The Handbook of Conflict Resolution (3rd ed)

by Peter T Coleman

  Typically conflict moves people into the closed mode and produces rigid thinking with restricted judgment, reduced complexity, and narrower range of attention. Exactly why this occurs is unclear, but scholars have speculated that it may be due to a number of factors: the conflict triggering a negative affect such as anxiety, a competitive orientation overloading cognitive functioning and leading to preoccupation with formulating strategies and tactics to prevail in the conflict, or simply providing too much cognitive stimulation. If this occurs, conflict resolvers must find the means to reorient disputants, at least temporarily, into an open mode.

  Research by Carnevale and Probst (1998) has identified an important qualifier to the causal chain of “conflict equals tension equals impaired cognitive functioning.” The research found that people’s cognitive functioning becomes more rigid and restricted if they either anticipate or engage in competitive conflicts, but not when they expect or engage in cooperative conflict. People in a cooperative experience are better able to combine categories, see commonalities in their positions, and better locate integrative solutions than those in competitive conflicts.

  The exact reasons for this difference are as yet unclear, but the implications for practice are important. Conflict resolvers who effectively reframe the conflict as a mutual problem to be solved cooperatively by the parties also open up the disputants’ capacity to think creatively about the problem and the solution.

  Adequately Define the Problem.

  Adequate definition is the aspect of creative conflict resolution that is most often shortchanged. The uncomfortable experience of tension associated with many conflicts often moves people to try to solve the problem quickly. This tendency puts them prematurely into the closed mode of decision making around the nature of the problem, before they take the time to open up and examine the problem from alternative perspectives. Ultimately this can lead to superficial or even incorrect understanding of the problem at hand, and much time wasted generating and implementing solutions to the wrong concerns.

  Ironically, this approach can take more time than if the problem is examined thoroughly up front. For example, what is the egg drop problem? Is it to build an apparatus quickly? Is it to keep the other teams from building an apparatus? Or is it to stop the egg six inches from the ground? Each of these definitions of the problem leads to a distinct strategy for solving it. Spending some time exploring the problem, and perhaps identifying the pervasive concerns behind the presenting problem, can lead to satisfying, long-lasting, and even efficient solutions.

  TECHNIQUES FOR STIMULATING NOVEL IDEAS

  It is important to recognize that most creative artists, writers, and scientists produce many ideas before they find a good, novel, creative one. In the preceding guidelines, we discuss some of the conditions fostering openness of the free flow of thought necessary to produce many ideas. Brainstorming (see Osborn, 1953) is a technique widely used to generate ideas. In conflict situations, it may be employed to come up with ideas about the problem or conflict, its potential solution, and action to be taken (Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991). In a brainstorming session, whether as an individual or as a group, one is encouraged to use imagination to come up with as many varied ideas as possible, without censoring or judging them, whether produced by oneself or by another. In a group setting, people are encouraged to free-associate with, elaborate, and build on the ideas of others.

  To encourage novelty as well as quality in ideas, people are encouraged to use metaphors (Lakoff and Johnson, 1980) and analogies. (For example, what new ideas might be developed about a conflict between ethnic groups by using the metaphor of a family feud?) Other techniques for stimulating novelty include synectics, or joining together opposites (Gordon and Poze, 1977); raising questions about ways of changing the situation (Eberle, 1971); and substituting, separating, adding, combining, reducing, magnifying, deleting, or otherwise rearranging elements.

  As the chapters on change processes (chapter 22), intractable conflict (chapter 30), and large-group methods (chapter 38) indicate, another way of getting out of a rut and creating new ideas is to try imagining a desirable future. Beckhard and Reuben (1987), Blake and Mouton (1984), Boulding (1986), and others have used various terms—“envisioning the desired future state,” “social imaging,” “future search”—to characterize the process by which individuals, groups, or organizations are encouraged to free themselves from the constraints of current reality to develop an image of a better future. In practice, this procedure has been useful in helping people develop awareness of new possibilities and new directions. One could expect such a procedure to be helpful in a conflict situation: the parties are aided in imagining desirable relations in the future and to start the process of thinking about how they can get there from the current situation.

  A third party, such as a mediator, can bring new thinking into a stuck conflict. He or she may help the conflicting parties become aware of new possibilities for agreement other than win-lose or lose-lose resolution of their conflict. Thus, as Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim (1994) have pointed out, mutually satisfactory agreements may be reached by (1) expanding the pie, so that there is enough for both sides; (2) nonspecific compensation, which involves having one party receive its best alternative and compensating the other in some other way; (3) logrolling, by having the parties make mutually beneficial trade-offs among the issues; (4) cost cutting, by reducing or eliminating the costs to the party not getting its way; or (5) bridging, by finding an option that satisfies the interests of both parties (see also the discussions in chapters 33 and 34).

  Also, by making the parties aware of their potentially creative differences in what they value, their expectations, their attitude toward risk, their time preferences, and the like (Thompson, 1998), we help them see that their differences can facilitate mutually satisfactory agreement.

  CONCLUSION

  Betty Reardon, a noted peace educator, once said, “The failure to achieve peace is in essence a failure of imagination” (personal communication). Throughout history, considerable human and economic resources have been invested in creating new and deadlier means to wage war. The time has come to invest the energy and resources necessary to innovate and create new and livelier means to wage peace.

  References

  Beckhard, R., and Reuben, H. T. Organizational Transitions. (2nd ed.) Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley, 1987.

  Blake, R. R., and Mouton, J. S. Restoring Trust between Groups in Conflict. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 1984.

  Boulding, E. “Enlivening Our Social Imagination.” In D. Carlson and C. Comstock (eds.), Citizen Summitry: Keeping the Peace When It Matters Too Much to Be Left to Politicians. Los Angeles: Tarcher, 1986.

  Carnevale, P. J., and Probst, T. M. “Social Values and Social Conflict in Creative Problem Solving and Categorization.” Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 1998, 74, 1300–1309.

  Cleese, J. “And Now for Something Completely Different.” Personnel, April 1991, pp. 13–15.

  Eberle, B. Scamper. Buffalo, NY: DOK, 1971.

  Fisher, R. J., Ury, W., and Patton, B. Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In. (2nd ed.) New York: Penguin Books, 1991.

  Gordon, W.J.J., and Poze, T. The Metaphorical Way of Learning and Knowing. Cambridge, MA: Porpoise Books, 1977.

  Lakoff, R., and Johnson, M. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1980.

  Osborn, A. F. Applied Imagination. New York: Scribner, 1953.

  Rokeach, M. The Open and Closed Mind. New York: Basic Books, 1960.

  Rubin, J. Z., Pruitt, D. G., and Kim, S. H. Social Conflict. (2nd ed.) New York: McGraw-Hill, 1994.

  Stein, M. “The Creative Individual.” Unpublished manuscript, 1968.

  Thompson, L. The Mind and Heart of the Negotiator. Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 1998.

  Treffinger, D. J., Isaksen, S. G., and Dorval, K. B. Creative Problem Solving: An Introduction. (Rev. ed.) Sarasota, FL: Center for Creative Learning, 1994.


  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  CREATIVITY IN THE OUTCOMES OF CONFLICTa

  Peter J. Carnevale

  It were not best that we should all think alike; it is difference of opinion that makes horse races.

  —Mark Twain, “The Tragedy of Pudd’nhead Wilson”

  How does creativity play out in social conflict? Just like Mark Twain’s observation about difference of opinion and interesting horse races, it is difference of interest, and how difference is handled, that makes interesting solutions to social conflict. If creativity is applied to the handling of differences, the outcome might very well be a mutually beneficial, integrative agreement; but creativity can be applied just as well to contentiousness, pursuit of selfish interests, and asymmetric outcomes. In this chapter, my focus is on creativity in the service of developing mutually beneficial, integrative agreements.

  Consider the story of the Prophet Muhammad and his idea for settling a dispute that occurred during rebuilding of the Kaaba in Mecca. When the sacred Black Stone was to be put in place, leaders of several tribes quarreled about who should have the honor of placing it. The Prophet’s idea was to place the stone on a cloak, and the heads of each tribe would take a side of the cloak and together carry it in; thus, each could have the honor of putting the stone in place (Satha-Anand, 1998).1 The story points to the characteristics of an outcome, a product—in this case, an agreement that allowed each party to achieve its interest, and it might be judged an especially creative outcome. Indeed, the kind of solution that allows each party to achieve its interests is fundamental and represents a basic type of high-value outcome. The key question is, “What is the structure of creative outcomes of conflict?”

  The focus on the products of negotiation is one of three basic perspectives on creativity in social conflict. The second perspective is about the person (the negotiator or mediator), and here it could be said that the Prophet Muhammad was creative in his suggestion. What are the characteristics of highly creative negotiators?

  The third perspective, on process, is about the set of processes and conditions that connect the person to the product. The key questions are, “How does a given person, or group of people, in situations with pressures and constraints, limited capacities, strong emotions and motives achieve a creative agreement? What are the key underlying, explanatory processes?”2

  OVERVIEW: PERSON, PROCESS, AND PRODUCT

  The three perspectives on creativity in conflict—person, process, and product—can be seen as guides for the analysis of how people can get to integrative agreements. Simonton (2003, 2004) and Runco (2004) outlined these three perspectives in the study of creativity in scientific achievement. This chapter is an extension of that framework to the study of social conflict and reflects as well other works in the broad study of creativity (Amabile, 1993; Mumford, 2003; Sternberg, 1999). In many ways, the development of integrative agreements in social conflict is a subdomain of group creativity (compare Paulus and Nijstad, 2003).

  The perspective on the person includes case studies of famous negotiators and mediators (e.g., Kolb, 1997), as well as studies of negotiator personality characteristics (such as Gunnthorsdottir, McCabe, and Smith, 2002) and studies of basic features of human cognition as they affect negotiation (Kahneman and Tversky, 1995).3 The perspective on the process reflects the social psychological focus on circumstances that evoke motives, incentives, and processes of problem construal and problem solving, a perspective originated by Deutsch (1973, chapters 1 and 2 of this Handbook), Druckman (1977), Kelley (1966), Pruitt (1981, 1998, this volume), and developed by Ross and Ward (1995) and Carnevale and de Dreu (2005; de Dreu and Carnevale, 2003).

  The perspective on the product that can emerge from social conflict and its creativity is the least studied and is the focus of this chapter. In negotiation, the creative products perspective is founded in Follett’s (1940) descriptive writing as well as Walton and McKersie’s (1965) notion that “bargaining is not just a process of dividing up existing resources but is also a process sometimes used for creating additional values or mutual benefits” (p. 23). An important advance in the creative products perspective was Pruitt’s taxonomy of integrative agreements (1981; see also Pruitt and Carnevale, 1982, 1993; Pruitt and Kim, 2004), which is reflected in theoretical work by Hopmann (1996) and descriptive work on deal development by Lax and Sebenius (1986, 2002).

  INTEGRATIVE AGREEMENT AS CREATIVITY

  Herbert Simon (2001) wrote, “We judge thought to be creative when it produces something that is both novel and interesting and valuable” (p. 208). This multiple component definition is seen in other writing as well; for example, Sternberg and Lubart (1999) focus on creativity as being original as well as appropriate, and Smith (2005) emphasizes that a creative idea must have some bearing on reality as defined by “professionals in the domain at issue” (p. 294). In social conflict, creativity is sometimes equated with cooperation and problem solving, that is, it is seen as the opposite of competitiveness. But creativity can be applied to competitive intent as well, that is, the motives in a given situation can drive the form and expression of creativity.

  The positions taken on the issues in conflict and negotiation often reflect underlying interests, that is, the parties’ values and needs (Burton, 1987; Fisher, Ury, and Patton, 1991). The search for underlying interests is one aspect of problem finding and problem solving, which is defined in negotiation as “any effort to identify a formula that will satisfy both sides’ aspirations” (Pruitt and Kim, 2004, p. 189). As a result, the possible end product of problem solving, an integrative agreement, can be characterized as “efficient,” “optimal,” or “rational” (Smith, 2003), although the interesting issues are the basic structures of agreement, and their characteristics, that give them value of one form or another.

  Compromise Versus Integrative

  Some agreements are better than others, and this is seen in Follett’s (1940) distinction between compromise and integration, a distinction that has carried through to most major treatises on negotiation and social conflict (Deutsch, 1973; Pruitt, 1981; Walton and McKersie, 1965). A compromise is a superficial treatment of differences that typically has each side give up something, meeting midway between opening positions. Integration “means that a solution has been found in which both desires have found a place, that neither side has had to sacrifice anything” (Follett, 1940, p. 32); integrative agreements give greater collective value to the parties and can be seen as the product of a process of creative thinking (Pruitt, 1981).

  Of course, not all situations have equal integrative potential. The conflict between Al Qaeda and the United States has little such potential (see Deutsch, chapter 2 of this Handbook, for a discussion of difficult conflicts). But there are conflicts that appear not to allow the possibility of integrative potential but can be resolved constructively with creativity. Consider, for example, two siblings who quarrel over the possession of a single family heirloom; they think only one can have it. However, as Deutsch’s example in chapter 2 of this Handbook indicates, there are several creative solutions to such a conflict. Another well-known example is that of the story of two sisters who quarrel over an orange that both want: they could reach a compromise by simply cutting the orange in half and each taking half. However, with some openness and search for information, they might discover that one sister wanted the orange for its juice and the other wanted the peel for baking cakes. Clearly the integrative solution of one taking all the juice and the other taking the entire peel is the better solution. In Follett’s (1940) words, “Integration involves invention, and the clever thing is to recognize this, and not to let one’s thinking stay within the boundaries of two alternatives which are mutually exclusive” (p. 33). And this raises the question about the relative merits of an integrative agreement over a compromise.

  Settlement versus Resolution

  The distinction between compromise and integration is about the differences at hand, about the issues faced at the m
oment and whether they are treated in a superficial manner. An analogous distinction can be made about the broader relationship between the parties in conflict: settlement versus resolution. A settlement is an agreement of the issues at hand and may even be an integrative agreement that ends a conflict yet leaves other issues in the broader relationship between the parties unresolved. Resolution is more substantive: it is an agreement in which most or all issues “are cleared up” (Pruitt and Kim, 2004).

  The Conflict Management System

  An optimal state for any relationship is the achievement of a conflict management system—a set of procedures for fostering integrative agreements in the resolution of existing and future differences. Sometimes conflict management systems are devised in an explicit manner, where the parameters are highly structured and negotiated, as when a labor contract has an organizational dispute resolution system that entails a mix of procedures such as negotiation, mediation, and arbitration (Bendersky, 2003). At other times, conflict management systems develop informally, even tacitly, and entail adoption of procedures or norms on how future conflicts will be handled in a mutually beneficial manner. Cooperation in establishing such systems has a parallel in instrumental cooperation in social dilemmas, which are efforts by people to increase the likelihood that others will cooperate and share resources and thus foster collective welfare (Yamagishi, 1986).