Property rights and the resolution of social conflict

It has long been argued that ownership depends upon social groups' establishing and adhering to rights such as the right to use and to exclude others from using one's own property. The authors consider the application of such rights in the interactions of young peers and siblings, and the extent to which parents support their children in establishing and maintaining the entitlement of owners. They show that children, but not their parents, give priority to ownership in settling property disputes, and argue that diverging models of children's relationships account for these differing perspectives of children and parents.     

Effects of conflict resolution training integrated into a high school social studies curriculum

The authors examined the effectiveness of conflict resolution and peer mediation training among California high school students. The authors randomly assigned 2 of 4 classes to receive 5 weeks of conflict resolution and peer mediation training integrated into the required social studies curriculum. The remaining 2 classes studied the same social studies curriculum for an identical amount of time (105 min every other day) without conflict resolution and peer mediation training. The authors investigated 2 issues. The 1st was the effectiveness of the conflict resolution and peer mediation training. The trained students, compared with the untrained students, learned the integrative negotiation and peer mediation procedures better, applied the procedures more completely, chose an integrative over a distributive approach to negotiation, and developed more positive attitudes toward conflict. The 2nd issue was the impact of the training program on academic achievement. Integrating conflict resolution and peer mediation training into an academic course promoted higher achievement, greater long-term retention of the academic learning, and greater transfer of academic learning in social studies to language arts.     

Homicide as conflict resolution

Homicide research at societal, subcultural, and interaction levels of analysis has not produced a comprehensive model for the killer‐victim transaction. But rules for organizing the experience of homicide can be generated from Simmel's definition of conflict as a “resolution of divergent dualisms” (1955:11). A model of homicide as a form of conflict resolution is demonstrated through interviews with a random sample of 35 adjudicated killers. Respondents’ definitions of homicide correspond to the conflict resolution model, with their verbal accounts, their socio‐psychological orientation to the victim at the point of the killing, their method of killing, and the general dynamics of the killer‐victim transaction, all varying as a resolution of a distinctive relationship, either between lovers, adversaries, or strangers. The situational definition casts homicide within the realm of normal behavior and at the same time delineates its distinctive features.     

The resolution of approach-avoidance conflict

Betting problems which established approach-avoidance conflicts were administered to college students in five experiments. The results of these experiments led to the development of a two-gradient model of approach-avoidance conflict. This model completed the integration of the essential postulates in Miller, 1944, Miller, 1948 models, reduced the number of these postulates, modified the resolution postulate, and, at the same time, allowed an increase in the number of different kinds of approach-avoidance conflicts that could be considered. A review of previous conflict studies led to the conclusions that two different procedures are used to produce conflict and that a single-gradient model should be used when conflict is produced by the punishment of an approach response, while the two-gradient model developed in the present experiments should be used when conflicts are produced by the simultaneous arousal of independently established approach and avoidance tendencies.     

Cognitive tempo in children and their parents.

An adoption study was conducted to determine if cognitive tempo (as characterized by errors and latencies on the Matching Familiar Figures Test) is more similar between parents and their biological children or between parents and their adopted children. Zero-order correlations between parents and children were not significant (regardless of familial relationship), but the results of canonical correlations for mean of parents' scores with those of biological and adopted children respectively were consonant with hypothesized values, suggesting a degree of heritability exists. A slight trend for parents' latency to be consistently related to their biological children's latency was noted, but no such trend was present for errors. The heritability of latency versus errors in cognitive tempo is discussed.     

Creative potential and conceptual tempo in preschool children

The individual stylistic variations of creative potential and conceptual tempo were investigated in preschool children (n = 61; mean age = 56.9 months). The measure used for the conceptual tempo was the Kansas Reflection Impulsivity Scale for Preschoolers (KRISP), and the Multidimensional Stimulus Fluency Measure (MSFM) was used to assess ideational fluency and creative potential Contrary to expectations, no differences between reflective and impulsive preschoolers were found on the ideational fluency measure. However, analysis of all four quadrants of the conceptual tempo dimensions derived from median splits revealed an interaction of KRISP latency and error scores, F(157) = 12.78, p < .001, with greater originality scores evidenced by the fast/accurate and slow/inaccurate groups than the slow/ accurates and fast/inaccurates. Implications of this unusual finding were discussed in terms of the manner in which children may approach convergent and divergent tasks.     

Intelligibility and conflict resolution in the lifeworld

This paper examines the role of Habermas's concept of the lifeworld in processes of reaching mutual understanding. This concept is shown to be ultimately too amorphous to bear the theoretical weight Habermas places on it. He conceives the lifeworld both as diffuse and holistic, yet also as structured; as a set of taken-for-granted and counterfactual presuppositions, yet also as a kind of knowledge. In the end, he presupposes what the lifeworld is supposed to explain: mutual intelligibility of subjects in interaction. These conceptual tensions affect the explanatory power of the lifeworld and the usefulness of the theory of communicative action for conflict resolution. Where conflict resolution is aimed at mediating radical disagreements with minimal concord between parties, presuming consensus may not be possible or optimal. The present analysis argues for the need to develop other means of establishing a sufficient level of background consensus against which communicative action can take place.     

Behavioral decisions during interpersonal conflict resolution

A laboratory study was conducted to examine the role of explorative decision making for interpersonal conflict resolution. Participants were 64 male students, who had to negotiate for an outcome distribution against bogus enactment of two confederates. Questionnaire and observational data, which were taken before, during and after the negotiation revealed strong support for hypothesized effects of coping with situational antagonism. Results indicate that substantial shifts take place according to locus of decision control and that behavior is determined by different decision preferences as conflict resolution proceeds.     

Researcher and clinician: Role conflict and resolution

Group therapy investigations are often conducted by researchers rather than by experienced clinicians who also possess research expertise. Given the fact that doctorally prepared clinicians must demonstrate research competence in their education programs, it is surprising that there is not more research on group therapy. The literature indicates that research and group psychotherapy practice are considered quite separate entities. However, there is much that both processes have in common. The principal investigator's experience during a group psychotherapy research project suggested that the conflict between the roles of researcher and clinician may not be due to differences in the external processes but rather to difficulties in trying to combine them within one person. The value of the researcher-clinician is elaborated, and recommendations are offered.This paper was supported by a grant from the Group Psychotherapy Foundation.     

Conceptual tempo as a moderator variable in predicting first grade achievement test scores

This study examined the utility of a set of tests for predicting the academic achievement of separate samples of impulsive and reflective first graders. The predictor tests were the Peabody Picture Vocabulary Test, the Columbia Mental Maturity Scale, Wepman's Auditory Discrimination Test, the ITPA Sound Blending Subtest, the WISC Digit Span Subtest, and Kaufman's WISC-R Verbal Comprehension Factor (Comprehension, Information, Similarities, and Vocabulary). The criterion measures were drawn from the Stanford Achievement Test and included scores for Total Auditory, Total Mathematics, Total Reading, Vocabulary and Listening Comprehension. Multiple regression analyses revealed that (a) for three of the five criterion variables, the optimal equations for predicting the achievement test scores differed for impulsives and reflectives, and (b) given the same predictor scores, the predicted achievement of impulsive and reflective children different considerably. It was concluded that conceptual tempo is an important moderator variable in predicting academic performance.     

Evidence for task-specific resolution of response conflict

When a target requires different responses to a relevant and to an irrelevant task in a task-switching paradigm, there is response conflict. This target-induced response conflict was combined with conflict caused by a subliminally presented prime presented prior to the target. We found that target-related conflict reduced prime-induced conflict effects within the same trial. However, target-related conflict modified prime-related conflict effects according to the irrelevant stimulus-response (S-R) rule, but not according to the relevant S-R rule. Moreover, trial-to-trial modulations of the target congruency effect were observed in task repetition trials, but not in task switch trials. These results indicate that conflict resolution mechanisms, at least under the present circumstances, operate in a strictly task-specific manner.     

Empathy and conflict resolution in friendship relations among adolescents

The present study addressed empathy's role in conflict resolution within the context of adolescent same-sex friendship relations. Self-report questionnaires were used to assess dispositional affective empathy and conflict resolution styles (problem solving, conflict engagement, withdrawal and compliance). The data of 307 adolescents (149 boys, 158 girls) were included in a multigroup path analysis with sex as a moderator variable. In agreement with the hypothesis that higher levels of dispositional empathy are associated with more successful conflict management, dispositional affective empathy was found to be positively linked to problem solving and negatively linked to conflict engagement among adolescent boys and girls. Dispositional affective empathy was not related to the two more passive strategies (withdrawal and compliance). Sex differences were demonstrated in empathic tendencies, with girls being more empathic than boys. Sex differences were also established in conflict resolution strategies, with girls using problem solving, withdrawal and compliance more frequently than boys. Both sexes scored equally low on conflict engagement, however, and were found to prefer problem solving to all other conflict resolution strategies. Findings are discussed in terms of previous research on empathy and conflict resolution.     

Personality,reciprocity, and strength of conflict resolution strategy

The present field study investigates how an individual’s interpersonal conflict resolution behavior is affected by the individual’s personality (assessed by the Big 5) and a situational factor (the other party’s conflict behavior), as well as how the two factors interact. A hierarchical regression analysis based on 256 student–roommate/friend dyads shows that both factors are important. Extraversion and Agreeableness were significantly related to most conflict strategies used by students. The results show that interactions between the parties in conflict situations are strongly governed by the norm of reciprocity. Finally, we found some empirical support for the interaction effect between personality and situation, suggesting that an individual’s conflict behavior is more complex than what the dispositional or the situational view may suggest.