Most of what we read in books or witness in movies presents conflict as a relatively rational process in which participants choose their conflict strategies; much of the time, our conflicts don’t feel particularly rational or strategic. A variety of factors influence individuals’ conflict responses and make it more difficult for them to respond calmly and thoughtfully. Three of the more important influences on one’s conflict behavior within a given conflict interaction are power, culture, and emotion.
Power
Power refers to a person’s ability to influence the behavior, thoughts, or feelings of another (Impett & Peplau, 2006).
In a given relationship, one party may have more influence or power to make decisions, control joint activities, and resources, and to win arguments. Typically, within a dyad (or couple), the person who is more dependent on the relationship or the other party will have less power, control, and influence (Molm, 1997). Thus, employees are often more dependent on their bosses and may be reluctant to engage in competitive tactics.
However, in many relationships, the members are equally influential; the majority of married couples report that power is balanced equally in their relationships (Blumstein & Schwartz, 1983). However, even if both members of a dyad have equal power overall, each may not have equal power in a specific context or concerning every topic. The person with more financial resources may have more influence regarding expenditures, for instance. Thus, the power dynamics inherent in a specific conflict interaction often affect its outcome.
One’s power in a particular interaction often impacts how one communicates during conflict. People who are high in power may be less concerned with how their conflict partners respond and, therefore, may be more likely to use direct requests, demands and competitive behaviors such as insults, threats and verbal aggression (Davidson, McElwee, Hannan, 2004; Jae-Yop & Emery, 2003). Your boss may feel free to yell at you when you make a mistake, but you likely don’t feel free to do the same. People who feel they have little power may be more indirect and less negative and attempt to achieve their goals through tactics such as complaining, hinting, or obliging (Sagrestano, Heavey, & Christensen, 2006). Dyads who are equal in power likely are better positioned to bargain with one another since they each have resources and control.
In addition to power affecting how one behaves during conflict interactions, power itself can be an issue participants fight over. For many, if not most, people in the U.S., having and using power is a positive experience; consequently, participants often struggle over access to it (Coleman, 2000). When people fight over minor issues, such as who will pick the movie or who is right about a disputed fact, they often fight about who is in control or has power. People who feel a need to win at any cost typically struggle over power issues.
Power is embedded in almost every conflict, and you will find it easier to manage your conflicts if you understand the role power plays within them.
For example, if you find yourself frequently engaging in conflict over which hip-hop artist is better, whether the ending to the final Harry Potter book was a disappointment or other minor issues, you may be struggling over your need for power. Once you recognize this, you may find avoiding conflict over unimportant issues easier.
Culture
Culture impacts the ways people understand, approach, and enact conflict. Individuals’ cultural values influence how they expect conflict to unfold and the types of communication strategies they use.
Three cultural values that often influence conflict interactions are individualism-collectivism, low versus high context, and power difference (Ting-Toomey, 1985; Ting-Toomey et al., 2000).
Individualistic cultures are those that emphasize individual identities, goals, and rights over those of the group, while collectivistic cultures emphasize group identity, goals, and concerns over individual desires. Low-context cultures prefer communication that is explicit and direct, and relatively easy to decode.
In contrast, high-context cultures communicate such that intention or meaning is conveyed through the communication context (e.g., one’s social role) and through nonverbals (tone of voice, silence) (Trubisky, Ting-Toomey, & Lin, 1991). Finally, power distance describes the degree to which a culture stresses hierarchy and status differences (Marcus & Gould, 2000). Thus, cultures with low power distance, such as the United States, tend to see people as relatively equal and de-emphasize status differences, while high power distance cultures, like Japan emphasize hierarchy, social position, and status differences.
Conflict participants who come from individualistic, low-context cultures that value low power distance (such as the United States and Germany) view conflict quite differently than those from collectivistic, high-context cultures that value high power distance (such as Thailand) (Garcia, 1996). For example, during the conflict, people in the U. S. and Germany are likely to be more direct, expect to address individual goals and interests openly, prefer efficiency, and focus on the outcomes or results of their conflicts (Ting-Toomey, 1985; Leung, Au, Fernandez-Dols, & Iwawaki, 1992). Contrarily, people in cultures such as Thailand and Denmark place more emphasis on face, or how they are viewed by others, than outcomes; they focus more on the conflict process than its specific outcomes, are likely to be more indirect, and desire and positively evaluate subtlety. Thus, if a German citizen and Thai citizen engaged in a conflict over who should be next to be waited on at a store, the German citizen would be more likely to say something such as “Don’t butt in line! I have been waiting longest; it’s my turn.” On the other hand, a Thai national might be more likely to suggest, “You may not have seen me waiting here for the past ten minutes; perhaps your view was obscured by the display. But if you desire to go first, then that is okay.” However, the Thai may expect that the German would be sensitive to her subtlety and counter with “No, no; you were first, please go ahead.”
As you can imagine, when individuals with different cultural orientations engage in conflict, they may find it challenging to manage their disagreements because they do not even agree on how they should talk about their differences.
During intercultural conflicts, for instance, participants from collectivistic cultures may be offended by the other party’s disregard of their face or image. In contrast, participants from individualistic cultures may be frustrated by what they perceive as the other parties’ refusal to speak directly and openly about the issues.
Culture, however, is not the only factor that influences how people respond to conflict. An individual’s emotional responses to conflict also can play an important role in how the conflict unfolds.
Emotion
Conflict is rife with emotion; people categorize their conflicts based on the emotions they experience during them (Jones, 2000).
For example, when participants experience high levels of emotionality, they are likely to describe their conflicts as “serious.” When they perceive disagreements to be marked with high levels of negative affect and aggressiveness, they describe their conflicts as “destructive.” People become emotional because their goals are being interfered with and in response to the other party’s negativity.
Emotions such as anger, jealousy, hurt, and guilt are commonly experienced both during and after conflict interaction.
When these emotions are experienced during disagreements, they influence how people communicate and can make it more difficult to manage conflict well (Guerrero & La Valley, 2006).
Comments