The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  Individuals vary considerably in terms of whether they manifest consistency of personality in their social behavior across situations—for example, those who monitor and regulate their behavioral choices on the basis of situational information show relatively little consistency (Snyder and Ickes, 1985).

  Some situations have strong characteristics, in which little individual variation in behavior occurs despite differences in individual traits (Mischel, 1977).

  A situation can evoke dispositions because of their apparent relevance to it; subsequently, the situation becomes salient as a guide to behavior and permits modes of behaving that are differentially responsive to individual differences (Bem and Lenney, 1976).

  A situation can evoke self-focusing tendencies that make predispositions salient to the self, and as a consequence, these predispositions can become influential determinants of behavior in situations where such a self-focus is not evoked.

  There is a tendency for congruence between personal disposition and situational characteristics (Deutsch, 1982, 1985) such that someone with a given disposition tends to seek out the type of social situation that fits the disposition; people tend to mold their dispositions to fit a situation that they find difficult to leave or alter. That is, the causal arrow goes both ways between situational characteristics and personality disposition.

  Multitrait Measures of Personality and Conflict

  Given the importance of creating clearer definitions and comprehensive measures of personality, a number of researchers have worked to develop reliable multidimensional personality assessment instruments. It is beyond the scope of this chapter to present an overview of these instruments; however, we describe what has become a fundamental model of adult personality (Antonioni, 1998; Digman, 1990).

  The Five-Factor Model.

  In an attempt to describe personality more completely than is afforded by individual traits, Costa and McCrae (1985) developed the five-factor model (FFM) of personality, composed of five independent dimensions: neuroticism, extraversion, openness, conscientiousness, and agreeableness. Although there has recently been research conducted to show that the theory is applicable to young children (Grist and McCord, 2010; Grist, Socha, and McCord, 2012) as well, we concentrate on the adult personality in this chapter:

  Neuroticism. This is a tendency to experience unpleasant emotions. It encompasses six subscales: anxiety, hostility, depression, self-consciousness, impulsiveness, and vulnerability (e.g., panic in emergencies). People with strong neurotic tendencies are thought to be less able to control their emotions and cope effectively with stress (Costa and McCrae, 1985). With respect to interpersonal conflict, individuals high in levels of angry hostility, depression, vulnerability, and self-consciousness might find conflict threatening, prompting them to avoid conflict situations or to use contentious tactics as a reaction to the threat. People with low neurotic tendencies would be less likely to interpret the situation in terms of their own emotional distortion and perhaps use more constructive strategies.

  Extraversion. Differences in the desire for social activity are incorporated in this scale, which includes interpersonal traits such as warmth, gregariousness, assertiveness, activity, excitement seeking, and interest in other people. Although extraverts are motivated by both affiliation and social dominance, it has been suggested that during conflict, the extravert’s motives for dominance may be stronger than the desire for communion (Bono, Boles, Judge, and Lauver, 2002). Accordingly, an individual’s scoring on specific extraversion facets (warmth, assertiveness, and so on) may be indicative of the conflict goals (social dominance or affiliation) most likely to be pursued during a conflict episode.

  Openness. Openness to experience denotes receptiveness to ideas and experiences, with subscales of openness to fantasy, aesthetics, feelings, actions, ideas, and values. This trait is thought to involve intellectual activity, originality, a need for variety and novel experiences, and cognitive complexity. With respect to conflict situations, one would expect open individuals to prefer strategies that involve flexibility, generation of alternatives, and consideration of the other’s view—strategies used in direct, constructive negotiation. Closed individuals tend to emphasize order and conformity and a need for closure. They are less flexible and have more difficulty understanding others’ points of view. Closed individuals find unresolved conflict upsetting and prefer an efficient, quick solution, perhaps being more likely to impose their own resolution.

  Conscientiousness. This dimension refers to achievement striving, competence, and self-discipline. Those low on this scale may be disorganized or lazy, negligent, and prone to quitting rather than persevering. Those on the high end of this dimension are well prepared and well organized, and they strive for excellence. Given these characteristics, those high in conscientiousness might be expected to prefer dealing with conflict directly, where low scorers might be expected to either use attacking strategies or avoid conflict situations altogether.

  Agreeableness. This refers to persons who are trusting, generous, cooperative, lenient, good natured, and sympathetic to others’ needs. High agreeableness leads individuals to have sympathy and concern for others, but it also may inhibit assertiveness or cause them to defer to others. In a conflict situation, this may result in decisions that fail to meet their own best interests. Overall, those who score high on such facets as trust, altruism, and compliance would be expected to use constructive strategies such as negotiation and to be concerned with interpersonal relationships. Low scorers are suspicious, antagonistic, critical, irritable, and self-centered. These individuals are prone to express anger in conflict situations, to be guarded in expressing their own feelings, and to compete rather than cooperate with other people. Research indicates that low scorers experience conflict more frequently (Suls, Martin, and David, 1998).

  The FFM dimensions have been reliably demonstrated to occur in an impressive number of groups, including children, women and men, nonwhite and white respondents, and people from such varied linguistic and cultural backgrounds as Dutch, German, Japanese, Chinese, and Filipino. Furthermore, the personality trait constructs of the FFM reflect many of the personality categories used in psychotherapy, the difference being that the FFM dimensions are more testable in research and cover a broader range of human behavior than the attributes of personality emerging from the study of psychopathology.

  We focus on the five-factor trait model to offer information for conflict resolution because it is

  More comprehensive than other trait models of personality in incorporating a wide range of human response and behavior. Most other inventories can be subsumed within its dimensions.

  Inclusive of normal behaviors as well as the extremes to be found in personality disorders.

  A robust measure of personality that has been validated in a variety of languages and cultures.

  A personality approach that is straightforward, fairly easily understood, and one of the dominant models of personality used in current research (Park and Antonioni, 2007; Grist and McCord, 2010; Jensen-Campbell, Gleason, Adams, and Malcolm, 2003; Moberg, 2001; Sibley and Duckitt, 2008; Wood and Bell, 2008).

  Obviously, nonpersonality factors such as cognitive distortion, dysfunctional belief, personal evaluation, intelligence, and situational demands need to be examined along with the five personality factors to fully account for behavior. However, dismissing the multitrait approach would be to lose sight of its merit for use by laypersons without an advanced degree in personality psychology or psychotherapy. In methodologically appropriate use, the FFM appears to offer valuable information about the conflict resolution process for practitioners, as we discuss below.

  Measures of Conflict Style.

  A number of similar approaches to measuring individual styles of managing conflict have been developed (Blake and Mouton, 1964; Kilmann and Thomas, 1977; Rahim, 1986; Thomas, 1988). Although the early model of Kilmann and Thomas was named “the MODE,” these models are now commonly called �
�dual concern models” (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). They have their origins in Blake and Mouton’s two-dimensional managerial grid, in which a manager’s style was characterized in terms of the two separate dimensions of having a concern for people and a concern for production of results.

  The dimensions in the dual-concern model of conflict style are concern about others’ outcomes and concern about own outcomes. High concern for the other as well as for oneself is linked to a collaborative problem-solving style. High concern for self and low concern for the other is connected with a contending, competitive approach. High concern for the other and low concern for the self is associated with yielding or submission. Low concern for both self and the other is associated with avoiding behavior.

  Although additional work remains to be done on the measures of conflict style, it is likely that conflict behavior is determined by both situational and dispositional influences. Research by Rahim (1986) indicates that a manager in conflict with a supervisor resorts to yielding, while with peers, the manager employs compromising and with subordinates problem solving.

  Personality and Conflict Resolution Strategies.

  In research conducted by Sandy and Boardman (2006), 237 graduate students with no conflict resolution training experience were asked to fill out the NEO-PI-R FFM questionnaire (Costa and McCrae, 1985; Costa, McCrae, and Dye, 1991). Following this, subjects were asked to select three conflicts they had experienced during the previous three months. Each week for three successive weeks, they were given a comprehensive questionnaire and asked to describe one conflict (open-ended question) and report the strategies they used to handle it using both open-ended questions and the Kilmann and Thomas (1977) dual concerns model instrument. They also characterized their relationship with the other person in the conflict and, using five-point rating scales, indicated the size and importance of the conflict. In addition, they reported whether the conflict was resolved and whether the conflict strengthened or weakened their relationship.

  The types of conflict reported included relationship issues (13 percent), another person’s failure to meet one’s own expectations (18 percent), discourteous or annoying behavior (16 percent), disagreements about what should be done (3 percent), one’s own failure to meet another’s expectations (6 percent), being offended by what another person said (14 percent), and displaced anger (15 percent). Conflicts were with relatives (17 percent), significant others (17 percent), friends (36 percent), acquaintances (12 percent), and people in the workplace, for example, bosses or subordinates (16 percent).

  Factor and reliability analyses of the responses to the dual concerns instrument indicated that these subjects used four strategies for handling conflict, which we have labeled negotiation, contending, avoidance, and attack/blame. Negotiation consisted of strategies such as, “I sought a mutually beneficial solution,” and, “I tried to understand him or her.” Contending strategies included, “I used threats,” and, “I was sarcastic in my sense of humor.” Avoidance covered items such as, “I tried to change the subject,” and, “I denied there was any problem in the conflict.” Finally, attack/blame included, “I criticized an aspect of his or her personality,” and, “I blamed him or her for causing the conflict.”

  Big Five Dimensions.

  Negotiation Strategy.

  Personality facet scales from the FFM dimensions formed predictive clusters of individual characteristics that tended to be associated with the dominant strategy used in the conflict reported. For example, those who used negotiation strategies scored high on agreeableness (particularly facets such as trust, altruism, and compliance). Conversely, they tended to score low on neuroticism (involving such facets as angry hostility, depression, self-consciousness, and vulnerability).

  The positive association between a collaborative conflict resolution strategy and the personality characteristic of agreeableness has also been found in other investigations of personality and conflict resolution style (Park and Antonioni, 2007; Bono et al., 2002; Wood and Bell, 2008). Speculation is that agreeable persons may be more likely to make positive attributions for behavior others might consider provocative (Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, and Hair, 1996) and also may experience more positive affect when engaging in cooperative actions.

  Contending Strategy.

  Personality facets influencing choice of a contending conflict resolution strategy include low scores on the conscientiousness domain (competence, duty, self-discipline, and deliberation); low scores on agreeableness (straightforwardness, trust, altruism, compliance and modesty); low scores on openness (ideas and values); and low scores on extraversion (warmth).

  Higher scores on all the facets of the neuroticism domain were related to the choice of contending as a conflict resolution strategy. Other work in this area has found that neurotic individuals are more likely to employ attacking strategies or avoid conflicts altogether (Moberg, 2001). Such characteristics as impulsivity and emotional instability make the neurotic person more likely to attack the other person or, conversely, to avoid the conflict.

  Avoidance Strategy.

  Low scores on facets of the conscientiousness domain (competence, self-discipline, and order) and the extraversion domain (warmth, gregariousness, and assertiveness) are associated with people who use avoidance as a strategy for handling conflict. Avoidance is also used when individuals have higher scores on facets of neuroticism (angry hostility, depression, self-consciousness, and vulnerability).

  Attack Strategy.

  Low scores on facets (competence, self-discipline, and order) of the conscientiousness domain are associated with the use of an attacking or blame type of behavior in conflict situations. The same is true for low scores on agreeableness facets (straightforwardness, trust, compliance, and tenderness) and the actions facet of the openness domain. High scores on facets of neuroticism (anxiety, angry hostility, depression, self-consciousness, and vulnerability) are also associated with the use of attacking or blame to deal with conflict.

  Situation versus Personality

  Using a repeated measures analysis, we examined the influence of personality on consistency of conflict resolution strategy across situations or different conflicts described. Conflict resolution strategies were significantly different across situations, indicating that situational constraints were more influential in these cases in determining a conflict management approach.

  Influences on Whether the Conflict Is Resolved

  Importance of the Issue.

  The importance of the conflict to the disputants played a significant role in whether the conflict was resolved. The more important the conflict was to the disputants, the less likely it was to be resolved.

  Personality.

  Individuals scoring higher on deliberation facets (conscientiousness), self-conscious and angry hostility (neuroticism), and feelings (openness) were less likely to have resolved their conflicts than those scoring in the lower group. Those scoring higher on warmth and assertiveness (extraversion) and actions (openness) were more likely to report their conflicts were resolved. What we do not know is whether their partners felt the conflict was resolved or found satisfaction in its resolution. It is likely that the attributions individuals make about any particular conflict episode are a function of their own personality, the personality of their partner, and salient factors of the situation.

  Preferred Conflict Resolution Strategy

  Those scoring higher on strategies such as attack, avoidance, and contending were less likely to have resolved the conflicts they described in the study. A negotiation strategy was significantly associated with resolved conflicts.

  We note that the findings reported here are all statistically significant even though the correlations between personality facets and conflict behavior are low (mostly in that the ability to predict an individual’s conflict behavior from his personality measures is quite low). However, in the section that follows, we suggest that there are “difficult” or “extreme” personalities (which are rel
atively rare in the graduate student population that participated in this research) who are more likely to be consistent in their conflict behaviors in different situations.

  Negotiating with Difficult Personalities

  All too often, individuals have to negotiate with difficult people. It is often surprisingly easy to describe such individuals: people who are hostile, overly aggressive, or who explode emotionally; people who avoid conflict, avoid discussions, or resist by using passive-aggressive techniques; individuals who complain incessantly or blame others but never try to do anything about the conflict or situation; people who appear very agreeable but do not produce or follow through on what they propose; enervating, negative people who sap energy from others, claiming nothing will work and that there are no solutions; “superior” people who believe they know everything and are only too eager to tell you they do; and people who cannot make decisions, who stall, and who are indecisive (Bramson, 1981).

  Drawing from past work on personality and conflict (Bramson, 1981; Heitler, 1980; Ury, 1993) as well as our own research, we offer some suggestions for coping with difficult people. As we discussed previously, the use of contentious tactics and blame is more often associated with people low in conscientiousness (e.g., self-discipline, deliberation, and competence), low in agreeableness (e.g., straightforwardness, trust, and altruism), and high in neuroticism (e.g., anxiety, angry hostility, depression, and impulsivity). Such angry, hostile people require special handling. First, it is useful to not react immediately to an attack: give the attacking party time to run down and regain emotional control. This is a critical first step, as well as difficult, because our natural tendency is to defend ourselves. William Ury (1993) calls this “going to the balcony” or choosing not to react. He describes imagining negotiating on stage and then climbing to the balcony overlooking the stage. The balcony is a metaphor for achieving a state of mental detachment necessary to arrive at constructive problem solving and regaining equilibrium. It is not useful to argue with someone who is attacking because she cannot “hear” you anyway and it only adds fuel to the fire. If the attack does not subside, it is helpful to say (or shout) a neutral word like, “Stop!” to break into her tantrum or take a break from the negotiation. Once the other has calmed down a bit, it is useful to state your opinions and perceptions calmly, facilitating the discussion by not arguing with her—as Ury calls it, “stepping to her side.” This means listening to her, acknowledging her feelings, and agreeing with her whenever possible to defuse negative emotions. Some hostile people, which Bramson (1981) called “snipers,” are slightly more subtle in their attacking behavior: they take potshots at you, making cutting remarks, or give you not-so-subtle digs. A helpful strategy in dealing with these people is to surface the attack, that is, do a process intervention by commenting on an observed behavior.