Chapter 4: Conflict Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction PDF

Chapter 4 CONFLICT STYLES AND STRATEGIC CONFLICT...

Chapter 4 CONFLICT STYLES AND STRATEGIC CONFLICT INTERACTION W hat is the best way to handle ourselves in a conflict? Should we stick to one approach, or be flexible? Should we let others have a say, or try to control the situation? Should we carefully plan how we will react, or improvise? How do we avoid getting caught up in spiraling escalation or avoidance cycles? A common recommendation is to plan your strategy. For example, many people rehearse what they are going to say during a confrontation. At one time or another, you may have found yourself talking to an imagined adversary—maybe your part- ner or boss—trying out different things and hoping to settle on a good approach. While useful, this advice overemphasizes the degree to which we can plan interac- tions. The key to an effective strategy is the ability to control the situation. How- ever, as we’ve seen, conflicts are interactive, and often they move in unexpected directions. In the heat of the moment, it is often hard to stick to plans, even if we can remember them. Rather than overemphasizing planning, we believe it is more productive to work on mastering various styles of conflict engagement so that you have some flexibility. The notion of style emphasizes a consistent orientation toward the conflict, an orientation that unifies specific tactics into a coherent whole, yet does not stress planning and fore- sight too much. Research indicates that most people have characteristic conflict-handling styles, which they tend to apply regardless of situational differences. Despite the saying, however, old dogs can learn new tricks: People can learn new behaviors if they are aware of alternatives. Moreover, there is evidence that people change styles as disputes develop. Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Therefore, it is best to consider conflict styles as a repertoire of options that we can learn to apply. There will always be an element of strategy in the selection of styles, but it is important to keep in mind the emergent nature of conflict interaction and the surprises it brings. A conflict seems to be moving in a positive direction and then someone says the wrong thing and everything falls apart. Or during a heated dispute, one of the parties offers a compromise. In view of the unexpected twists and turns of interaction, about the best we can hope for is to be ready for and responsive to changes. Of course, this still leaves all our questions open. How do we select an appropriate style? When should we change styles? What are the long-term consequences of various styles? How do we select the proper tactics to carry out styles? Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction 107 4.1 ORIGINS OF CONFLICT STYLES Conflict styles were first articulated by scholars and consultants associated with the human relations and human resources movements, which had their heyday from the 1940s through the 1980s. This perspective assumes that the nature and quality of interpersonal relations in the workplace play a large role in determining employee motivation, satis- faction derived from work, level of absenteeism and resignations, and ultimately, the productivity and success of the organization (Schermerhorn, Hunt, & Osborn, 2005). With its emphasis on human relationships, it is no surprise that conflict was a major concern of human relations scholars. The concept of style originated with Blake and Mouton (1964) and Jay Hall (1969), who identified five distinct types of conflict behavior. Their classification is based on two independent conflict behavior components (Ruble & Thomas, 1976): (1) assertiveness, defined as behaviors intended to satisfy one’s own concerns; and (2) cooperation, defined as behaviors intended to satisfy the other individual’s concerns. These components com- bine to specify the five styles, which can be diagrammed as shown in Figure 4.1. A competing style is high in assertiveness and low in cooperation: The party places great emphasis on his or her own concerns and ignores those of others. This orien- tation represents a desire to defeat the other and compel him or her to do what the party wants. This style is sometimes also referred to as “forcing” or “dominating.” Figure 4.1 Conflict Styles Competing Collaborating Assertiveness Behaviors intended to Compromising satisfy own concerns Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Avoiding Accommodating Cooperativeness Behaviors intended to satisfy others’ concerns Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  108 Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction An accommodating style is low in assertiveness and high in cooperation: The party gives in to others at the cost of his or her own concerns. Other writers have called this style “appeasement” or “smoothing.” It is a self-sacrificing approach that may also be viewed as weak and retracting. An avoiding style is low in assertiveness and low in cooperation: The party simply withdraws and refuses to deal with the conflict. Parties who adopt this style may seem apathetic, isolated, or evasive. Another term for this style is “flight.” A collaborating style is high in both assertiveness and cooperation: The party works to attain a solution that will meet the needs of both parties to the conflict. In this ori- entation, full satisfaction for all is sought. It has also been called “problem solving” or “integration.” A compromising style is intermediate in both assertiveness and cooperation: The party tries to arrange it so that both parties give some and “split the difference” to reach an agreement. In this orientation, both are expected to give up something and keep something. This style has also been referred to as “sharing” or “horse-trading.” The five styles have proven to be a particularly useful set of concepts for understanding conflict (see Case Study 4.1). They are part of the common vocabulary, and almost every major writer on interpersonal or organizational conflict has referred to the styles exten- sively (Nicotera & Dorsey, 2006). Much research has been directed to defining and measuring conflict styles. Instru- ments include Hall’s (1969) Conflict Management Survey, the Thomas and Kilmann (1974) Management-of-Differences (MODE) Survey, Rahim’s (1983) Organizational Conflict Inventory-II, the Putnam and Wilson (1982) Organizational Communication Conflict Instrument, and the Ross and DeWine (1988) Conflict Management Message Style Instrument (see Nicotera & Dorsey, 2006, for a more detailed discussion of these). Each instrument identifies somewhat different styles or dimensions underlying conflict, but in general they reflect the five defined here. The instruments by Putnam and Wilson and Ross and DeWine specifically focus on communication behaviors in conflicts and are therefore of special interest. As the plethora of measurement instruments suggests, there are several different ways to conceive of conflict styles. The following sections attempt to sort out several different interpretations of conflict styles. CASE STUDY 4.1 CONFLICT STYLES IN THE PARKING LOT SCUFFLE Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. We will consider conflict styles in the interaction between Tim and Jay, reprinted here for your reference: 1 Tim: What’s your problem? What the hell did you do to my Honda? I said, “What did you do?” 2 Jay: I drove into my spot and didn’t see your bike. What was it doing parked there? 3 Tim: Look, my tire’s flat. I can’t move the wheel. Crushed in and doesn’t move. 4 Jay: I didn’t see it until I was on top of it. 5 Tim: You are going to have to pay for this. I can’t afford this. 6 Jay: What was it doing in a parking space? Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction 109 7 Tim: What’s your problem? It was parked. Look at the wheel. You came around pretty good. 8 Jay: Listen, this is my spot. I didn’t see it, and it shouldn’t have been there. You’re lucky I stopped when I did. Look at my bumper. What was it doing there? 9 Tim: You ass. Who cares whose spot it is? Some jerk like you drives over my Honda and says, “This is my spot.” I don’t care who you are. You will fix my Honda! 10 Jay: You are the one with a problem. Do you work here? 11 Tim: What does that have to do with anything? Stop looking at your bumper; it looks fine. I want your driver’s license and insurance. 12 Jay: Who in the hell do you think you are? (Starts walking away.) 13 Tim: You are not going anywhere. (Grabs Jay’s arm.) 14 Jay: Let go of me. You are screwed. I’m calling the police. (Turns to move toward the office.) 15 Tim slugs Jay from behind. The two scuffle for a few moments until others arrive to break them apart. From the outset Tim used a competing style, high in assertiveness and low in cooperativeness. This is indicated by his strong language, his demands for pay- ment, and his refusal to consider Jay’s point of view. Jay initially began with a collaborating style; he did not apologize or give in to Tim, which would signal an accommodating or, possibly, avoiding style. He attempted to develop an under- standing of what happened that could be the foundation for collaborating. Tim’s continued confrontations were answered with firm resistance in line 8. Here Jay clearly stated his unwillingness to accommodate (“Look, this is my spot.”) and tried to reframe the situation when he said, “You’re lucky I stopped when I did.” This signaled a continued attempt at collaborating that might have led to an integrative solution or a compromise had Tim followed this lead. This in turn illustrates an important feature of collaborating; it does not nec- essarily mean that people are “nice” to each other. Often collaborating involves assertive moves that signal firmness and resolve. As indicated in Chapter 1, differentiation requires parties to acknowledge the validity of their differences, which sometimes requires one party to show the other that he or she will not be pushed around. By line 10, Jay has abandoned collaborating and switched to a competing Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. style (“You are the one with the problem. Do you work here?”). He may have concluded that Tim would never be reasonable and decided that the only way to obtain an acceptable outcome was to argue to a standoff. He may also intend to continue collaborating, in which case the point here was to further signal resolve and to register a mild threat that Jay could attack right back if he wanted to. Or Jay may have just been sucked into the confrontation through a matching process. Aroused by Tim’s anger, Jay’s aggressive impulses and anxiety about the situation may have provoked a “fight” response whereby Jay becomes just as competitive as Tim. Whatever the case, by line 12 Jay lashed back at Tim and attempted to leave the scene—“Who in the hell do you think you are? (Starts walking away.)” Taken out of context, this move might appear to enact an accommodating or avoiding Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  110 Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction style. In this context, however, it seems to be part of a larger strategy to win through retreat. Jay snarled at Tim and tried to have the last word by walking away. As we have noted, there are variants of the five basic styles that identify different approaches to the same basic strategy. Tim’s reaction cemented the competition when he grabbed Jay. Jay continued with his retreat-and-win strategy, and Tim slugged him. Tim may have done this because he realized the situation was slipping away with Jay’s impending retreat. Or, Tim may simply have been too incensed to “let go” of his attitude. If this was the case, he channeled his aggression into violence, which ended in the scuffle. Discussion Questions How did the styles adopted by these two feed into the conflict? Could Jay have taken a different tack that would have resulted in a more productive conflict? 4.2 WHAT IS A CONFLICT STYLE? We have introduced conflict styles as a person’s orientation toward conflict. But what exactly does this mean? Is a style a personal trait, which remains relatively constant over time, or is it instead a general strategy that can be varied at will? Some scholars (e.g., Filley, 1975; Moberg, 2001) discuss style as the way a person usually responds to conflict. In this view, styles identify types of people or personalities—the “tough battler,” the “friendly helper,” “the problem solver”—who are predisposed to handle all conflicts in the same way. This tradition has strongly influenced how the tests that measure a person’s predominant style of conflict-handling behavior have been inter- preted. Although the way the tests are scored allows people to fall under more than one style (e.g., people are often classified as compromisers and problem solvers), styles are interpreted as a relatively stable aspect of the individual’s personality. Several studies have yielded some evidence that people develop habitual styles of responding to conflict that are fairly consistent across situations and time (Canary, Cupach, & Serpe, 2001; Gormly, Gormly, & Johnson, 1972; Jones & Melcher, 1982; Nicotera & Dorsey, 2006; Sternberg & Soriano, 1984). However, this view is somewhat misleading. Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. Although people typically have habitual ways of responding to conflict, they also have a capacity to change or adapt their behavior from situation to situation and over time in the same conflict. There is abundant evidence that people change their approaches as conflicts unfold (Canary et al., 2001; Keck & Samp, 2007; Nicotera, 1994; Papa & Natalie, 1989; Sambamurthy, Poole, & Kelly, 1992). In addition, the correlations between per- sonality traits such as dogmatism, Machiavellianism (manipulativeness), neuroticism, extraversion, and agreeableness and conflict styles are typically low (Jones & Melcher, 1982; Moberg, 2001; though see Rogan & LaFrance, 2003, who reported substantial cor- relations between conflict style and verbal aggressiveness), suggesting that they are not firmly anchored in personality. People can and do adapt and change, and denying this capacity through the assumption of fixed styles denies an important human potential. Taught to large numbers of people, this view could even be harmful. If people assume their styles are stable characteristics, they may not be motivated to change in order to Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction 111 break out of destructive patterns. If a supervisor assumes an employee is a tough battler and will always be one, he or she is likely to go into any disagreement with the employee with a belligerent “he’s-not-going-to-run-over-me” attitude that greatly increases the pos- sibility of destructive escalation. Alternatively, the supervisor may just give in to avoid the employee’s wrath but later resent this act of submission. Neither response is a good one; not only do both responses increase the probability of destructive conflict and ineffective decision making, but they also deny the worker’s ability to change. Assuming that the other person is inflexible by nature may also discourage parties from trying different approaches. The anticipatory attack of the boss may make the employee respond as a tough battler in defense, even though he would actually have preferred to discuss the issue quietly. Expectations about “how people are” too easily turn into self-fulfilling prophecies that can lead individuals to act toward people in ways that cause others to respond with the undesirable but expected behaviors. The attitudes freeze others into a mold that prevents the flexible and responsive behavior needed for effective conflict management. This problem is compounded when people believe they themselves have a characteristic personal style. “I’m a battler,” they say and assume they cannot or do not have to be flexible because “that’s just the way I am.” Thus, conflict training programs and tests that purport to identify “characteristic styles” may escalate the very conflicts they are intended to help. People do fall into habits, but they can also change. A second view of style defines styles as specific types of conflict behavior (Cosier & Ruble, 1981; Papa & Natalie, 1989). In this view, any behavior intended to defeat the other (e.g., making a threat) is competitive, while a behavior designed to achieve a mutually accept- able solution (e.g., restating the conflict in problem-oriented terms) is collaborative. In this view, styles refer to categories of behavior, not types of people. This definition is an improvement over the previous one because it neither assumes nor encourages inflexibil- ity. But it too has a problem: the same behavior can fall under different styles. A threat, for example, can be classified under the “competing” style, but it could also be classified under “avoiding” if it were intended to keep an opponent from raising a conflict (“I’ll leave if you bring that up again”). Postponing a conflict is often advocated as a collabora- tive tactic because it gives both sides a “cooling off” period, but it can also be an avoiding tactic if used persistently. An offer to “split the difference” is certainly a compromise, but it can also be accommodating if what one offers is of little value and he or she does it simply to avoid losing. There is some validity in the definition of styles as behaviors, but another interpretation offers a more accurate conception of styles. The third, and most useful, position defines styles as behavioral orientations people can take toward conflict (Nicotera & Dorsey, 2006; Thomas, 1975). In this view, a style is a Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. general expectation about how the conflict should be approached—an attitude about how best to deal with the other party. A competing style is oriented toward defeating the other, toward achieving one’s own goals without regard for others, and it dictates certain behavioral choices to achieve these ends. A collaborating style reflects an ori- entation toward mutual benefit; it favors moves that enhance cooperation and creative thinking toward this end. The definition of styles as orientations solves the problem of classifying specific behaviors under one style or the other—the same tactics can serve dif- ferent intentions and attitudes. This definition is also true to the observations showing that people exhibit definite, consistent strategies during conflicts without denying their capacity to change. Choosing an orientation is making a decision about the principles that will guide one through the conflict, whether cooperative and/or assertive. However, one limitation of the style concept is its focus on the individual. Style refers to the orientation of the individual during conflict; it reflects one person’s approach Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  112 Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction independent of the other person. As we have seen, to understand conflict, it is not suffi- cient to stay at the level of the individual. The interlocking actions of all parties must be taken into account. Styles represent the “mindsets” that parties have in the conflict, but what another person does often changes one’s attitudes and intentions, often without the individual realizing it. Someone may go into a disagreement with a firm intention to problem solve, but if the other person betrays, or viciously attacks, or refuses to talk about the conflict at all, it is difficult to keep on collaborating. The other’s reactions make one want to defend oneself, or strike back, or scream in exasperation, or withdraw completely. Conrad (1991) summarizes substantial evidence that the actual behaviors people engage in during conflicts differ from how they expect to behave. He attributes this largely to the influence of others’ behavior. Canary et al. (2001) found that choice of conflict style was strongly influenced by the other party’s stylistic choice. To reflect style as behavioral orientations that interact with others’ orientations, we have used the gerund (-ing) form for each style to indicate the active process involved in using a style. Styles are not something people simply put on and forget about, but something they must perform. Descriptions of styles will refer to the parties who carry out styles with the “-er” or “-or” suffix—a party using competing style will be called a “competer”; a party who adopts an accommodating approach, an “accommodator”; and so on. This is purely for ease of expression and not because the styles are traits of the people who use them. 4.3 AN EXPANDED VIEW OF CONFLICT STYLES At the beginning of the chapter we distinguished styles in terms of two dimensions: assertiveness—the degree to which the style attempts to satisfy the party’s concerns—and cooperation—the degree to which the style attempts to satisfy the other party’s concerns. However, Cai and Fink (2002) found that more than two dimensions were needed to adequately describe styles. Four additional characteristics of styles have been identified in previous research. Sillars, Coletti, Parry, and Rogers (1982) define disclosiveness—the degree to which a conflict style or tactic discloses information to the other party—as a basic dimension of conflict behavior. Disclosiveness encourages the creation of an open communication climate conducive to collaborating. Styles also differ in empow- erment—the degree to which they grant the other party some control or power. Some styles hinge on the party’s control of the situation, others share control between two parties, and others give control to the other party. Hence styles can have an effect on the balance of power and its impact on conflicts. Activity (Riggs, 1983) represents the degree Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. of involvement with conflict issues. Parties’ activities can range from very intense con- cern to apathy. Finally, styles can differ in flexibility—the degree of movement the party is willing to make in working out the conflict (Riggs, 1983; Ruble & Thomas, 1976). Some styles allow for considerable pliability in parties’ positions, whereas others are quite rigid in their insistence that the initial position not be changed. Thinking in terms of these six dimensions clarifies in more detail the differences among styles and enables us to discern variants of the styles, as Table 4.1 shows. So, for example, parties who adopt a competing style place a great deal of emphasis on their own concerns and little on those of the other party; they are not particularly disclosive or flexible; and they are highly involved in the conflict and attempt to maximize their control over the situation and to minimize control by others. In this section, we discuss conflict styles in more detail and spell out some variants of each style that differ in tone and tenor. Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction 113 Table 4.1 Conflict Styles and Their Variants Rated on Six Dimensions Conflict Style Assertive­ Coopera­ Disclosive­ Empowerment Activity Flexibility ness tion ness Self Other Competing High Low Low to Yes No High Low moderate Forcing High Low Low Yes No High Low Contending High Low Moderate Yes No High Moderate Avoiding Low Low Low Varies No Low Low Protecting Low Low Low Yes No Low Low Withdrawing Low Low Low to No No Low Moderate moderate Smoothing Low Low Moderate No No Moderate Moderate Accommodating Low High Low to No Yes Low High moderate Yielding Low High Low No Yes Low High Conceding Low High Moderate No Yes Low to Moderate moderate to high Compromising Moderate Moderate Moderate to Yes Yes Moderate to Moderate moderately high high Firm Moderate Moderate Moderate Yes Yes High Moderate Compromising Flexible Moderate Moderate Moderate to Yes Yes Moderate Moderate Compromising high Collaborating High High Moderate to Yes Yes High High high 4.3.1 Competing This style is marked by a primary emphasis on satisfying the party’s own concerns and disregard of others’ concerns. It is a closed style, low to moderate in disclosiveness; parties make their demands apparent but often hide their true motives and any other information that might weaken their position. Competers are quite active and highly involved in the conflict. Competers aggressively pursue personal goals, taking any initia- Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. tives necessary to achieve them. Flexibility is generally low in the competing style. Com- peters attempt to avoid sacrificing any goals, instead using whatever effective means are available to compel others to satisfy their concerns. This requires that competers attempt to control the situation and deny others power or control. A notable exception exists when competers are working within a team against another team. Competitive parties can be surprisingly flexible and cooperative with their teammates when engaged in a competition with an outside group (Carnevale & Probst, 1997). Preference for a competing style may also influence choice of media in conflict situ- ations. Frisby and Westerman (2010) found that competers were more likely to choose computer-mediated communication for conflict conversations than face-to-face discus- sion. This may be because they believe these media will be easier to control. Using email, instant messaging, or mobile messaging applications, they can get their message out without interruption and can also refuse to respond to others’ claims or arguments. Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  114 Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction There are two major variants of the competing style. In forcing, parties exhibit low flexibility and disclosiveness and simply try to get others to go along with them by vir- tue of their superior power. There is no expression of concern or understanding for the other’s position, nor any effort to build or to preserve a future relationship. The ways in which parties enact forcing range from rational yet unwavering demands to physical and verbal aggression. In a study of aggression in interpersonal relationships, Olson and Braithwaite (2004) described several forms of aggressive behavior, including shouting, throwing items, slamming a car door, pushing or shoving, throwing a drink on some- one, and slapping or hitting. They noted, “physical aggression may not always be the result of ineffective conflict management, but, instead could be one of the first strategies employed” (p. 280, italics in the original). Crockett and Randall (2006) found that a poor relationship with family during adolescence was associated with the use of physical aggression and the use of threats during conflicts in adult relationships. There are less aggressive but equally compelling tactics for forcing. Baxter et al. (1993) describe the “silent treatment” as a type of forcing intended to wear others down and compel them to deal with issues on the party’s terms. Veiled threats and hostile jokes are indirect ways of bringing pressure on the other party. Manipulative tactics like self-abuse—doing violence to oneself as a means of compelling someone who cares to comply—and guilt-tripping can also serve a forcing orientation. Ting-Toomey et al. (2000) describe a passive aggressive type of forcing, which they labeled “neglect,” in which the party expresses anger toward the other, talks about them behind their back, ignores them when they are together, and generally tries to punish them. Contending is a “softer” form of competing. A contending style is somewhat flexible, as long as flexibility does not prevent the party from attaining his or her goals (Pruitt et al., 1994) and is also moderately disclosive. Contenders may try to explain why they are compelling others and express understanding and sympathy for others’ feelings. A con- tending style is concerned with future relationships. One strategy for contending is toughness, first introduced by Bartos (1970). A tough bargainer makes extreme opening demands, relatively few concessions, and small con- cessions when he or she does move. Through this approach, the party attempts to convey strength and determination and to discourage others sufficiently so that they will yield first, and there is evidence that it does so (e.g., Chertkoff & Esser, 1976). However, the tough party must be careful: If he or she is too uncompromising, the other party may respond with counterattacks or equal intransigence. In general, it seems best to convey an impression of “tough but fair” and to give on less important points. Research indicates that using formal authority to compel others to accept a resolu- tion to a conflict is more effective if the superior explains why the decision was made Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. (Phillips & Cheston, 1979). Bies, Shapiro, and Cummings (1988) add that the expla- nation must be based on “objective” factors, such as company norms or budget con- straints, rather than on the superior’s preferences. This suggests that contending may be more effective than forcing in long-term working relationships. However, forcing is less time-consuming than contending, and it does not require the effort of maintaining a good relationship with others, which may be a lower priority in some cases. In general, competing styles tend to be favored when the outcomes of conflicts are important to them and when achieving an agreement through other means seems unlikely (Keck & Samp, 2007; Phillips & Cheston, 1979). Competing, especially forcing, is often advantageous when there is pressure to come to a resolution quickly because competers can push their own agendas through. It is important to bear in mind, however, that a competing style may create resent- ment that fosters future conflicts. This may be a significant problem if the cooperation Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction 115 of others is important in the future. Kurdeck (1994; see also Crockett & Randall, 2006) found that couples reported lower levels of relational satisfaction if one or both parties employed personal attacks or lost control. More recent studies have also shown that people who use forcing styles are perceived as less interpersonally competent and less appropriate than those employing collaborating and compromising styles (Canary et al., 2001; Lakey & Canary, 2002). The negativity that is sometimes associated with compet- ing, particularly the forcing variant, has been shown in numerous studies to decrease relational satisfaction (Caughlin & Vangelisti, 2006). This negativity may be heightened even more when parties communicate through media such as texting or email (Coyne et al., 2011). And as we will see in Chapter 5, use of a power resource in competing may ultimately undermine one’s power base. 4.3.2 Avoiding Parties who avoid conflict show low levels of concern for their own and for other parties’ interests. Avoiding prevents issues from being aired, and since interests never come out, it is difficult to address them. There is, of course, one exception: When parties use avoiding to escape from conflicts, they fear they will “lose.” But even in this case, issues remain unresolved and can resurface in the future. Avoiders choose a low level of activeness, sometimes bordering on apathy. They exhibit a low level of disclosiveness as well, because avoiding prevents parties from communicating about concerns or positions. An avoiding style varies in terms of the party’s level of control, but it attempts to disempower others by denying them the possibility of dealing with the conflict. The first variation of avoiding is protecting. The protecting style is used when parties are determined to avoid conflict at all costs. They are so concerned that the conflict will surface that they build a shell around themselves and deny that a conflict exists. In some cases, protectors may respond to attempts to raise an issue with a strong counterattack designed to warn others off. A protecting style involves very low activeness and flexibil- ity; protectors do not want to work with the conflict at all and will accept no attempts to bring the conflict to the surface. Protecting is also low in disclosiveness. Protectors’ motives for avoiding generally remain hidden. A softer version of avoiding is withdrawing. In withdrawing, parties work to keep issues off the table, but they are somewhat more flexible than in the protecting style. One tactic that withdrawers use is fogging, whereby the party turns aside a criticism or attack by acknowledging only part of it. If Jill criticizes Jack, saying, “You have ruined our chances to succeed by being so late with this report!” Jack may respond with, “Yes, the Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. report wasn’t as good as it could have been.” Jack fogs by not acknowledging his fault in delaying the report. Other tactics for withdrawing are to change the topic and to exit the conversation. Parties may use mobile phones to avoid by playing games or reading/ sending text messages during a conflict to show their disinterest in the subject (Caughlin et al., 2016). Still another approach to withdrawing is to argue that the issue at hand is not within the jurisdiction of the parties and should be referred to someone else. This is common in conflicts in organizations: by handing off the conflict to a superior or to another unit in the organization, the party tries to make it someone else’s problem. Withdrawing is more subtle and flexible than protecting. A third variation of avoiding is smoothing, in which the party plays down differences and emphasizes issues on which there is common ground. Issues that might cause hurt feelings or arouse anger are avoided, if possible, and the party attempts to soothe these negative emotions. Smoothers accentuate the positive and emphasize maintaining good Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  116 Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction relationships. Roloff and Ifert (2000) marshal evidence that the positive affect associated with smoothing is likely to diminish the negative impacts of avoiding. Avoiding styles may be useful if chances of success with collaborating or compromis- ing are slight and if parties’ needs can be met without surfacing the conflict. For example, avoidance has been shown to improve team effectiveness by eliminating a distraction that would otherwise derail progress on an issue (De Dreu & Van Vianen, 2001). Sillars and Weisberg (1987) reported that some satisfied couples engaged in avoiding through “topic shifts, jokes, denial of conflict [and] abstract, ambivalent, or irrelevant comments” (p. 86). These couples used avoiding in order to fulfill their needs for autonomy and dis- cretion. In a similar vein, Zhao, Sosik, and Cosley (2012) found that some users avoided conflict by adjusting the privacy settings on their social media accounts so that their part- ners could not see possibly annoying contacts, pictures, or messages. Another avoiding strategy used online is to simply ignore and refrain from responding to messages that attempt to engage the conflict (Frisby & Westerman, 2010). Avoiding can also be effective if the party has a weak position or faces a formidable opponent. It may enable the party to save face by never raising the conflict. Avoiding may also be a useful approach if the party is not yet ready to face the conflict, and wants to postpone it until a more opportune time. In the midst of an emergency, for example, parties may agree to put their differences aside. Tjosvold and Sun (2002) argue that avoidance may also be effective when used in cases where the issue is not particularly important. However, avoiding leaves the issues behind the conflict unaddressed, and they may fester and eventually surface with destructive consequences. Wall and Nolan (1987) report that an avoiding style led to relatively low satisfaction among students describing their conflicts. And though it may work for some couples, avoiding can have negative consequences for others: Kurdeck (1994) found that relational satisfaction was nega- tively related to the use of withdrawal strategies, in which one partner refuses to discuss the issues and tunes out the other. Avoiding can become destructive if they skirt issues by “walking on eggshells.” Avoiding can also impede the development of relationships. As noted in previous chapters, successfully dealing with a conflict can enhance rela- tionships and increase mutual knowledge. Avoiding may worsen others’ impressions of us. Gross, Guerrero, and Alberts (2004) found that parties rated partners who used nonconfrontational styles such as avoiding as inappropriate and ineffective. Lakey and Canary (2002) found that parties who behaved toward their partners in ways that the partners perceived were insensitive to their goals led partners to assess the party as having low levels of communication competence. Leaders who rely upon avoidance strategies are less likely to rely upon a collaborating approach (Barbuto, Phipps, & Xu, 2010). Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. The protecting variant of avoiding may incur an additional disadvantage because of its surface resemblance to forcing. It can anger others and encourage them to adopt a com- peting style. Protecting has an advantage over withdrawing in that it is not likely to make one seem vulnerable, whereas withdrawing may. However, withdrawing and smoothing are more likely to promote a good relationship with other parties than protecting. All three variations can be frustrating to someone who sees the conflict as important and wants to engage. 4.3.3 Accommodating An accommodating style permits others to realize their concerns but gives little attention to the party’s own concerns. Accommodators basically give in to others. Accommodation is sometimes intended to improve a bad or shaky relationship or to preserve a good one, Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction 117 especially when the issue is less important than the relationship. Accommodators are highly flexible; they are willing to accede to the other’s demands and to change their own positions. An accommodator’s level of activeness is low because they are not involved in the issues per se, but rather in their relationships with others. Accommodating involves a low to moderate level of disclosiveness; accommodators learn much about others’ posi- tions and concerns but generally disclose little about their own. Accommodators gener- ally empower the other party and suspend their own control; they “go with the flow” of others’ agendas. There are two variations of accommodating: yielding and conceding. In yielding, parties exhibit apathy toward the conflict, show no concern with their own needs, and accommodate others entirely. Yielders are high in flexibility and low in activeness. They allow the other to control the situation and to define the outcomes of the conflict. The passivity of yielding does not encourage others to be concerned with the relationship. Yielders disengage themselves from the situation and go along with what others want. A “firmer” version of accommodation is conceding. In conceding the party still accom- modates others’ concerns but is more involved in the conflict. Conceders maintain con- tact with the issues and accommodate in order to build a better relationship with others. Conceders may have a mixture of motives, including real concern for others and a tac- tical concern for building a relationship that may be useful in the future. Conceding generally is higher in disclosiveness than yielding because conceders are more involved in the conflict, and others become aware of their willingness to build relationships. In some cases, conceders may directly indicate that they are going along because they value the relationship. One way of viewing conceding is as an exchange in which the other gets what he or she wants, and the conceder gains future credit from the other that can be called in when needed. Accommodating is a useful strategy when one is more concerned with future relation- ships with others than with the issues behind a conflict. Skillfully employed, an accom- modating style can convey the party’s understandings of others’ needs, thus improving relationships. Accommodating is also useful when one party is weaker than another and will lose if the parties compete. By strategically choosing how he or she accommodates, the weaker party may be able to limit his or her concessions. For example, if Jill suspects that her boss is unhappy with the thoroughness of her reports and how punctually she turns them in, she might agree to make sure she gets them in on time to show her boss that she is complying, while diverting the boss’s attention from her apparent lack of thoroughness. One risk of the accommodating style is that the other party may take it as a sign of weakness and compliance. This may encourage the other to take a more competitive approach on the assumption that the accommodator fears confrontation. Like avoiding, Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. accommodating through yielding may also have consequences for perceptions of the party by others. Recall Gross et al. (2004) finding that nonconfrontation was negatively related to partner’s perceptions that the party’s behavior was appropriate and effective. These negative impressions are not likely to occur for the conceding variant of accom- modating. As noted in the previous section, Lakey and Canary (2002) found a positive relationship between others’ perceptions that the party was sensitive to their needs and their impressions of the party’s communicative competence. 4.3.4 Compromising Compromising attempts to find an intermediate position or trade-off through which parties can achieve some important goals in exchange for foregoing others. Com- promising involves moderate levels of assertiveness and cooperativeness because it Folger, Joseph P., et al. Working Through Conflict : Strategies for Relationships, Groups, and Organizations, Taylor & Francis Group, 2021. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/uhdowntown/detail.action?docID=6476632. Created from uhdowntown on 2023-10-01 16:31:19.  118 Styles and Strategic Conflict Interaction requires both parties to give up some of their needs to fulfill others. Compromisers are moderate to high in activeness: In some cases, a great deal of energy and involvement are required to arrive at an acceptable compromise, while in others, parties settle for compromise because finding an optimal solution seems unlikely. Compromising is in the moderate range of flexibility because compromisers are flexible enough to give in on some of their demands, but not so flexible that they will rework their positions to allow collaborating or accommodating. Compromising involves moderate to moder- ately high disclosiveness; compromisers let others know what they are willing to trade and their evaluations of other positions, but they do not always explain the reasoning or needs that underlie their offers. Compromisers attempt to empower both them- selves and others because shared control is essential to the give-and-take necessary for compromise. One variation is firm compromising, which offers trade-offs, but exhibits limited flexi- bility of position and low to moderate disclosure. In this case, compromisers push other parties somewhat, showing a rather tough approach designed to motivate them to coop- erate, hopefully on the compromiser’s terms. Firm compromisers are highly involved in the conflict, working actively and taking the lead in hammering out the compromise. Recall the toughness strategy discussed as one means of competing. Bartos (1970) found that if two tough bargainers went up against each other, an optimal solution resulted. Each was firm and gave up some of their position (but as little as possible) in each round of discussions, and over time the parties reached a good compromise that met a good portion of their needs. A somewhat more cooperative variation is flexible compromising. Flexible compromis- ers have less well-defined positions than their firm kin. They exhibit moderate to high disclosure because sharing thoughts and positions is an important requirement for the evolution of compromises from flexible positions. They search for possible trade-offs as the discussion evolves. Flexible compromisers may be less actively involved in the con- flict, in some cases following others’ initiatives. Sometimes—especially when there are two equally strong parties who are locked in an impasse—compromises are the best that can be achieved. Compromising can also enable parties to achieve a relatively fast resolution of the conflict. The tactic of tacit coordination is a good example of an approach to compromise that often yields quick results. In tacit coordination one party makes an offer based on a common norm that he or she believes the other is likely to accept. For example, we might offer to “split the difference” with the other in order to reach a compromise. Dividing things equally is a time-honored custom in the United States that is used to resolve conflicts between 3-year-olds over a piece of cake, between 70-year-olds over an inheritance Copyright © 2021. Taylor & Francis Group. All rights reserved. from a sibling, and for all ages in between. Splitting the difference is so regularly taken for granted as a measure of fairness that often the other party will accept it without further discussion. However, compromise also carries disadvantages. As Filley (1975) noted in his classic book on conflict management, compromises often result in a low level of commitment from parties because they force parties to give up something they value. With the satis- faction of achieving some goals comes the bitterness of having to give up others. Com- promising can also make the party seem somewhat compliant. If a party compromises, others may draw the conclusion that he