The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  ADOLESCENCE

  The defining developmental task of adolescence is identity formation. (See table 18.3.) Rapid and dramatic physical and psychosocial changes occur in almost all aspects of adolescent life. Consequently, adolescents are confronted with the stressful necessity of reworking early developmental tasks to respond to their new problems and needs. To build an identity, adolescents must integrate sexual drives and social demands into a healthy personality.

  Stage Theories of Adolescence

  According to Erikson’s psychosocial stages in development (table 18.3), the transition from childhood to adulthood requires a return to earlier developmental issues that have emerged with age-related complexity:

  Adolescents revisit the attachment phase of infancy as they search for trust, as with trustworthy and admirable friends. In later adolescence, this task focuses on finding intimate partners. As they begin to function as members in a society rather than only family, classroom, or other small group, adolescents seek to establish trust through political and social causes and trustworthy leaders.

  Expression of autonomy begins with the two-year-old’s insistence on “doing it myself.” In adolescence, autonomy refers to learning to make one’s own decisions and choices in life rather than accepting those of parents or friends.

  In early childhood, initiative was demonstrated through pretend play. Its counterpart in adolescence is establishing one’s own goals rather than simply accepting what others plan.

  Industry in middle childhood focuses on tasks set by the teacher or parent. In adolescence, industry means taking responsibility for one’s own ambitions and the quality of work produced.

  Kegan (1994) describes adolescence as a time when the individual develops cross-categorical knowledge. At this level of development, adolescents begin to subordinate durable categories to a higher-order principle. The primary idea is that one’s approach to a relationship changes so that not only is what happens to the individual important, but also what happens to one’s connection with another person as a consequence of behavior or activity. Thinking reflectively, inferentially, or thematically requires that a durable category become an element of the principle of knowing rather than the principle of knowing itself. Adolescents develop the capacity to subordinate durable categories to the interaction between these categories, which allows adolescent thinking to become abstract and feelings to become self-reflective emotion. As a result, adolescent social relations become capable of commitment and bonding to a community of people or ideas larger than the self. Evolving the cross-categorical way of knowing moves the adolescent from being the subject of his experience to being the object of his experience.

  Friends and Self-Esteem.

  Prior to the Internet age, adolescent high school students spent an average of twenty-two nonschool hours a week interacting with their peers, approximately twice as much time as with adults (Czikszentmihalyi and Larson, 1984).2 Time spent with friends is critical for adolescent development. Research conducted on neural activity has provided evidence concerning the protective role of adolescent friendships—those spending more time with friends were found to have less neural sensitivity to later peer rejection (Masten, Telzer, Fuligni, Lieberman, and Eisenberger, 2012).

  Influence of Parents on Peer Involvement.

  Studies show that although teens prefer to avoid their parents when others are around, they still enjoy and need time with parents. In fact, shared time with parents, particularly fathers, results in the development of better social skills with peers and higher self-esteem (Lam, McHale, and Crouter, 2012). The actual amount of time spent with peers may be influenced by how parents respond to the child’s developmental changes. The adolescent frequently responds to strict, authoritarian behavior from parents by turning to peers for support and behavioral guidance. Authoritative parents accept their child’s growing up, continue to include her in family decision making, support her self-expression, and monitor her behavior (asking her to call when she will be late coming in at night, for example). As a consequence, adolescents of authoritative parents become competent in school and are less likely to cause trouble.

  For adolescents, friendship goes beyond reciprocal action and is viewed within the context of a long-term series of interactions. Conflict is seen as a natural occurrence within this relationship. The adolescent realizes that working through and resolving a conflict usually strengthens a relationship if the conflict is constructively managed.

  Although the extent to which friends may have a negative influence on the adolescent appears to be exaggerated, friends have considerable influence because of the need for social approval. Praise from friends rewards specific behaviors and makes it likely they will occur again. Adolescents seek to be like their friends for two primary reasons: friends have characteristics the individual wishes to have (intrinsic motivation), and the individual judges her own competence by comparing her performance with that of classmates (social comparison). Prosocial and responsible classroom behavior has been related directly to classroom grades and test scores even when the effects of academic behavior, teacher preference among students, IQ, family structure, sex, ethnicity, and days absent from school were taken into account (Wentzel, 1993).

  Loyalty and intimacy are valued and expected in adolescence friendships; the self-disclosing conversations that occur between close friends, especially among girls, help teenagers shape their identity. However, by the late teen years, the adolescent is capable of tolerating friends with different likes, dislikes, values and beliefs. Selman’s levels 3 and 4 illustrate this change (see table 18.2). Boys between the ages of fourteen and sixteen usually form relationships with a group, and it helps them assert their independence from authority figures. For boys, validation of worth occurs through action rather than personal disclosure between friends. Like attachment in infancy, adolescent boys and girls use friends to make sense of ambiguous or anxiety provoking situations.

  Friendship and Cooperation.

  Although conformity to peer pressure increases between ages nine and fifteen but usually decreases thereafter, it is also likely that middle adolescence becomes a time when conventional standards of behavior are least followed. On the whole, adolescents are perceived to engage in high levels of behavior that poses risks to their health, safety, and well-being. However, antisocial behavior is more common among boys than girls and is much higher when peer groups are organized around competition, as with gangs. Contrary to common belief, adolescents are no more likely than other age groups to feel invulnerable (Quadrel, Fischoff, and Davis, 1993). Sensation seeking, or the need for novel experiences, has also been found wanting as a viable hypothesis for this behavior. At present, there exists no generally accepted explanation for risk-taking behavior in adolescence.

  Students often establish borders between their group and other groups during early adolescence. Students of other races are frequently seen as possessing different values and orientations. Teachers and other adults too often fail to pay attention to the effect of peer group dynamics in forming students’ attitudes about others. This may be due in part to the fact that adolescents are likely to keep their activities unobserved by parents and other adults in authority.

  Perspective Taking.

  Erikson’s model of the identity crisis of adolescence fits well with Piaget’s ideas of formal operational thought as well as empirical studies exploring the development of understanding in adolescents. Adolescents’ thinking about themselves grows more abstract and self-reflective. They also work to integrate their past selves with the self they hope to achieve in the future (Selman, 1980).

  Younger adolescents (approximately nine to fifteen) develop friendships for intimacy and support. Because the adolescent at this age is capable of stepping outside the interaction and taking the perspective of a third party, friendships survive run-of-the-mill conflict. However, adolescent relationships are frequently tinged with possessiveness and jealousy.

  Although still recogni
zing the need for the support and sense of identity provided by friends, older adolescents (approximately age twelve to adulthood) are capable of accepting their friends’ needs to have other relationships as well. They are able to view events from the perspective of the law, morality, and society as a whole.

  The Role of Conflict

  The adolescent is able to see parties in a conflict from a generalized third-person perspective, that is, to step outside the conflict as a neutral third person and simultaneously consider both his own perspective and the other’s. He can view the conflict interaction from the vantage point of the disinterested average spectator.

  Conflict in adolescence occurs more frequently with parents than siblings or peers—presumably because individual autonomy has become the developmental issue at this age. The most common conflict issues between parents and adolescents are authority, autonomy, and responsibility (Smetana, 1989). Adolescents report an average of seven disagreements daily (Collins and Laursen, 1992). However, the parent’s response to differences of opinion with the adolescent can help the young person’s developing sense of identity, ego formation, and social-cognitive skills. The most helpful parental response takes the form of a supportive but challenging discussion about the issue. Adolescents from families that openly and constructively express their conflict are significantly better able to resolve conflict with their peers than those whose parents cut off disagreements unilaterally. As at younger ages, conflict in adolescence is likely to occur in close relationships. Conflict with same-sex friends declines in later adolescence but increases with romantic partners.

  Naive Conflict Resolution Strategies.

  Without specific skills development in conflict resolution, the resolution strategies the adolescent uses with friends commonly involve submission (one person gives in to the other’s demands), compromise (both parties make concessions), third-party intervention (parties accept a resolution suggested by an uninvolved person), standoff (parties change the topic or divert their attention to a different activity), and withdrawal (one person refuses to continue the conflict exchange). More than 50 percent of adolescent conflicts are resolved by standoff or withdrawal. Unilateral power assertion is used more frequently than negotiation, the least used method of resolution (Vuchinich, 1990).

  Educators for Social Responsibility.

  Particularly responsive to adolescent developmental needs, this organization offers programs as well as training and staff development directed toward middle and high school students and the teachers and staff. The issues addressed include reducing violence and prejudice, supporting students’ social-emotional development, enhancing academic achievement, and building multicultural competencies

  ADULTHOOD

  In premodern periods, when adult time was exclusively devoted to providing basic family needs, adulthood was seen as a static state with no systematic changes until old age. With the Malthusian explosion of modern conveniences and time savers, adults now have the time and opportunity for exploring their own growth potential. This change has meant that researchers began seriously investigating the stages or levels of adulthood experience. For example, Bernice Neugarten (1996) focuses on three critical time lines influencing adult development: the biological timetable (e.g., gray hair, menopause, reduced activity), social time (go to school, raise a family, retire), and historic time (war, recession, resurgence of religion). In a similar vein studying men’s (1978) and women’s (1996) lives, Daniel Levinson also divided the life span into three eras: early, middle, and late adulthood. Transitional periods lasting for some years divided the life eras. Roughly, these transitions occur around age thirty, early forties, fifties, and so on. These transitions can be difficult or smooth; however, one’s life commitments often change from the beginning and end of such periods. Stable periods lead to enriched work and family choices; transition periods result in a reappraisal of work and family, leading to changes in the following stable period.

  From Kegan’s perspective, a large percentage of adults (43 to 46 percent) have internalized the values of others (e.g., their family’s values, a political ideology), which become their own norms and standards. Thus, in the face of a conflict between people or ideologies, these people are dependent on others’ expectations and have difficulty making a decision or thinking for themselves. While thinking at this level, which he calls the third-order consciousness, may be appropriate for teenagers, it represents a lack of maturity in adults. Unfortunately, the modern world often demands that people mediate between different ideologies or key people in their lives, and this puts third-order thinkers at a disadvantage. What is needed in today’s world is a fourth-order way of thinking that allows individuals to reflect on others’ rule systems, opinions, and expectations and develop a self-authored system of their own rules and regulations. A higher, or fifth order, of consciousness occurs in a few people: they can reflect on their own and others’ inner systems of values and ferret out similarities underlying what appears to be differences.

  According to Kegan, parents today are expected to take charge of the family, institute a vision that will serve the family, promote the development of children, and develop an overall set of values by which the family functions. These tasks require parents to operate with a fourth- or even fifth-order consciousness. He provides the example of a woman’s young daughter asking her whether she has had intimate relationships since her divorce. The mother’s third-order consciousness would provoke guilt if she lied and said, “No.” A fourth-order consciousness would emphasize the ability of the mother to place her child’s best interests in the forefront of her decision making. In this case, a higher-order value system would dictate that the mother keep burdensome information from her child. In this way, the mother has strengthened her family through her leadership role and autonomous decision making. Note that there has been concern about Kegan’s model of development as disregarding women’s perspective on values and their emphasis on the importance of relationship.

  The Role of Conflict

  Kegan’s view of the role of conflict may best be illustrated through the ways in which individuals at the fourth- and fifth-order of consciousness approach conflict.

  Fourth-Order Consciousness.

  This couple views conflicting parties as being whole and distinct. They promote the willingness and ability of each party to understand and respect the position of the other. The transformation of the relationship involves the transformation of attitudes that each party holds concerning the other person’s ability to respect his or her position, not the positions themselves. The changes that are brought about involve greater understanding of both positions by both parties, altered attitudes about the other’s understanding of one’s own position, and new possibilities in different problem-solving approaches. This represents integrated negotiation as it is usually practiced.

  Fifth-Order Consciousness.

  A couple at this stage would seek to use conflict to individually transform their own attitudes and positions, including the need to win. There is a mutual suspicion that one’s own and the other’s integrity is also ideology—a partiality to a particular position or perspective. Based on this approach, a protracted conflict means that one or both of the conflicting parties revealed a partial position.

  A postmodern view of conflict would have disputants (1) consider the protracted conflict as a sign that one or both parties had become identified with the polar ends of the issue; (2) reflect that the disputing relationship is not due to opposing views but an expression of incompleteness; (3) view the relationship, as cantankerous as it may be, as an opportunity to reveal the parties’ multiplicity; and (4) concentrate on ways to let the conflicting relationship transform the parties rather than focusing on resolution of the conflict. Resolving conflicts through transforming the conflicting parties is difficult because postmodern conflict resolution requires people to organize experience at a level beyond the fourth order, something few people can do (Argyris, 1993). This approach
requires a transsystemic or cross-theoretical epistemological organization.

  Conflict Coaching for the Individual

  Conflict coaching began in the 1990s as a strategic skill for business executives and a supplement to mediation on university campuses. According to Tricia Jones (Jones and Brinkert, 2008), one of the leading theorists and developers of this process, “Conflict coaching is the process in which a coach and client communicate one-on-one for the purpose of developing the client’s conflict-related understanding, interaction strategies, and interaction skills” (p. 19). It is a process involving one disputant or client and one conflict resolution professional. The coach and client communicate one-on-one with the goal of developing the client’s understanding of the conflict situation as well as her interaction strategies, and skills. While this form of conflict resolution skills development has been practiced mainly with adults and college students, it seems likely that conflict coaching would also be beneficial for youth in the K–12 range as well. One of the great advantages of this approach is the potential help provided to those in conflicts with a conflict partner who is unwilling to negotiate or mediate. There is also, in the alternative dispute resolution community, a need for a way to enable individuals to develop deeper understanding and strategic skills that are responsive to the specifics of different situations.