Conflict

Conflict

SOURCES OF CONFLICT IN GROUPS

Competition; Conflict often arises because group members compete for desired goals and resources. As the group dynamicist Morton Deutsch explains, when a situation involves competition, the success of any one member of the group means that someone else in the group must fail. Deutsch call this form of interaction 'contrient interdependence'. In contrast, conflict becomes less likely when the success of any one group member will improve the chances of success for the other members. This form of interaction is termed cooperation or promtive interdependence.

...competition helps only when students cooperate in small groups competing against other groups. David Johnson, a leading researcher in this area, goes so far as to predict that an "emphasis on positive goal interdependence among students not only will create the supportive, accepting and caring relationships vital for socialization but will also promote achievement, perspective-taking, self-esteem, psychological health, like for peers, and positive attitudes.

Social psychologist have often used a specialized laboratory technique know as the prisoner's dilemma game, or PDG, to study conflict. Offering one prisoner a deal if he confesses and playing both against each other.

Social Trap; the individual are tempted to act in their own self-interest to the detriment of the group's overall needs. It appears that experience and maintaining communication among the group members appear to be critical factors in avoidance of the social trap.

Contentious Influence Strategies

On the basis of Deutsch and Krauss's finding conclude that the capacity to threaten others set up conflict situation and that the actual use of threats serves to intensify the conflict. Other studies also suggest that if one party can or does threaten the other party, the threatened party will fare best if he or she can not respond with a counter-threat. More resent research, however suggests the equally powerful opponents, over time, learn to avoid the use of their power. Provided fear of retaliation is high, individuals will not attack each other. In sum, influencing others by using threats may cause the situation to become ‘dynamically competitive’ as each party employs counter threats and counter demands in response to the other's threats in an escalatory cycle.

Interpersonal Orientation

Reviews of previous research conclude that many group member characteristics are related to conflict, but general conclusions are still difficult to formulate. Kenneth Terhune points out in his detailed analysis of personality and conflict, researchers encounter difficulties in generalizing laboratory studies, accurately assessing the critical personal characteristics of group members., measuring conflict behaviors, and capturing the understanding the interaction between situational and personal characteristics. One variable that is consistently stressed more that others is the interpersonal style in interacting group members. Two generalized styles are operators and competitors. Note there is no research that supports the gender difference. Some suggest males are more cooperative than competitive and other research suggest the opposite.

Conflict Process

According to attribution theory, which is a social psychological explanation of how people make inferences about the causes of behaviors and events, people continually formulate intuitive causal hypotheses about events. Particular biases my cause a fundamental attribution error. People tend to assume the worst about other group members.

Arousal and Aggression

The arousal and aggression hypothesis when group members are unable to attain the goals they desire because of some environmental restraint or personal limitation, produces frustration. This frustration in turn, produces a readiness to respond in an aggressive manner that boils over into hostility and violence if the situational cues that serve as releasers are present. Anthony Stahelski has labeled the reciprocity phenomenon as behavioral assimilation. The eventual match in, or assimilation, of the behaviors displayed by interacting group members.

Coalitions;

Coalitions vary in many respects, but in most cases;

{Coalitions we mean two or more persons who act jointly to affect the outcomes of one or more other persons}

1.They involve participants who disagree on many fundamental issues but decide to ignore these differences until the problem at hand can be settled.

2. They form to promote the attainment of certain goals or the achievement of specific outcomes. For a time the members of the subgroup share a common goal and stand to profit more be forming a coalition than remaining independent.

3. They tend to be temporary, because members may abandon one alliance to form more profitable ones.

4. They occur in mixed-motive situations.

5. They involve an adversarial element.

Conflict resolution;

Imposition- one party is forced to accept the other party's position

Withdrawal-one party leaves the group.

Inaction-one or both parties do as little as possible.

Yielding-One party withdraws his/her demands.

Compromise-Parties locate an alternative that stands somewhere between their positions.

Problem solving- parties identify the source of the conflict and agree on a solution.