Conflict

Conflict 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.

Definition

Conflict is a state of disagreement. To be considered conflict, a number of characteristics are generally evidenced (Dana 2000):

Interdependence - those involved need something from each other
Blame - the parties attribute the cause of the dispute to the behavior, attitude, beliefs, and so on of the other
Anger - the situation causes one or both parties to experience significant emotional reaction, in the form of anger
Actual problems - the behavior of those involved in the conflict leads to problems for themselves and others.

Conflict is generally regarded as an unpleasant state of affairs. Terms associated with conflict by people from over 60 countries worldwide (Weeks 1994) include anger, avoid, bad, control, destruction, fear, fight, hate, impasse, loss, mistake, pain, war, and wrongdoing.

Conflict resolution is the attempt to reduce the tension and difficulties associated with a state of conflict. Methods of conflict resolution have been developed and are applied in a wide range of social situations.

Types

Conflict can occur between individuals or between groups of many types. Among these variations are: interpersonal conflict between two people (such as a family in the form of sibling rivalry or conflict between husband and wife, or bullying in school situations), group conflict between two groups (such as within a work environment), inter-societal conflict between two societies or cultures (such as conflict between Islam and Christianity during the Crusades, or between different ethnic groups within a country), 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.

Conflict can also occur within an individual. This conflict can be rational opposition between logical arguments or can degrade into schizophrenia, in which a person's mind is actually divided against itself. Such a struggle is often subconscious and can result in great stress for the sufferer. Sigmund Freud believed humans suffer from a number of conflicting impulses for survival, sexual pleasure, and social restraint, which result in neuroses and other mental disorders.

Psychologist Kurt Lewin described a typology of conflicts that individuals face. He identified several situations in which we experience mutually irreconcilable alternatives that around different emotions:

Approach-approach - when we want two different things, both of which we like (have "positive valence")
Avoidance-avoidance - when we have to choose between two alternatives that we do not like ("negative valence")
Approach-avoidance - when one thing has both positive and negative qualities
Double approach-avoidance - a choice between two things each of which have both positive and negative qualities.

Causes

Together with the varying levels of conflict come a wide variety of external 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.

However, all conflicts have as their root cause self-centered behavior, when one's personal desires, or those of one's own group, are pursued without regard for the needs of the other or for the larger society to which both belong. The result of such selfishness is the breakdown of harmonious interactions or the initiation of aggressive and destructive behavior.

Conflicts within the individual also arise from activities based on wrong motivation. Human beings often find themselves in situations where they experience a conflict between their mind, which seeks such eternal goals as beauty, truth, [[goodness], and love, and the body with physical desires for such things as sleep, food, shelter, and sexual gratification. The conflict between these two types of desires is inevitable, since the nature and thus the needs of the mind and body are different, one being internal and eternal the other external and temporal. It is the challenge of all people to resolve this by training the body with discipline, and strengthening the mind to pursue goals of value while taking care of the needs of the body so that it can serve the mind's goals.

Additionally, human nature contains a conflict between the mind's desires that are in the pursuit of goodness, those that serve the whole purpose, and those that can be termed evil, namely those that seek to harm others, threatening or destroying the safety and well-being of otehrs or even the society as a whole. This internal conflict, which all people experience, is the subject of great debate. For many religions, this situation results from what may be called the Fall of Man, or a deviation of human nature from the original ideal of creation. In this view, the suffering resulting from wrong desires and our struggles to overcome them is something we are called to overcome. Others, particularly scientists believing in evolution, regard our internal and external conflicts as part of our "animal" nature that enables us to survive.

Conflict Theory

Conflict theory attempts to explain social conflict through the idea that all participants in a group or society attempt to maximize their personal benefits and are therefore at odds with all other members of the population. This view stems from the Hobbesian idea that men are naturally selfish and in a constant state of war with one another. The idea was later elaborated on by Karl Marx who believed history to be the story of conflict between the wealthy and working classes. Marx believed this conflict would eventually erupt into a society-wide war or revolution. The theory has also been applied to microlevel interactions.

Conflict Resolution

Conflict resolution is the ending of a conflict, or at least any reduction of its severity. 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. 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. True resolution of conflict involves not only a cessation of antagonistic interactions but also a reconciliation—forgiveness and a new start in the relationship.

There are many ways that can end a conflict, ranging from surrendering or escaping, acting with sufficient violence to defeat one's opponent, to filing a lawsuit so that the courts will resolve the issue. These methods assume that one side is either correct or stronger than the other. An alternative approach is to assume that agreement can be reached through communication between the parties. Methods involved in such forms of conflict resolution include negotiation, mediation, arbitration, and mediation-arbitration which is a hybrid of the two processes.

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 (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 collectivist 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 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.

Reconciliation=

Among non-human primates and other animals

Aggressive behavior is common in many species. Conflicts and their reslution appear to follow somewhat similar patterns between those between human beings.

Conflict resolution has been observed 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, primates were observed to be more intimate in the period after the aggressive incident. These intimacies consisted of grooming and various forms of body contact. Different types of primates, as well as many other species who are living in groups, show different types of conciliatory behavior. [Stress]] responses, like an increased heart rate, usually decreased after these reconciliatory signals. These findings contradicted previous existing theories about the general function of aggression, such as creating space between individuals (first proposed by Konrad Lorenz), which seems to be more the case in between group conflicts.

In addition to research in primates, in more recent studies biologists have explored reconciliation in other animals. Peaceful post-conflict behavior has been documented. 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.
Dana, Daniel. 2000. Conflict Resolution. McGraw-Hill. ISBN 0071364315
Devine, Tony, Joon Ho Seuk, and Andrew Wilson (Eds.) 2000. Cultivating Heart and Character: Educating for Life's Most Essential Goals. Character Development Foundation. ISBN 1892056151
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.
Lewin, K. 1997. Resolving Social Conflicts & Field Theory in Social Science. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association. ISBN 1557984158
Lorenzen, Michael. 2006. Conflict Resolution and Academic Library Instruction. LOEX Quarterly 33, no. ½,: 6-9, 11.
Sampson, Anthony. 2000. Mandela: The Authorized Biography. Vintage. ISBN 0679781781
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. Behavioral 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.
Weeks, Dudley. 1994. The Eight Essential Steps to Conflict Resolution. Tarcher. ISBN 0874777518
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. Retrieved September 1, 2007.
CUNY Dispute Resolution Consortium- 'The Dispute Resolution Headquarters in New York City. Retrieved September 1, 2007.
Harvard Negotiation Project's Beyond Reason website - Conflict resolution resources and preparation tools from the Harvard Negotiation Project. Retrieved September 1, 2007.
New Conversations Online Library Communication-skills and conflict-resolution books, essays, articles, scholarly papers & teaching materials. Retrieved September 1, 2007.
Search for Common Ground - One of the world's largest non-government organizations dedicated to conflict resolution. Retrieved September 1, 2007.
How to be a Good Enemy (article) How to manage conflicts in a positive way. Retrieved September 1, 2007.
Frequently Asked Questions about Conflict Resolution Association for Conflict Resolution. Retrieved August 7, 2007.

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