Affective choice of conflict management styles

Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 1 Affective choice of conflict management styles Carlos Montes, Dámaso Rodríguez, and Gonzalo Serrano University of Santiago de Compostela (Spain) Date of postage: November, 9th 2009 Date of resubmission: February, 22th 2010 To cite this document: Montes, C., Rodríguez, D., & Serrano, G. (2012). "Affective choice of conflict management styles", International Journal of Conflict Management, Vol. 23 Issue: 1, pp.6-18, https://doi.org/10.1108/10444061211199304 Author note Correspondence concerning this article should be addressed to Carlos Montes, Department of Social Psychology, Basic and Methodology, University of Santiago de Compostela, Campus Sur s/n, 15782, Santiago de Compostela (Spain). Phone: +34 982 824 801; Fax: +34 982 824 806; E-mail: [email protected]s Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 2 Abstract Purpose – The main goal of this study is to identify the affective factors underlying conflict behavior. Traditional conflict research assumes that when individuals face conflicts they follow a rational process, thus denying the role of emotion-relevant variables. Design/methodology/approach – 358 undergraduate students from the University of Santiago de Compostela were classified into four different affective groups (happy, inactive, sad, and surprised) based on their actual emotional experience and asked to complete ROCI-II (Rahim, 1983). ANOVA were conducted to test hypotheses. Findings – Results reveal that affective groups statistically differ in their self-reported conflict management styles. Positive moods and feelings have been found to be related to the preference for more cooperative strategies. Research limitations – This study is exploratory in nature and since hypotheses were only partly supported, future research should address this topic in depth. Practical implications – It has been suggested that, in order to handle conflicts properly, individuals should take into account both their cognition and emotion. Originality/value – This paper shed light on current research in the prediction of conflict behavior by examining the impact of affect out from the lab. Keywords – Mood, conflict, conflict styles. Paper type – Research paper. Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 3 Introduction Traditional conflict research has focused on the analysis of fully rational negotiators assuming that people face conflicts in personal and working life following a rational decision-making process. This approach has dominated conflict research in the 1980s and 1990s and has ignored most emotional-relevant variables (Bazerman et al., 2000). Researches, in this view, emphasized the cognitive side of conflict management, neglecting the emotional one. Even, at this point in time, affect was “one of the least studied areas of dyadic negotiation” (Neale and Northcraft, 1991, p. 170). All negotiation and dispute resolution processes, however, have a significant affective component (Barry, 2008; Carnevale, 2008), and in recent years both professionals and social scientists have moved their interest to the role played by emotions in conflict management (Barry et al., 2006). Gradually, the number of empirical studies which addresses this topic has grown, highlighting that the different affective phenomena (i.e., feelings) experienced by subjects might influence the way they deal with conflicts; that is to say, the intrapersonal effects of affect (cf., Morris and Keltner, 2000). The path to the study of affect and conflict resolution processes was opened by the seminal work of Carnevale and Isen (1986). In their study, Carnevale and Isen investigated the combined effects of a negotiator’s mood and visual access between negotiators on the process and outcome of an integrative bargaining task. They found that, when positive affect had been induced (i.e., subjects who rated humorous cartoons and received a scratch pad as gift), people negotiating face-to-face obtained better outcomes in the negotiation and enjoyed the process more. However, in control condition, people achieved lower joint outcomes and show more contentious behaviors. Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 4 They conclude that positive affect not only reduce the use of contentious tactics, but facilitates cooperative bargaining and increase joint benefit. Focused on this intrapersonal view it has also been found that positive mood and feelings (usually induced) increase concession making (Baron, 1990), stimulate innovative problem solving (Isen et al., 1987), augment the use of cooperative negotiation strategies (Forgas, 1998), enlarge the “size of the pie” or joint gains (Allred et al., 1997), and enhance self-confidence and self-ratings of performance (Kramer et al., 1993). Negative mood, conversely, has been shown to decrease initial offers (Baron et al., 1990), augment the use of competitive negotiation strategies (Forgas, 1998), promote the rejection of ultimatum offers (Pillutla and Murnighan, 1996), decrease joint gains (Allred et al., 1997), and decrease the desire for future interaction (Allred et al., 1997). In sum, these two kinds of affect can both help and hinder the processes of conflict resolution. Nowadays, there is still little empirical research that had linked affect to conflict management styles without mood manipulation (for an exception, see Desivilya and Yagil, 2005), so the main goal of this study is to identify the affective factors underlying the choice of the different conflict management styles. Conflict Handling Skills Conflict may be defined as “the interaction of interdependent people who perceive opposition of goals, aims, and values, and who see the other party as potentially interfering with the realization of these goals” (Putnam and Poole, 1987, p. 552). Consequently, it is an important element of social interaction and no couple, Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 5 group, organization, or society is said to be free of conflicts (Rahim, 1986). Conflict handling skills are, thus, very important for maintaining almost all human relationship, in either personal or working life. A conflict management style is defined here as a general and consistent orientation toward the other party and the conflict issues, which is manifested in observable behaviors (Thomas, 1976). Conflicts can be managed in a variety of ways. In the early 1920’s, Follett (1940) described conflict-handling styles as domination, compromise, integration, avoidance and suppression. Deutsch (1949), for his part, proposed a dichotomy involving either cooperation or competition. However, the first conceptual scheme for classifying conflict styles was presented by Blake and Mouton (1964), who identified five modes of handling conflict: forcing, withdrawing, smoothing, compromising, and problem solving. Following Blake and Mouton’s (1964) Managerial Grid, a conflict is managed in these five different ways depending on whether the individuals involved, specifically managers, have high or low concern for production and high or low concern for people. Since its introduction, Blake and Mouton's (1964) two-dimensional typology has been reinterpreted as, for example, concerns for work relationship and personal goals (Hall, 1969), cooperativeness and assertiveness (Thomas, 1976), and other’s and own interests and outcomes (Pruitt, 1983; Pruitt and Rubin, 1986). Due to empirical evidence (e.g., Rahim and Magner, 1995), Rahim and Bonoma’s (1979) conceptualization has been one of the most popular revisions. They reinterpreted concerns for production and the disputants as concerns for self and others. The former explains the degree to which a person attempts to satisfy their own concerns, while the later explains the degree to which an individual try to satisfy the Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 6 needs or concerns of others. As shown in figure 1, a combination of these dimensions results in five different styles: integrating, obliging, dominating, avoiding, and compromising (Rahim, 1983; Rahim and Bonoma, 1979; Rahim and Magner, 1995). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Take in Figure 1 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Based on the extensive work of Rahim and his colleagues (e.g., Rahim; 1983; Rahim; 1986; Rahim, 1997; Rahim; 2002; Rahim and Bonoma, 1979; Rahim and Magner, 1995), these five conflict styles may be conceptualized as follows: Integrating (high concern for self and others) style describes parties who employ cooperative behaviors intended to pursue mutually favorable solutions (Walton and McKersie, 1965). This style implies focusing on shared points and goals rather than personal interests and involves working through the conflict with creativity, flexibility, and open communication and information exchange in order to achieve the best (or at least acceptable) solution for all concerned parties. Obliging (low concern for self and high concern for others) style is characterized by an incomplete evaluation of alternatives and a one-sided process of giving-in which decrease the decision-making quality (Kuhn and Poole, 2000). An obliging person neglects his or her own concern to satisfy the concern of the other party, and is characterized by such actions as going along Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 7 with others, agreeing without critical evaluation, and giving in to others’ positions. Dominating (high concern for self and low concern for others) style has been identified with win-lose orientation or with forcing behavior to win one's own position. This distributive style is a confrontative approach that results in one side conceding to other. Putman and Wilson (1982) assert that tactics commonly used to resolve conflicts in this style include (a) directive communication about the issue, (b) persistent argument for one’s own position, and (c) an attempt to take control of the interaction. Avoiding (low concern for self and others) style describes behavior that serves to minimize addressing the conflict explicitly, either ignoring it or quickly shifting conversation to a different issue. It has been associated with withdrawal, buck-passing, or sidestepping situations (Rahim, 2002). Compromising is in the middle of the dimension across concern for self and concern for the other. Compromise shows modest interest to pursue a mutually acceptable outcome but without making a concerted effort to reach it. Thus, both parties may have some gains and some losses by allowing give-andtake whereby both parties give up some important needs or goals because they found that some suboptimal outcome must be accepted (Poole et al., 1991). Individuals often use this style when willingness to solve the problem is not sufficiently high or when pressures involving time limitations or high costs present themselves. Compromising involves such tactics as appealing to fairness, suggestion of a trade-off, maximizing wins and minimizing losses, and offering a quick, short-term solution. Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 8 Studies carried out in Spain with self-reported measures (e.g., Munduate et al., 1994) reveal that integrative styles (integrating, compromising, and avoiding) are more used by Spanish managers than distributive styles (obliging and dominating). Observational studies show, however, that managers employ dominating style more than they actually admit (Munduate et al., 1997). What is more, it has been found the use of integrating more often with superiors than peers; compromising more with peers than superiors; and dominating more with subordinates and peers than superiors (Munduate et al., 1997). So, although each individual has a predominant conflict style, this style can be altered depending on a given situation (Hocker and Wilmot, 1995). Here lies the basic logic behind this study: we suggest that conflict approach -the preference for any conflict styleis quite sensitive to emotional cues. Role of Affect in the preference for Conflict Management Styles The interest in the impact of affective states on conflict management and negotiation has considerably grown in recent years (see Barsade and Gibson, 2007 for an overview). In general, extant research tend to point out that positive affect is linked to integrating or cooperative strategies (e.g., Baron, 1990; Carnevale and Isen, 1986; Forgas, 1998; Isen et al., 1987; Kramer et al., 1993), while negative affect is related to competitive conflict behaviors (e.g., Allred et al., 1997; Baron et al., 1990; Forgas, 1998; Pillutla and Murnighan, 1996). However, only a few studies have explicitly focused on exploring the relationship between an individual’s emotional state and his or her approach to conflict management. For instance, in a study on the preferences for conflict management patterns within work teams, Desivilya and Yagil (2005) found that Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 9 cooperative patterns of conflict management are associated with positive emotional states, contentious or dominating patterns of conflict management were associated with both positive as well as negative emotional states, and an avoidance pattern of conflict management was associated with negative mood only. Another example was provided by Rhoades et al. (2001) who addressed the impact of affective traits and affective states on employee’s motivations and behaviors during episodes of workplace conflict. Their work show that self-reported positive affect associated with work disputes elicited problem-solving tendencies. Moreover, they found that self-reported negative affect stimulated competitiveness and a high concern for self. Based on two dimensions of self-concern versus other-concern and motives to approach or withdraw from the other party or conflict, Bell and Song (2005) linked four emotional constructs (hostility, selfconscious emotions, relational positivity, and fear) to conflict management styles. Their results showed that only relational positivity predicted conflict behavior; specifically, relational positivity predicted integrating, compromising, and obliging strategies. Following previous approaches found in the literature, the specific objective of this study is to identify the role of emotional states on the choice of conflict management styles. So we address simultaneously positive and negative affect (as it has been demanded by Barry, 2008), without inducing it, because emotion in actual negotiation contexts and other social exchanges operates at both positive and negative affect levels; each one with its own antecedents and, at the same time, its own consequences. Particularly, we examined positive and negative affect as two higherorder affective dimensions (Watson et al., 1999). We have focused on moods rather than emotions because, as stated by Forgas and George (2001), “moods are more common, longer lasting, and less noticeable than are other kinds of affective states. Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 16 actual conflict resolution and negotiation processes entail both positive and negative affect. In line with expectations, results of this study suggest that when facing conflicts individuals themselves do not intuitively follow purely rational strategies, but are also influenced by their affect. In fact, despite the order of preference for conflict handling styles was the same for all groups, emotional groups significantly differ in their preference for some conflict management styles. Specifically, happy (high positive affect and low negative affect) participants tend to prefer cooperative conflict resolution strategies (integrating and compromising) more than do sad participants (low positive affect and high negative affect). Moreover, surprised (high positive affect and high negative affect) participants also tend to prefer integrating more than do individuals who have a negative emotional experience (i.e., sad participants). Despite literature has shown that negative affect is related to contentious conflict behaviors, it has not been found differences for the preference for competitive or distributive management styles (obliging and dominating). This may be due to the fact that most of research on negative affect in conflict behavior has been concerned with discrete emotions (e.g., Allred et al., 1997), which are briefer, more intense, and cause greater physiological changes (Frijda, 1994). In this sense, compared with emotions, the effect of general mood would be too slight to provoke significant differences. These findings show that emotional states could act as a potential triggers for the preference for different conflict management styles and lend additional support to previous findings in the domain of conflict resolution (e.g., Carnevale and Isen, 1986; Forgas, 1998). Further, in the field of negotiation research, Barry and Oliver’s (1996) dynamic model of affect show that pre-negotiation mood -understood as a product of Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 17 ambient conditions, previous interpersonal interaction, and levels of trait affect among individual bargainers-, influence on aspirations, expectations, strategies and tactics at the beginning of negotiation encounter. Hence, it is important that people to be aware of all the facts concerning emotions, as empirical evidence reviewed has been shown that even mild mood states can have a powerful influence on the way people deal with conflicts. This is particularly important given that the hotter the emotion is, the more distance there is between what people think they should do (cognitive) and what they want to do (emotional) (Bazerman et al., 1998). It seems reasonable to conclude that traditional conflict research does not adequately capture actual dynamics in conflict resolution, and emotional processes must be taken into account. However emotions and moods, as Barry (2008) has recently stated, are not an alternative to cognition at the negotiation table, but rather a complementary force. This mood-cognition interplay can be found in literature. For instance, affect has been found to influence perceptions, judgments, information processing, and decision making in organizations (Forgas and George, 2001). The results of this research emphasize that the preference for any conflict management style should be understood from a multidimensional point of view. Therefore, in order to manage conflicts effectively we have to consider both rational and emotional sides of the same coin. Study Limitations This study has some limitations. First, this work is exploratory in nature and, therefore, more investigation is needed. In fact, there is little empirical research which has combined positive and negative affect into one single measure, and even more, the Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 18 effect of surprised (high PA and high NA) and inactive (low PA and low NA) affective states on conflict behavior has not been tested before. Second, data were gathered with self-report measures raising concerns about common-method variance (Podsakoff et al., 2003). Future studies should include different measures of affect. Finally, we have assumed that mood could influence conflict preference due to its diffuse and unconscious nature (Forgas and George, 2001), however, we asked subjects to rate their mood and this emotional recall may let them be aware of their emotions, and consequently may influence their motivation and behavior (De Raad and Kokkonnen, 2000). Directions for Future Research and Practical Implications In the present study, we focused on the relationship between affect and conflict management styles. However, results are modest and only slight differences have been found. So, it is a particular important question for future researchers to corroborate these findings in different populations and contexts. For example, it would be interesting to know how affect influence conflict management in marital couples or work settings. Another important goal for future research will be to address the impact of pre-negotiation mood as it was postulated by Barry and Oliver (1996). In this case, we suggest using experimental designs to test causality between parties affect and conflict resolution behaviors. Moreover, as conflict behavior is multidimensional (Barry, 2008), future studies should examine in a comprehensive model both the role of cognition and affect in conflict handling. Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 19 Our study has practical implications. Assuming that positive affect may contribute to cooperative conflict management, and given that mood can be easily induced (Carnevale and Isen, 1986), it would be important to develop positive feelings between parties in conflict, not only to promote a preference for integrating or compromising styles, but also to promote a constructive environment which may lead to an effective conflict resolution. Running head: Affective choice of conflict management styles 20 References Allred, K.G., Mallozzi, J.S., Matsui, F. and Raia, C.P. (1997), “The influence of anger and compassion on negotiation performance”, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, Vol. 70, pp. 175-187. Baron, R.A. (1990), “Environmentally induced positive affect: Its impact on self-efficacy, task performance, negotiation, and conflict”, Journal of Applied Social Psychology, Vol. 20, pp. 368-384. Baron, R.A., Fortin, S.P., Frei, R.L., Hauver, L.A. and Shack, M.L. 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