignore the fact that individual group members often act on behalf of the welfare of their group or on the basis of decisions made in their group (cf. Carnevale and Probst, 1997; Fisher, 1990, 1994; Putnam, 1997; Tajfel & Turner, 1979; Van de Vliert, 1996).

Taxonomies of Conflict Behaviour

Conflict scholars have classified the multitude of possible reactions to conflict issues into distinct categories. There are dichotomies, trichotomies, four- and five-part typologies, and so on. The most well-known taxonomies are examined here, and are then criticised because they all undervalue behavioural complexity.

Dichotomy. Like animals, human beings as “social animals” can exhibit a “fight-or-flight” response that prepares the organism to attack or flee (Baxter, 1982; Cannon, 1929). The fight–flight bifurcation ignores behavioural alternatives such as the ones used in bargaining. A more comprehensive dichotomy sets cooperation against competition. For instance, experimental gaming studies have used cooperation and competition as mutually exclusive reactions to social conflict (e.g. Axelrod, 1984; Deutsch, 1949, 1973; Pruitt & Kimmel, 1977; Tjosvold, 1988). Cooperation is typically seen as an agreeable and constructive process that tempers the discord, while competition is usually viewed as a disagreeable and destructive process that fuels the discord. Note that several scholars have rejected the fight–flight and cooperation–competition dichotomies by demonstrating that a single dimension is insufficient to reflect the abundance of behaviours used in handling interpersonal or small-group conflicts (e.g. Daves & Holland, 1989; Ruble & Thomas, 1976; Sternberg & Dobson, 1987; Van de Vliert & Prein, 1989).

Trichotomy. Horney (1945) initiated the taxonomy of “moving away” from people, “moving toward” people, and “moving against” people. In factor analyses of questionnaire data from employees in nonuniversity settings and students, Putnam and Wilson (1982) found essentially the same three forms of handling conflict, designating them as nonconfrontation (moving away), solution orientation (moving toward), and control (moving against). Very similar results of factor analyses have been reported by others (Bell & Blakeney, 1977; Fitzpatrick, 1988; Lawrence & Lorsch, 1967; Ross & DeWine, 1988; Schaap, Buunk, & Kerkstra, 1988; Weider-Hatfield, 1988; Wilson & Waltman, 1988).

Four-part typology. According to Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim (1994; see also Cahn, 1994), conflicting parties typically choose among four fundamentally different sorts of strategies. They can be inactive, withdrawing from the controversy either temporarily or permanently. They can yield to their opponent. They can take a problem-solving approach and try to locate a mutually acceptable or even completely satisfactory agreement. Or, finally, they can take a contentious approach, trying to impose their preferred outcomes on the adversary. However, there is no empirical evidence for this four-part classification of conflict behaviours.

Five-part typology. A still less parsimonious taxonomy is embedded in the so-called conflict management grid (Blake & Mouton, 1964, 1970; Rahim, 1992; Thomas, 1976, 1992b). As an extension of the four-part typology, this framework proposes five main ways or styles of managing conflict, which can be summarised by means of the following designations: (a) neutrality, withdrawal; (b) smooth over, peaceful coexistence; (c) compromise, bargaining; (d) problem solving, working through; and (e) suppress, win–lose power struggle (Blake & Mouton, 1970). Hall (1969) and Filley (1975) defined the above five types of conflict management as lose– leave, yield–lose, compromise, synergistic, and win–lose styles. Elsewhere, different terminological versions of essentially the same taxonomy have been proposed by Thomas (1976, 1988, 1992b), Rahim (1983b, 1992), and others.

The confusing mixture of labels of the five types of conflict management begs for an explicit nomenclature. In this book the catchwords for the five components of conflict handling mentioned above are avoiding (moving away from the conflict issue), accommodating (giving in to the opponent), compromising (settling through mutual concessions), problem solving (reconciling the parties’ basic interests), and fighting (contending the adversary in a direct or indirect way). Although many authors, notably Blake and Mouton (1964, 1970), have referred to the five types as “styles,” I prefer the term “mode,” to avoid the impression of presupposed regularities in an individual’s conflict behaviour.

A major problem. These and similar taxonomies of conflict behaviour have proved to be invaluable for mapping and developing the scientific field of social conflict. They provided valid insight into the nature of various reactions to conflict issues, they s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Part One: Introduction
• Part Two: Description
• Part Three: Explanation
• Part Four: Conclusion
• Appendix: Thirty-Four Propositions
• References
• Glossary
• Author Index
• Subject Index