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Conflict Management Summary
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This summary includes the notes from the lecture slides as well as the required reading for this course (Textbook: Negotiation by Lewicky, Barry & Saunders).
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WEEK 1Lecture 1: week 1: What is conflict?
● Interdependent relationships have the potential for conflict
● Negotiation can play a role in resolving conflict effectively.
● Conflict is a sharp disagreement of interests, ideas etc. it includes the perceived
divergence of interest or a belief that current aspirations can be achieved simultaneously.
There are 4 levels of commonly identified conflict:
1. Intrapersonal within an individual
2. Interpersonal between individuals
3. Intragroup within a group
4. Intergroup between groups
Interpersonal conflict
● A problematic situation with the following 4 characteristics
1. Conflicting parties are interdependent
2. They have the perception that they seek incompatible goals or outcomes of they favor
incompatible means to the same ends
3. The perceived incompatibility has the potential to adversely affect the relationship
4. There is a sense of urgency about the need to resolve the difference.
Collaborating through differences
● There are differences in interests between parties: finding compatibility is often key
● Difference in judgment about the future: how parties see what’s possible creates
opportunities to get together
● Differences in risk tolerance: companies with a cash flow problem can assume less risk.
● Differences In time preference: the seller wants to close the deal, but the buyer may not
be ready.
● Collaboration or value creation is often created by exploiting common interest, but
difference can also serve as the basis for collaboration.
Functions and dysfunction of conflict
● Discussion raises awareness
● Brings change and adaptation
● Strengthens relationships and boosts morale
● Promotes self-awareness
● Persona development
● Stimulating and fun
● Win-lose goals lead to competitive processes
● Misperception and bias increase escalation of the conflict
● Emotionality may increase
● Productive communication decrease
● Blurred central issues
Should conflict be avoided?
Megi, Summary 2021
, ● Destructive: inflexible behavior and aimed at defeating others, leading to avoid improving
situations and interpersonal relationships
● Productive: flexible behavior and aimed at resolving problems and achieving mutual goals,
improving the relationship
Reading 1: introduction to the study of conflict communication
● Conflict occurs due to deep division in our society that carry over into interpersonal
relationships
● Interpersonal conflict can be defined as a problematic situation with the following
characteristics:
○ Conflicting parties are interdependent
■ Interdependence occurs when those involved in a relationship characterize it
as continuous and important, making it worth the effort to maintain
○ They have the perception that they seek incompatible goals/outcomes or favor
incompatible means to the same ends
■ Incompatible goals occur when we’re seeking different outcomes, and may
entail personal habits that clash
■ Incompatible means happen when we want to achieve the same goal but
differ in how we achieve it
○ Perceived incompatibility has the potential to adversely affect the relationship if
not addressed
○ Sense of urgency about the need to resolve the difference
■ Sense of urgency defined as a reaching point where it needs effective
management sooner or later.
● Conflict may also occur when people aren’t talking to each other e.g., silent treatment
● A study found when people experience negative emotions they become more equivocal or
evasive so it’s likely they may not say anything but communicate in ambivalent terms
● Mismanaged conflicts can adversely affect relationships - when together feelings of
discomfort, desire for partners to change etc.
Inevitability of conflict principle
● When relationships become emotionally & physically closer, more personal and
interdependent conflict becomes more likely hence inevitable.
Emotional, psychological and material resources producing satisfaction in long term romantic
relationships & potential to create conflict:
1. Love; nonverbal expression of positive regard, warmth and comfort
2. Status - verbal expressions of high of low prestige or esteem
3. Service - labor of one for another
4. Information - advice, opinions, instructions, enlightenment
5. Goods - material items
Megi, Summary 2021
, 6. Money - financial contributions
7. Shared time - time spent together
Conflict management as a skill
● Communication behavior a person employs based on his or her analysis of a conflict
situation.
● Includes alternative ways of dealing with conflict, resolution or avoiding it altogether.
○ Conflict resolution: one alternative in which parties solve a problem or issue and
expect it not to arise again.
● When a successful communication behavior is used and repeated it becomes a
communication skill.
● Skills are learned.
● Communication competence takes knowledge about the way conflict works, knowledge of
the skills and practice.
● Firstly, you have choices when in a conflict situation: how you communicate.
● Secondly, you must analyze conflict by a meta-conflict perspective to effectively manage
it.
○ The ability to take this perspective means you can look back on conflicts, analyze
what you did well and poorly and learn from mistakes.
Linear approach to communication
● Linear model of communication model emphasizes accuracy: is what was received the
same meaning as what was intended or sent?
● This is a narrow view of communication and limits our view of interpersonal conflict as
something we do to someone.
● From this point of view the focus is on the end result - getting the other to change his
mind or blaming one person for the conflict situation.
Transactional model of communication
● Emphasizes managing and coordination. May be defined as the exchange of verbal and
nonverbal messages in an attempt to better understand one another’s perspective and
create shared meaning.
● This approach recognizes that communication and conflict isn't something we do to one
another but with one another.
● Conflict isn't seen as something that happens when one “sends” a message to another
indicating he's unhappy, but behaviors of each person in response to one another
exchanging messages.
● Both parties have a responsibility towards abiding judgment, empathizing with each other
and keeping an open mind, welcoming feedback & realizing they may both have to adapt
to resolve the issue.
● Advantage is that we begin to recognize the importance of both people’s behavior in a
conflict situation.
Megi, Summary 2021
,Main difference is the primary visual metaphor for the linear model being a conveyor belt
(messages sent and received in linear fashion), in the transactional model it’s seen as a dance
between two people (messages co created by managing and coordinating).
Destructive and productive conflict communication processes
● A process is dynamic, ongoing and continuous. Viewing objects, people events and
situations as processes means we understand:
○ Processes have stages of development through growth or deterioration
○ Have a history in which a distinctive pattern emerges
○ Consist of continual change over time
○ Have ingredients that interact that may or may not lead to the next stage
○ They represent some outcome, stage or state of being
● When we communicate we don't take a process view:
○ When we see something at its present age only and not as a stage in development,
when we don't consider the ingredients that make something etc.
● Conflict communication is a process of exchanging verbal and nonverbal messages in a
conflict situation that starts with antecedent, moves through steps and ends with
consequences.
● Process view of conflict communication: has implication for how we view a conflict
situation and conflict management behavior. Both are embedded in a series of instances
that follow one another. This view or reality allows us to see situation and behavior as
phases or stages, reflecting a switch to a process orientation. If the series continues to
repeat itself it becomes a cycle.
The cycle consists of triggering event, initiation of conflict, differentiation phase, resolution
phase, prelude to conflict.
● The prelude of conflict consists of the variables that make conflict possible between
those involved. It includes
○ Participants in the conflict situation (numbers, age, sex)
○ Relationship between them varying in closeness and distribution of power and their
conflict history
○ Other interested parties to conflict
○ Physical and social environment of conflict
● Triggering event behavior parties point to as the issue e.g., saying something rude
● Initiation phase occurs when conflict becomes overt, and one person makes the other one
know there's a conflict.
● Differentiation phase of the ongoing interaction pattern occurs when participants use
constructive or deconstructive states and tactics, presenting both sides to the story - a
stage where conflict becomes quite obvious.
Megi, Summary 2021
, ○ This phase allows parties to explain how they see the situation and what they want
as result
● Resolution phase occurs when those involved accept some outcome to the conflict.
Conflict communication is destructive or dysfunctional when it leaves the participants
dissatisfied.
3 ways in which conflict escalates and may harm a relationship
1. Heated conflict communication
2. Appeasing the other rather than engaging in conflict may be more damaging
3. Nonverbal behavior during conflict such as woman's disgust ,and miserable smile
Destructive conflict
● Occurs when parties don't manage a conflict in a mutually satisfactory way and do more
harm to the relationship. When participants lose sight of original goals and hostility takes
over and becomes the norm, conflict is destructive.
Productive conflict
● Conflict is kept to the issue and to those involved. It reduces the costs to the participants
and the intensity of negative feelings. It includes helping the other person and letting go
of past feelings. Productive conflict occurs when there is no escalation and loss of control.
It features an awareness of options in conflict situations. Productive conflict doesn't rely
on overt power and manipulative techniques.
● It is distinguished from destructive on the basis of mutually favorable or unfavorable
outcomes.
Negative view of conflict
● Conflict is almost always associated with negative feelings.
● Metaphors aren't only figures of speech but a reflection of how we think. How we think
about something like conflict and the metaphors we may create for it create an
expectation as to what can, will or should happen and the sort of emotions that might
occur.
● Not everyone uses a metaphor to describe a conflict unless they are prompted to do so.
Those who do use metaphors that reflect powerless feelings.
● Not all people use the same adjective to describe what conflict means to them.
● Common negative attitude towards conflict hinders us from learning how to better manage
our conflicts.
Positive view of conflict
Effective conflict management doesn’t view conflict negatively but rather sees opportunities to
resolve problems and improve relationships with the people who mean the most in conflict
situations.
Megi, Summary 2021
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