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CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
PERSONALITY AND CONFLICT
Sandra V. Sandy
Susan K. Boardman
Morton Deutsch
Throughout literary history, many novelists and playwrights have defined personality as “destiny,” poignantly illustrating the “inevitability” of their protagonist’s fate as a consequence of character traits that relentlessly determine his or her choices in life. Even as naive observers, if we look deeply enough within ourselves, we are often surprised by the extent to which we are ruled by needs and strivings that defy commonsense logic. Although many social scientists agree with the fiction writers on the power of personality to shape the course of our lives, scientists focus on predictability rather than inevitability. The task of science is to observe and document any reliable association between specific character traits and the likelihood of varying life choices, patterns of behavior, and consequences of the behavior for oneself and others.
Parties involved in a conflict they are attempting to resolve constructively must strive to understand each other despite any difference in ethnic and gender identities, family and life experiences, and cultural perspectives. Although conflict resolution practitioners and theorists recognize the potentially important effects that individual differences have on the negotiation process and its outcome, research in this area has been piecemeal, and few guidelines exist for practical application. At this stage, a synthesis of cross-discipline information concerning personality can offer additional tools to benefit practitioners and prove useful to theorists wishing to conduct future investigation in this area. Awareness of how personal characteristics predispose an individual to respond within the negotiation setting equips all parties more effectively to (1) uncover and understand the psychological as well as substantive interests underlying conflict—particularly those interests that would normally remain unrecognized or unarticulated if personality is not considered; (2) respond so as to facilitate a constructive resolution process avoiding escalation and deadlock; and (3) generate a satisfying solution to meet the priority needs of both parties.
We have added new material to each section of this chapter to reflect some of the more relevant research—and thoughts about personality and conflict—conducted since the previous edition of this Handbook was published. This includes an introduction in the first section on the psychodynamic approach to some irrational deterrents to negotiation and their role in perpetuating conflict. In the section on need theories, we discuss some recent thoughts on the existence of a negative pole to Murray’s need for self-actualization. Finally, we discuss several relevant research studies that have appeared in print since the publication of the previous edition. These more recent studies relate to the influence of individual personality traits on choice of conflict resolution strategy and replicate some of the findings we presented in the second edition of this Handbook (Sandy, Boardman, and Deutsch, 2006).
As in previous editions, the first section of this chapter reviews some of the ideas relevant to conflict from several major theoretical approaches to personality: psychodynamic theory, need theory, social learning theory, and situation-person interaction theory. Our review of these theories is not intended to be comprehensive. It is limited to selecting several ideas from each theory that are useful to understanding personal reaction and behavior in a conflict situation. In the second section, we discuss the trait approach to personality and assessment. First, we briefly indicate some of the individual traits thought to be related to conflict behavior and then discuss some of the limitations of this approach. Next, we discuss more fully a multiple-trait approach, as well as a method for assessing personal conflict orientations that seem to have considerable promise for the evaluation of personality style, reaction, and behavior as they relate to conflict. In the final section, we discuss how one can use personality theory and assessment to enhance conflict resolution in practice.
REPRESENTATIVE MODELS OF PERSONALITY
There are two major approaches to the study of personality: idiographic, the belief that human behavior cannot be broken down into its constituent parts; and nomothetic, the view that some general dimension of behavior can be used to describe most people of a general age group (Martin, 1988). To illustrate, we begin by noting that one of the most influential models of personality, the psychodynamic, relies on idiographic use of case history studies to reach conclusions about human nature.
Psychodynamic Theories
Sigmund Freud’s work from the late 1880s to the late 1930s marks the beginning of the psychodynamic study of human personality. His intellectual descendants are numerous: Carl Jung, Alfred Adler, Karen Horney, Anna Freud, Erik Erikson, Erich Fromm, Harry S. Sullivan, Melanie Klein, W.R.D. Fairbairn, Donald Winnicott, Heinz Hartman, Jacques Lacan, and Heinz Kohut.
Much of early psychodynamic theory can be described as a drive theory, which is mainly concerned with the “vicissitudes of, and conflicts associated with libidinal and aggressive drives” (Gratch, 2012, p. 205). More recent versions of psychodynamic theory (which have the odd label of object relations theory) consider social attachments and the internalization of one’s early social relations with significant others as the primary psychic determinants.
Inevitably, Freud’s descendants have modified, revised, extended, and in other ways changed his original ideas. The changes have mainly been to place greater emphasis on the social (cultural, class, gender, familial, and experiential) determinants of psychodynamic processes, develop detailed characterization of the structural components involved in the dynamic intrapsychic processes, and seek adequate conceptualization of the cognitive and self-processes that are central to the individual’s relation to reality. Despite these changes, which seek to integrate the biological and social determinants of personality development, some key elements characterize most of the psychodynamic approaches.
An Active Unconscious.
People actively seek to remain unaware (unconscious) of their impulses, thoughts, and actions that make them feel disturbing emotions (e.g., anxiety, guilt, or shame).
Internal Conflict.
People may have internal conflict between desires and conscience, desires and fears, and what the “good” self wants and what the “bad” self wants. This conflict may occur outside consciousness.
Control and Defense Mechanisms.
People develop tactics and strategies to control their impulses, thoughts, actions, and realities so that they will not feel anxious, guilty, or ashamed. If their controls are ineffective, they develop defense mechanisms to keep from feeling these disturbing emotions.
Stages of Development.
From birth to old age, people go through stages of development. Most current psychodynamic theorists accept the view that the developmental stages reflect both biological and social determinants, even though they may differ in their weighting of the two, their labeling of the stages, and how they specifically characterize them. Freudian theory focuses mainly on the three earliest stages of development—the oral, anal, and phallic—because it was believed that the main features of personality development were set early in childhood. Freud employed these anatomical terms to characterize the early stages because he thought these bodily zones were successively infused with libidinal energy.
Later psychoanalysts were likely to characterize them psychosocially in terms of the social situation confronting the developing child. In the oral stage, infants are primarily concerned with receiving feeding and care from a parenting figure; in the anal stage, they are faced with the need to develop control o
ver their excretions as well as other forms of self-control; and in the phallic stage, they face the need to establish a sexual identity as a boy or girl and to repress their sexual striving toward the parent of the opposite sex. Associated with these stages are normal frustrations, a development crisis, and typical defense mechanisms. However, certain forms of psychopathology are likely to develop if severe frustration and crisis face the child during a particular stage, with the result that the child becomes “fixated” at that stage; in addition, some adult character traits are thought to originate in each given stage.
Table 17.1 presents, in summary form, some of the features that Freud and the earlier psychoanalysts associated with the three early stages.
Table 17.1 Normal Frustrations, Typical Defense Mechanisms, Developmental Crises, Psychopathology, and Adult Character Traits with Several Early Stages of Psychosexual Development
The Layered Personality.
How someone has gone through the stages of development determines his or her current personality. One can presumably discover the residue of earlier stages of development in current personality and behavior. Thus, a paranoid or schizoid adult personality supposedly reflects a basic fault in the earliest stage of development in which the infant did not experience the minimal love, care, and nurturance that would enable him to feel basic trust in the world. The concept of layered personality does not imply that earlier faults cannot be repaired. However, it does imply that an adult personality with a repaired fault is not the same as one that did not need repair. Under severe frustration or anxiety, such a personality is likely to regress to an earlier stage. Also, the concept of layered personality does not imply that an unimpaired adult personality is able to completely resist becoming temporarily or permanently suspicious and paranoid if the current social environment is sufficiently dire and hostile for a prolonged period. It is natural and adaptive to become hypervigilant and suspicious if one is immersed in a dangerous hostile environment.