Communication and Conflict Midterm

Both/And Power

Assume all parties in a dispute have power.

Power Currencies

Depend on how much your particular resources are valued by the other persons in a relationship context. RICE

Individualistic Cultures

I know this.

Promises

If the source controls the outcome and the recipient sees that outcome as positive it is this.

Warnings

If the source does not control the outcome the comment is not a threat it is this.

Conflict Styles

Patterned responses, or clusters of behavior, that people use in conflict

Perceived Incompatible Goals

People usually engage in conflict over goals that are important to them. This term happens because parties either 1) want the same thing or 2) want different things.

Power

Seen as 1) designated, 2) distributive, or 3) Integrative

Avoidant System

Where members avoided most conflict

Ineffective Communication Strategies

...

Mutual Interdependence

...

Positive Approaches to Conflict

1) Conflict is inevitable; therefore, the constructive way to approach it is as "a fact of life," 2) Conflict serves the function of "bringing problems to the table," 3) Conflict often helps people join together and clarify their goals, and 4) Conflict can clear out resentments and help people understand each other

Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse

1) Criticizing 2) Defensiveness 3) Stonewalling 4) Contempt

Dance of Intimacy

A destructive pattern usually manifested in intimate relationships that destroys chances for positive interaction. One partner specializes in initiating conversation, commenting on the lack of closeness between the partners, bringing up feelings and issues to get them resolved, and drawing the other partner out by asking questions like "you seem preoccupied--what's going on?" Then distance is engaged in as the other partner minimizes the problems, denies anything is wrong, promises to do better, comments on content problems only, avoids discussion of any relationship issues, or gives excuses. The conflict remains unresolved because each partner specializes in a role that is so prescribed that the issues remain unexplored.

Prevention

A paradoxical task that means "to anticipate, forestall, come before, be in readiness for an occasion, deprive something of power, hold or keep back, and deal with beforehand." Implies taking advance measures against something, to forestall something from its course; taking effective measures to ward off something destructive.

Attributions

Adding other perspectives on the conflict equation.

Compromise

An intermediate style resulting in some gains and some losses for each party. Moderately assertive and cooperative. Characterized by beliefs such as "you can be satisfied with part of the pie" and "give a little to get a little." Dependent on shared power because if the other party is perceived as powerless, no compelling reason to do this exists.

Mental Health

And overall happiness improve with a constructive conflict process. When people experience conflicts, much of their energy goes into emotions and strategizing related to those conflicts. They may be fearful, angry, resentful, hopeless, preoccupied, or stressed. Ineffective resolution of interpersonal disputes adds to pessimism and hopelessness. Eating disorders, physical and psychological abuse of partners, and problem drinking are also associated with destructive conflict environments.

Lens Model of Conflict

Any conflict can be viewed through 1) communication behaviors and 2) the perceptions of those behaviors. This model specifies that each person views 1) oneself, 2) the other person, and 3) the relationship.

Perceived Scarce Resource

Any positively perceived physical, economic, or social consequence that may be objectively real or perceived as real by the person

Power-Dependence Relations

As one person becomes more dependent on the other, the other becomes more powerful and vice versa. When two people elevate their dependence on each other, both increase their sources of power. Power in enduring relationships is not finite-it is an expandable commodity.

Perception

At the core of all conflict analysis.

Perception of Power

Because each person in conflict so often believes that he or she is in the low-power position, the conflict escalates. People use devious and manipulative tactics since they truly think they have no choice

Metacommunication

Being verbally explicit about the communication

Autonomy and Independence

Boys and men are seen as valuing this, learning to communicate in ways that preserve their independence from others.

Designated Power

Comes from your position, such as being a manager, the parents of a family, or a leader of a team. Your power is conferred by the position you hold.

Interpersonal Conflict

Conflict between two or more peoples

Destructive Conflicts

Conflict can be this depending on many factors, including the context in which it occurs, and the kinds of communication used. If all participants are dissatisfied with the outcomes of a conflict and think they have lost as a result, then the conflict is classified as this.

Strategic Conflict

Conflict in which parties have choices as opposed to conflict in which the power is so disparate that there are virtually no choices

Communication Skills

Conversational skills, persuasive ability, listening skills, group leadership skills, the ability to communicate caring and warmth, and the ability to form close bonds with others

Defensive Climate

Created when people use evaluation rather than description, control rather than problem solving, strategy rather than spontaneity, neutrality rather than empathy, superiority rather than equality, and certainty rather than provisionalism.

Avoidance

Denial of the conflict, changing and avoiding topics, being noncommittal, and joking rather than dealing with the conflict at hand. This person may sidestep an issue by changing the topic or simply withdrawing from dealing with the issue. Just as use of competitive or dominating style does not mean that one will get what one wants, this style does not mean it will be ineffective. Sometimes by pretending that the conflict does not exist, the high-power party is freed from dealing with the low-power party. Can be helpful when 1) open communication is not an integral part of the system, 2) one does not want to invest the energy to work through the conflict to reach agreement, 3) the costs of confrontation are too high, and 4) one simply hasn't learned how to engage in collaborative conflict management.

Style Preferences

Develop over a person's lifetime based on a complicated blend of personal characteristics, life experiences, and family background.

Attachment Styles

Either secure or insecure styles that affect conflict resolution abilities twenty or so years later. Secure: use caregivers as a source of comfort in stressful situations. Insecure: don't use and can't rely on their caregivers to provide comfort.

Conflict Parties

Engage in an expressed struggle and interfere with one another because they are interdependent

Relational Theory of Power

Excluding situations of unequal physical power and use of violence, power is a property of the social relationship rather than a quality of the individual. Power is not owned by an individual. Power is instead a product of the communication relationship in which certain qualities matter such as economic resources, love and affection, or networking skills. Power is given from one party to another in conflict and can be taken away when the situation changes. Power dynamics are fluid, changing, and dependent on the specific relationship and context.Each person in a conflict has some degree of power, though one may have more compared to the other. Power is based on one's dependence on resources or currencies that another person controls or seems to "possess". Your dependence on another person is a function of 1) the importance of the goals the other can influence and 2) the availability of other avenues for you to accomplish what you want/

Either/Or Power

Focuses on power over or against the other party. Power means domination-you either dominate the other or you are forced or manipulated into a low-power role.

Unresolved Conflict

Has a tremendous negative impact. Directly affects the parties themselves. Leads to drifting away from one another in personal relationships, and leads to low productivity and being fired in the workplace.

Personal and Workplace History

Has taught you either to jump right into conflict or to strenuously attempt to reduce or avoid it.

Collectivistic Cultures

I know this.

Low Power

If these people are continually subjected to harsh treatment or lack of goal attainment, they are likely to produce some organized resistance to the "higher" people. When one reaches a state where "nothing matters" violence or despair is spawned. Usually turns to one extreme or the other--giving up or aggression.

Danger Metaphors

Imply that the outcome is predetermined with little possibility for productive conflict management.

Connection with Others

In Western culture, girls and women are seen as valuing this, the communication of care and responsiveness, and the preservation of the relationship.

Escalatory Spiral

In this, the relationship continues to circle around to more and more damaging ends; the interaction becomes self-perpetuating. Its characteristics are misunderstanding, discord, and destruction.

Social Learning Theory

Individuals are assumed to learn to be male or female based on communication and observation. They learn gender roles in same-sex groups. Through imitation, young children imitate almost anything they see and hear. However, only gender-consistent communication is rewarded by important others around the child. Children slowly learn how to be a girl and how to be a boy.

Intrapersonal Conflict

Internal strain that creates a state of ambivalence, conflicting internal dialogue, or lack of resolution in one's thinking and feeling

Dominating

Is productive if you compete to accomplish individual goals without destroying the other person. The relationship focus is maintained even while the topic is debated. Can be productively used in conflict especially if the participants agree about the amount of aggressiveness that can legitimately be used in the conflict.

Calm Persistence

Lower power people in a conflict often can gain more equal power by persisting in their requests. Substantive change, when power is unequal, seldom comes about through intense, angry confrontation. Rather, change results from careful thinking and from planning for small, manageable moves based on a solid understanding of the problem. When intensity is high, people react rather than observe and think.

Expressed Struggles

Most of these become activated by a triggering event

Destructive Marital Conflict

Negative conflict between the parents reduces the family's network of friends and creates more loneliness. Conflict between the parents tends to both change the mood of household interactions and shift the parents' attention to the negative behaviors of their children. Parental conflict has a direct negative impact on the children.

High Power

Often a goal people strive for; those with less power often feel things would be better with more power. The major difficulty with this is that it may corrupt you. It may give you 1) a taste for power and the restless pursuit of more power as an end in itself, 2) the temptation to use institutional resources illegally as a means of self-enrichment, 3) false feedback concerning self-worth and the development of new values designed to protect power, 4) the devaluing of the less powerful and the avoidance of close social contact with them

Resource Control

Often comes with one's formal position in an organization or group

Power

One of the two resources often perceived as scarce in interpersonal struggles

Mutual Interests

Parties in strategic conflict are never totally antagonistic and must have this even if if is only in keeping the conflict going

Power Imbalance

Possession of power is always a relative judgment=each party has sources of power even when it's not always balanced.

Conflicts at Work

Present important challenges that affect your career development.

Conflict Metaphors

Reflect and create certain kinds of communication

Family of Origin

Socializes us into constructive or destructive ways of handling conflict that carry over directly into how romantic relationships are later handled. We develop expectations of how conflict will be, or should/should not be, handled based on what we learned when we were young.

Empowerment

Sometimes it is clearly to the advantage of higher-power groups or individuals to purposely enhance the power of lower-power groups or individuals. Without this restructuring of power, working or intimate relationships may end or rigidify into bitter, silent, passive aggressive, and unsatisfactory entanglements. Currencies valued by higher-power people can be developed by lower-power people if they are allowed more training, more decision-making power, or more freedom. This also occurs when third parties are invested with the power to intervene on the behalf of less powerful persons.

Experties

Special knowledge, skills, and talents that are useful for the task at hand

Types of Goals

TRIP: 1) Topic/content, 2) Relational, 3) Identity/facework, 4) Process

Ethnocentric

The assumption that one's culture's own practices and values are regarded higher than those of other cultures

Intrapersonal Perceptions

The bedrock upon which conflicts are built; but only when there are communicative manifestations of these perceptions will an interpersonal conflict emerge

Collaborative Goals

The best goals are clear and help conflict participants collaborate on resolving the conflict while protecting their ability to work, live, or interact with each other in important ways. These following statements characterize this. 1) Short, medium, and long-range issues are addressed. 2) Goals are behaviorally specific. 3) Statements orient toward the present and future. 4) Goals recognize interdependence. 5) Goals recognize an ongoing process.

Emotional Intelligence

The capacity for recognizing our own feelings and those of others, for motivating ourselves, and for managing emotions well in ourselves and in our relationships

Worldviews

The cognitive, ethical, and perceptual frames of an individual made up with 1) A view of what is real and important to the universe, 2) A view of how people and objects are supposed to relate to each other, 3) A view of what part of the universe is more valuable than another, 4) A view about how you know what you know (epistemology), and 5) A view about how people should act (ethical)

Critical Start-Up

The first moments of a conflict interaction that can set the scene for a constructive or a destructive conflict

Threats

The most commonly used dominating tactic. These are used mainly because we believe them to be effective. This has to meet two criteria: the source of it must control the outcome and the threat must be seen negatively by the recipient. This is credible only 1) if the source is in a position to administer the punishment 2) if the source appears willing to invoke the punishment and 3) if the punishment is something to be avoided.

Self-Esteem

The other of the two resources often perceived as scarce in interpersonal struggles

Interdependent

The reason why conflict parties interfere with one another

Assertive

These types of people enhance the self, work toward achieving desired goals, and are expressive.

Reactive Behavior

This happens once a destructive conflict begins spiraling. We begin to make choices based on what we think the other is thinking and intending.

Perceived Interference

This is a necessary component to complete the conditions for conflict; without this, people may be interdependent, perceive incompatible goals, want the same scarce resource, and still not experience what we call conflict.

Supportive Climate

This means you make it possible for the other person to be heard, and thus for the other person to hear you. It does not necessarily mean agreement, it means you see the other person as a worthwhile human being who deserves to be heard and that you speak so the other knows he or she is being respected, and that listening takes as much time as talking.

Avoidance Spiral

This occurs when there is less direct interaction, active avoidance of the other party, reduction of dependence, harboring of resentment or disappointment, and complaining to third persons about the party.

Goal Clarity

This stated before the conflictual interaction results in increased satisfaction with the discussion with the other party. Advantages of this are 1) Solutions go unrecognized if you do not know what you want, 2) Only clear goals can be shared, 3) Clear goals can be altered more easily than vague goals, and 4) Clear goals are reached more often than vague goals

Retrospective Goals

Those that are identified after the conflict

Transactive Goals

Those that are identified during the interaction itself

Prospective Goals

Those that can be identified before the conflict begins

Estimating the Other's Goals

Trying to guess what the other wants; propels our own choices

Cultural Filters

We must develop a lens that helps us know that if one is a member of the dominant culture, one cannot know the experiences of people in non dominant cultures without authentic dialogue and de-westernized research.

Process Goals

What communication process will be used? Many times people disagree about how formally/informally to conduct a conflict

Topic Goals

What does each person want--different ideas about what to do, what decisions to make, where to go, how to allocate resources, or other externally objectifiable issues. These types of struggles contain two subsets 1) people want different things, or 2) people want the same thing. Either way there's a struggle over the goals.

Gender Filters

When feeling powerless, males tend to "state their position and offer logical reasons to support it." Women's approaches depend on the gender of their opponents. Women will choose responses based on interpersonal obligations, and men based on the offended person's rights. As a result of their focus on relationships, females in conflict seem to exhibit fewer self-presentational actions.

Conflict Narratives

When metaphors emphasize danger rather than opportunity, the language of this serves to warn people away from engaging in conflict. For example, conflict is warlike and violence.

Metaphors

When people compare one thing to another, we often use this to create a kind of compact, vivid shorthand description of a complicated process. They provide imaginative descriptions of emotional experiences and distill the assumptions about the way we think

Power Denial

When people dislike any discussion of power and deny that power and influence are appropriate topics for discussion. Four common attempts people use to deny that they exercise power are 1) deny that you communicated something, 2) deny that something was communicated, 3) deny that you communicated something to the other person, and 4) deny that the situation even existed

Negative Views of Conflict

When people view conflict as an activity that is almost completely negative and has no redeeming qualities. 1) Harmony is normal and conflict is abnormal, 2) Conflict constitutes a breakdown of communication, 3) Communication and disagreements are the same thing, 4) Conflict is a result of personal pathology, 5) Conflict should never be escalated 5) Conflict interaction should be polite and orderly, 7) Anger is the only emotion in conflict interaction, and 8) A correct method for resolving differences can be prescribed

Gridlocked Conflict

When you are stuck in unproductive interdependence, these conflicts turn into this.

Aggressive/Coercive

Where members engaged in a lot of overt yelling, calling of names, and similar moves

Collaborative System

Where members used cooperation and collaboration

Identity, or Face-Saving Goals

Who am I in this interaction? Conflicts that are often hard to identify because they are usually represented as disputes over tangible resources. Includes specific desires to maintain one's sense of self-identity. You can tell that this is being employed when you or others 1) claim unjust intimidation, 2) refuse to step back from a position, and 3) suppress conflict issues

Relational Goals

Who are we to each other? Define how each party wants to be treated by the other and the amount of interdependence they desire. The amount of influence each will have with the other is worked out through relational interaction.

Engagement

Will you avoid or engage?

Obliging

Willing to do a service or kindness; helpful. Same as accommodation. You accommodate to others needs, do not assert individual needs but prefers a cooperative and harmonizing approach.

Self-In-Relationship

Women are more likely to see this--everyone effecting everyone else. This allows us to concentrate on the following dimensions of conflict: 1) Interdependence rather than power over others, 2) Mutual empathy as the basis for understanding and communicating, 3) Relational self-confidence instead of separate self-esteem (autonomy), 4) Constructive conflict instead of domination, 5) Staying engaged with others while in conflict, 6) Valuing separate knowing and connected knowing, 7) Utilizing both report talk and rapport talk, and 8) Continuing dialogue when there is disagreement. Men are more likely to see the self as independent and not connected to specific relationships.

Postponement

Works when several conditions are present. 1) The emotional content of the conflict needs to be acknowledged while other issues are deferred to a later time. 2) The other party has to believe that the this subject will actually be brought up later.

Avoid/Criticize Loop

You avoid bringing up an issue to people directly and spend time talking about them to others

Intent does not equal Impact

Your intent in a conflict will not be the same as the impact on the other person.

Interpersonal Linkages

Your position in the larger system, such as being central to the communication exchange