Conflict

Conflict, generally, is a state of disagreement between two or more parties. This disagreement can be realized in both peaceful and violent manifestations. A clash of interests, values, actions or directions often sparks a conflict. Psychologically, a conflict exists when the reduction of one motivating stimulus involves an increase in another, so that a new adjustment is demanded.

Types

Conflict can occur between many permutations of groups and individuals. Among these variations are: interpersonal conflict between two people, group conflict between two groups, intersocietal conflict between two societies or cultures (e.g. the perceived conflict between Islam and the Western world), interstate conflict (such as civil wars), or international conflict (war between two countries). Conflicts in these levels may appear "nested" in conflicts residing at larger levels of analysis. For example, conflict within a work team may play out the dynamics of a broader conflict in the organization as a whole.

Causes

On top of the varying levels of conflict come a wide variety of causes of conflict. These include specialization, in which niches fight over the right to assert validity of their position; interdependence, when a group cannot operate without the assistance of others; arguments over common resources; differences in goals; over authority; jurisdictional ambiguities; skills and abilities; values and ethics; and cultural differences.

There are many components to the emotions that are intertwined with conflict. There is a behavioral, physiological, cognitive component.Behavioral is the way emotional experience gets expressed which can be verbal or non-verbal and intentional or un-intentional. Physiological is the bodily experience of emotion. The way emotions make us feel in comparison to our identity. Finally, cognitive is the idea that we “assess or appraise” an event to reveal its relevancy to ourselves. These three components collectively advise that emotions are determined by culture, ethics, and practices.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution is any reduction in the severity of a conflict. It may involve conflict management, in which the parties continue the conflict but adopt less extreme tactics; settlement, in which they reach agreement on enough issues that the conflict stops; or removal of the underlying causes of the conflict. The latter is sometimes called “resolution,” in a narrower sense of the term that will not be used in this article. Settlements sometimes end a conflict for good, but when there are deeper issues—such as value clashes among people who must work together, distressed relationships, or mistreated members of one’s ethnic group across a border—settlements are often temporary.

Negotiation

Negotiation, the most heavily researched approach to conflict resolution, has mainly been studied in laboratory experiments, in which undergraduate participants are randomly assigned to conditions. These studies have mostly looked at antecedents of the strategies adopted by negotiators and the outcomes attained, including whether agreement is reached, the joint benefit to both parties, and the individual benefit to each party. Researchers have found that problem solving behavior such as giving or requesting information about a party's priorities among issues encourages high joint benefit. Contentious behavior, such as making threats or standing firm on one’s proposals, encourages failure to reach agreement or, if agreement is reached, low joint benefit. Conceding makes agreement more likely but favors the other party’s interests. The party who makes the first offer tends to achieve greater benefit than the other party. Three states of mind discourage concession making: viewing concessions as producing loss rather than as foregoing gain; focusing attention on one’s goal rather than one’s limit (i.e., the alternative that is minimally tolerable); and adopting a fixed-pie perspective, in which one views the other’s gain as one’s loss, rather than an expandable pie perspective. Adopting any of the states of mind above diminishes the likelihood of agreement; but if agreement is reached, it increases the likelihood of winning, especially if the other party adopts the opposite state of mind. Negotiators from individualistic cultures tend to take a more contentious approach, while those from collectivistic cultures are more concerned about maintaining positive relationships and hence more likely to cooperate (concede or engage in problem solving). Accountability to constituents encourages contentious behavior for individualists, it encourages cooperative behavior for collectivists.

Mediation and Arbitration

Two common forms of third-party intervention are arbitration and mediation. In arbitration, the third party listens to both sides and then renders a decision, which can be either binding or advisory. Most mediation consists of third-party assistance with negotiation. When conflict is severe and the disputants have difficulty talking calmly with each other, mediators can put them into contact and help them develop a cease-fire or settlement. If the disputants cannot or will not meet each other, mediators commonly become intermediaries and shuttle between them. Sometimes a chain of two intermediaries is necessary because there is no single individual who can communicate effectively with both sides.

Research into mediation suggests that it is usually successful in producing settlements. Disputants generally prefer mediation over arbitration, since it allows them to retain control over the final decision. This means that in med-arb, where failure to reach agreement in mediation is followed by binding arbitration, disputants will work harder to reach agreement than in straight mediation. In the case of small claims disputes, that mediation produces more compliance with the agreement than adjudication (a form of arbitration), perhaps because mediated decisions accord more with the parties’ needs. To be fully successful, mediators must be seen as impartial between the two parties. Having stronger initial ties to one side than the other is less damaging to the perception of impartiality than exhibiting bias during the mediation session. Disputants even sometimes prefer that the mediator be close to the other party so that he or she can exert influence over that party.

Among non-human primates and other animals

Conflict resolution has also been studied in non-human primates. Aggression is more common among relatives and within a group, than between groups. Instead of creating a distance between the individuals, however, the primates were more intimate in the period after the aggressive incident. These intimacies consisted of grooming and various forms of body contact. Stress responses, like an increased heart rate, usually decrease after these reconciliatory signals. Different types of primates, as well as many other species who are living in groups, show different types of conciliatory behaviour. Resolving conflicts that threaten the interaction between individuals in a group is necessary for survival, hence has a strong evolutionary value. These findings contradicted previous existing theories about the general function of aggression, i.e. creating space between individuals (first proposed by Konrad Lorenz), which seems to be more the case in between groups conflicts.

In addition to research in primates, biologists are beginning to explore reconciliation in other animals. Up until recently, the literature dealing with reconciliation in non-primates have consisted of anecdotal observations and very little quantitative data. Although peaceful post-conflict behavior had been documented going back to the 1960s, the first explicit mention of reconciliation was not until 1993. Reconciliation has since been documented in spotted hyenas, lions, dolphins, dwarf mongooses, and domestic goats.

References

ISBN links support NWE through referral fees

• Aureli, Filippo and Frans B. M. de Waal, eds. 2000. Natural Conflict Resolution. University of California Press, Berkeley, CA.
• Bercovitch, J., & Houston, A. (2000). Why do they do it like this? An analysis of the factors influencing mediation behavior in international conflicts. Journal of Conflict Resolution, 44, 170-202.
• Coleman, P., & Deutsch, M. (2001). Introducing cooperation and conflict resolution into schools: A systems approach. In D. J. Christie, R. V. Wagner, & D. D. N. Winter, Peace, conflict and violence: Peace psychology for the 21st century (pp. 223-239). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice-Hall.
• Gelfand, M. J., & Brett, J. M. (Eds.) (2004), The handbook of negotiation and culture. Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.
• Kressel, K., & Pruitt, D. G. (1989). Conclusion: A research perspective on the mediation of social conflict. In Kressel, K., Pruitt, D. G., & Associates, Mediation research (pp. 394-435). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
• Lorenzen, Michael. 2006. Conflict Resolution and Academic Library Instruction. LOEX Quarterly 33, no. ½,: 6-9, 11.
• Thompson, L., Neale, M., & Sinaceur, M. (2004). The evolution of cognition and biases in negotiation research: An examination of cognition, social perception, motivation, and emotion. In M. J. Gelfand & J. M. Brett (Eds.) (2004), The handbook of negotiation and culture (pp. 7-44). Stanford, CA: Stanford Business Books.
• Veenema, Hans et al. 1994. Methodological improvements for the study of reconciliation. Behavioural Processes 31:29-38.
• Wall, J. A., Druckman, D., & Diehl, P. F. (2002), Mediation by international peacekeepers. In J. Bercovitch (Ed.) (2002). Studies in international mediation (pp. 141-164). Basingstoke, England: Palgrave-Macmillan.
• Zartman, I. W. (2000). Ripeness: The hurting stalemate and beyond. In P. C. Stern & D. Druckman (Eds.), International conflict resolution after the Cold War. Washington, DC: National Academy Press.

External links

• Institute for Conflict Analysis and Resolution - at George Mason University
• CUNY Dispute Resolution Consortium- 'The Dispute Resolution Headquarters in New York City.
• Harvard Negotiation Project's Beyond Reason website - Which has conflict resolution resources and preparation tools from the Harvard Negotiation Project
• Conflict Resolution Network [1]
• New Conversations Online Library Communication-skills and conflict-resolution books, essays, articles, scholarly papers & teaching materials (all free of charge in PDF or web format).
• Search for Common Ground - One of the world's largest non-government organisations dedicated to conflict resolution
• Insight on Conflict- Database of local peacebuilding projects
• Debate Conflicts - Open Democracy Conflicts Debate. "Even when guns are silent, the ideas behind them threaten. Warfare and conflict resolution urgently need to be explained, their causes clarified, and creative solutions explored."
• Complex Emergencies Database (CE-DAT) - A database on the human impact of conflicts and other complex emergencies.
• How to be a Good Enemy (article) How to manage conflicts in a positive way.

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