Conflict

• Conflict


  Disagreement, discord, friction that occur when actions or beliefs of one or more members of the group is unacceptable to or resisted by one or more of the other group members
• Types of conflict


  • Intragroup conflict – confrontation between members of the same group
  • Intergroup conflict – disagreement between two or more groups and their member that can include physical violence, interpersonal discord and psychological tension
• Winning: Conflict & competition


  • Interdependent – one influence another through individual and coordinated action
  • Cooperation – positive experience; success of any one from the group improve the chances of other members succeeding
  • Competition – success depends on performing better than others
  • Mixed-motive situations – performance setting in which interdependence among interactants involves both competitive and cooperative goal structures
• Behavioral assimilation


  • The eventual matching of behaviors displayed (cooperative and/or competitors) by group member
  • Norm of reciprocity – sustains mutuality in exchange
  • Positive reciprocity
  • Negative reciprocity – tends to be stronger than positive reciprocity
  • e.g. A cooperative person who runs into a competitive partner is more likely to begin to compete before the competitive person begins to cooperate, so as a result a partner turns into an opponent faster than an opponent turns into ally
• Social values orientation


  The dispositional tendency to respond to conflict settings in a proself or prosocial way
• SVO 4 distinct orientations


  • Individualists – are proself and concerned only with their own outcomes; their actions may indirectly impact other group members BUT such influence is NOT their goal
  • Competitors – are proself and strive to maximize their own outcomes but they also minimize others' outcomes; they view disagreement as win-lose situation and find satisfaction in forcing their ideas on others
  • Cooperators – both prosocial and proself – win-win solution; they value interpersonal strategies; they strive to maximize their own outcomes and others as well
  • Altruists – prosocial but not proself; they sacrifice their own outcomes in helping others to achieve some gain
• Social Dilemma


  Interpersonal situation where individuals must choose between maximizing their personal outcomes or maximizing their group outcomes
• Commons Dilemma (social trap)


  Members may be tempted to take as much as possible of the resources but if they take too much the resources will be destroyed (take some)
• Public Goods Dilemma


  Members are asked to contribute to the group BUT members often don't fulfill this obligation (give some dilemma)
• Free riding


  Avoiding work
• Social loafing


  Avoiding work
• Remedies for free riding and social loafing

  • Remind those who contribute too little of their obligations and extract promises of improved performance
  • Publicly reward those who do their share
  • Impose costs on the free riders – e.g. Criticism and/or fines
• Procedural justice


  Based on the methods used to make decisions about the allocation of resources
• Distributive justice


  Concerns how rewards and costs are shared by (distributed across) the group members. Depends on the norms the group uses to allocate rewards
• 4 distributive norms


  • Equity – the group gives more to members who have done more for the group
  • Equality – the group treats all members equally no matter what their contribution to the group
  • Power – the group allocates more of its resources to those with more authority, status or control over the group and less to those in lower-level position
  • Need – the group takes into consideration the level of the need of each of its members and allocates more of its resources to those with the greatest needs and less to those who need less irrespective of how much these individuals contributed to the group (social responsibility norm)
• Responsibility Dilemma


  When group completes its work, members often dispute who deserves credit and who deserves blame
• Egocentrism


  Self-serving bias in which giving oneself more responsibility for an outcome or event than is warranted
• Sociocentric


  Group serving
• Task conflict


  Content conflict or substantive conflict. Disagreement about issues that are relevant to the groups' recognized goals and objectives
• Process conflict


  Procedural conflict. Disagreement over the methods the group should use to complete its basic tasks
• Relationship conflict


  Interpersonal discord that occurs when group members dislike one another
• Blaming


  People usually dislike others who evaluate them negatively, so criticism- even when deserved – can generate conflict
• Agreeable personalities


  People who have agreeable personalities are usually better liked by others because they exert calming influence on their groups
• Balance Theory


  Predicted that conflicts between friends would elevate levels of tension but conflicts with enemies would generate more open hostility
• Confirmation bias


  People rationalize their choices once they have made them: They seek out information that supports their views, they reject information that conflicts with their stance
• Fundamental attribution error


  Assume that conflict/problem was caused by personal (dispositional) rather than situational (environmental) factors
• Soft tactics


  When members express their ideas as questions soften their claims e.g. "What do you think? Do you see what I mean? And explicitly underscore their uncertainty, disagreements are less likely to turn into conflicts
• Hard tactics


  Harsh, coercive and unilateral influence tactics often trigger reactance, negative emotions and the use of hard tactics of influence return e.g. Promise, reward, threaten, punish, bully, discuss, instruct, negotiate etc.
• The capacity to threaten others intensifies conflict
• Rational


  (in classical economic theory) economic agents are able to consider the outcome of their choices and recognise the net benefits of each one
• Producers act rationally by


  Selling goods/services in a way that maximises their profits
• Workers act rationally by


  Balancing welfare at work with consideration of both pay and benefits
• Governments act rationally by

  Placing the interests of the people they serve first in order to maximise their welfare
• Rationality in classical economic theory is a flawed assumption as people usually don't act rationally
• Personal factors


  Strengths, attitude, values and other personal qualities
• Situational factors


  Environmental factors
• Misperceiving motivations - when conflict occurs, members begin to wonder about one another's motivations; members often become distrustful
• The loss of trust is one of the primary reason why people when they begin to compete with one another, have difficulty returning to a cooperative relationship
• Soft tactics


  • Expressing ideas as questions
  • Explicitly underscoring uncertainty
• Hard tactics


  • Promise
  • Reward
  • Threaten
  • Punish
  • Bully
  • Discuss
  • Instruct
  • Negotiate