The paradox of intragroup conflict: a meta-analysis

Since the meta-analysis by De Dreu and Weingart (2003b) on the effects of intragroup conflict on group outcomes, more than 80 new empirical studies of conflict have been conducted, often investigating more complex, moderated relationships between conflict and group outcomes, as well as new types of intragroup conflict, such as process conflict. To explore the trends in this new body of literature, we conducted a meta-analysis of 116 empirical studies of intragroup conflict (n = 8,880 groups) and its relationship with group outcomes. To address the heterogeneity across the studies included in the meta-analysis, we also investigated a number of moderating variables. Stable negative relationships were found between relationship and process conflict and group outcomes. In contrast to the results of De Dreu and Weingart, we did not find a strong and negative association between task conflict and group performance. Analyses of main effects as well as moderator analyses revealed a more complex picture. Task conflict and group performance were more positively related among studies where the association between task and relationship conflict was relatively weak, in studies conducted among top management teams rather than non-top management teams, and in studies where performance was measured in terms of financial performance or decision quality rather than overall performance.     

Fight or Flight: Factors Influencing Children's and Adults' Decisions to Avoid or Confront Conflict

Five videotaped dilemmas were used to assess age differences in perceptions of interpersonal conflict and reasoning about whether to avoid or actively pursue incipient disagreements. Each film depicted a clash between friends that could either be pursued by expressing a contrary opinion or avoided by simulating agreement. Three of the topics of potential dispute related to classroom cognitive or judgmental issues, and two revolved around playground social relationships among peers. The 96 male and female subjects were evenly subdivided into 6-, 9-, and 21-year-old age groups. Avoidance was recommended twice as often as engagement overall. But there were differences due to age and to the topic of the conflict. The classroom-related judgmental conflicts were avoided less often than were those involving social relations with peers. Adults likewise recommended avoidance less often than children and were less likely to misperceive the conflicts as hostile. These results supported and extended previous studies of children's concepts of conflict. Their implications for educational practice and the use of peer debate to enhance cognitive development were also considered.     

The dynamic relationship between performance feedback, trust, and conflict in groups: A longitudinal study

Moderate task conflict has generally been associated with higher group performance, and relationship conflict associated with lower performance. Past studies have most often discussed their findings as though differences in level of intragroup conflict cause differences in group performance—rather than testing the additional possibility that reported group conflict is a reaction to feedback on past group performance. This paper explores the dynamic relationships between intragroup conflict and performance with a longitudinal design. Results from 67 groups suggest that initial performance feedback to groups can have significant consequences for future team interaction. We find evidence to suggest that, (a) negative initial group performance feedback results in later increases in both task and relationship conflict, but that (b) groups with high early intragroup trust are buffered from experiencing the worst of future relationship conflict.     

The perception of preschool social dominance

Children's and teachers' perception of social dominance was examined using a behavioral criterion for determining accuracy of verbal judgments. Video records of agonistic interactions were obtained during approximately 60 hours of free-play at two preschool centers. Analyses of social conflict episodes ending in submission revealed linear dominance structures for both groups. Dominance perception was assessed in two ways. Both teachers and children were asked to rank-order a subgroup of children according to dominance. They were also asked to select the more dominant children in a number of predetermined pairs. Results indicated that teachers could accurately judge dyadic dominance relations, and that accuracy among children varied as a function of their status within the group hierarchy. Findings have implications for social dominance assessment methodology, and for the issue of consensual versus ecological validity in developmental studies of social perception.     

Relationships Among Conflict Management Styles,Levels of Conflict,and Reactions to Work

Abstract

Relationships among (a) conflict management styles, (b) levels of conflict, (c) two general reactions to work, and (d) four types of individual outcomes experienced by employees in the United States were assessed in two studies. In Study 1, subordinates using a high-obliging style with supervisors experienced more intrapersonal conflict, supervisors using a high-integrating style with subordinates reported more intrapersonal and intragroup conflict, and low-dominating supervisors reported significantly greater intragroup conflict. In Study 2, high-integrating subordinates experienced less intrapersonal, intragroup, and intergroup conflict than low-integrating subordinates did. The results of analyses also indicated that there was a strong relationship between integrating and all six organizational outcomes. Lower job satisfaction and fewer interpersonal rewards were associated with a high-dominating style. Both integrating and compromising were positively related to interpersonal outcomes, and dominating and avoiding were negatively related to interpersonal outcomes. Finally, the more conflict individuals experienced on the job, the lower their job satisfaction and their outcomes were.     

The patterning of agonistic behaviors among friends and acquaintances in programs for emotionally disturbed children

Peer conflicts in two age groups (toddler and preschool) of emotionally disturbed children were examined for developmental trends and for changes over time in an intervention program. Children were observed in their peer groups six times over the course of a year. Prosocial and agonistic social behaviors were coded in a continuous coding observational procedure. Friendship pairs were identified from the observational records and validated by teacher reports. It was hypothesized that agonistic responses to both prosocial and agonistic bids would decrease over time and that friendships would facilitate conflict resolution and conflict avoidance in the emotionally disturbed children. Agonistic responses to agonistic bids decreased over time for all children. Older acquaintances responded to prosocial bids with agonistic responses. Friendship relationships facilitated conflict resolution and avoidance skills in preschool-age but not toddler-age friends. The results are discussed in terms of their implications for intervention.     

Assessment of Alexithymia With the Rorschach Comprehensive System: The Rorschach Alexithymia Scale (RAS)

The Bene-Anthony Family Relations Test was administered to twenty normal, twenty-seven school disordered, and ten institutionalized emotionally disturbed preadolescent boys. Significant differences were obtained between and within groups. The more disturbed children tended to report more positive perceptions of family relationships, particularly their relationships with their oldest siblings. However, institutionalized children tended to perceive themselves more negatively than normal or school disordered children in the context of family relationships. Normal children, but not institutionalized children, tended to perceive their relationships with their oldest siblings as significantly more negative than their relationships to their parents. The data were interpreted as reflecting sibling rivalry and the operation of psychodynamic defenses.     

基于IPO模型的团队多样性-冲突-绩效权变模型的元分析

本文建立基于IPO模型的团队多样性-冲突-绩效的权变模型。通过对国内外的112篇实证文章（n=9263）进行元分析,本文定量地梳理近年来团队多样性-团队冲突-团队绩效之间关系的研究文献,并重点考察团队冲突与团队绩效之间的调节变量。元分析结果发现：团队深层多样性是引起团队冲突的重要因素,表层多样性并不会显著增加团队冲突;与美国的研究不同,中国情境下任务冲突将显著降低团队绩效;被试类型、回收率、团队规模和团队冲突的不对称感知等变量调节团队冲突与团队绩效之间的关系。     

Upsetting the apple cart: Within-team profiles of intragroup conflict and their associations with narcissism

Different types of intragroup conflict (i.e., relationship, task, and process conflict) co-exist in team environments yet how this co-existence is expressed is poorly understood, particularly in sports teams. Further, there is a lack of knowledge surrounding the antecedents of intragroup conflict. Here, we examined the nature of conflict profiles in sports teams and investigated narcissism as an antecedent to the conflict profiles. In a large, multi-group sample (n = 1107 athletes from 109 teams), participants completed measures of intragroup conflict and narcissism. Team-level latent profile analysis of intragroup conflict variables indicated five distinct within-team conflict profiles which varied in patterns of relationship, task, and process conflict. Moreover, teams high in narcissism (both in terms of team mean and team maximum scores) were more likely to occupy dysfunctional conflict profiles, that is profiles high in all conflict types. These findings underscore the importance of considering conflict profiles within teams and provide the first evidence for narcissism as a contributing factor in the development of conflict profiles in groups.     

The effects of culture and cohesiveness on intragroup conflict and effectiveness

To investigate the influence of culture and cohesiveness on intragroup conflict and effectiveness, the authors made comparisons among groups of U.S. friends and strangers and among groups of Chinese friends and strangers. Groups consisting of 5 members of the same culture engaged in a decision-making task. Among U.S. participants, task conflict and performance results tended to vary together. U.S. strangers reported little task conflict (disagreements about fact or opinion) and performed relatively poorly, whereas U.S. friends' performances benefited from an uninhibited exchange of individual ideas and opinions. In contrast, Chinese participants reported uniformly high levels of intragroup conflict and experienced relatively low performance. The results suggest that a task conflict advantage, with which group members feel comfortable enough to freely express and exchange opinions and disagree with each other to achieve optimal outcomes, might be culture specific.     

Social Dominance Orientation, Authoritarianism, and Support for Intergroup Violence Between the Middle East and America

Social dominance theory has generally posited that terror and intergroup violence can be explained in terms of social dominance struggles. Social dominance theorists have described terror mostly as a tool for maintaining intergroup hierarchies in society (Sidanius & Pratto, 1999). Although implications of the theory suggest that terror may also be used by lower status groups as a tool for the resistance of domination by higher status groups, this prediction heretofore has not been empirically demonstrated. Data from two samples, one in the United States and one in Lebanon, were collected regarding attitudes toward terrorism and intergroup violence. The results show that the American sample demonstrates the typical patterns of social dominance such that those who are higher in social dominance orientation tend to support greater violence toward the Middle East. However, the Lebanese sample shows the opposite pattern, such that those who are lower in social dominance orientation tend to support violence toward the West. These results suggest that (1) support for terrorism among Middle East citizens is a project of counterdominance, and, more broadly, that (2) the relationship between social dominance orientation and support for violence depends on the dynamics of the conflict and the status of the perpetrators.     

Neighborhood disadvantage, parent-child conflict, neighborhood peer relationships, and early antisocial behavior problem trajectories

This study examined relations among neighborhood disadvantage, parent-child conflict, deviant peer involvement in the neighborhood, and early-starting antisocial trajectories. Antisocial group patterns were identified in 218 low-income boys followed from ages 5 to 11, and neighborhood and family variables were evaluated as predictors in early and middle childhood. Four trajectory groups emerged: one increasing pattern that corresponded with developmental theories of early-starting antisocial behavior; one with initially high and decreasing problems over time; and two low antisocial groups. Parent-child conflict and neighborhood disadvantage were significantly associated with trajectory patterns, with youth in the 2 higher antisocial behavior groups characterized by more neighborhood problems and parent-child conflict than other groups. The results suggest that in early childhood, neighborhood disadvantage and family conflict place children at risk for early-starting trajectories, and that involvement with deviant peers in the neighborhood takes on an increasingly important role in patterns of antisocial behavior over middle childhood.     

Sad and happy emotion discrimination in music by children with cochlear implants

Children using cochlear implants (CIs) develop speech perception but have difficulty perceiving complex acoustic signals. Mode and tempo are the two components used to recognize emotion in music. Based on CI limitations, we hypothesized children using CIs would have impaired perception of mode cues relative to their normal hearing peers and would rely more heavily on tempo cues to distinguish happy from sad music. Study participants were children with 13 right CIs and 3 left CIs (M = 12.7, SD = 2.6 years) and 16 normal hearing peers. Participants judged 96 brief piano excerpts from the classical genre as happy or sad in a forced-choice task. Music was randomly presented with alterations of transposed mode, tempo, or both. When music was presented in original form, children using CIs discriminated between happy and sad music with accuracy well above chance levels (87.5%) but significantly below those with normal hearing (98%). The CI group primarily used tempo cues, whereas normal hearing children relied more on mode cues. Transposing both mode and tempo cues in the same musical excerpt obliterated cues to emotion for both groups. Children using CIs showed significantly slower response times across all conditions. Children using CIs use tempo cues to discriminate happy versus sad music reflecting a very different hearing strategy than their normal hearing peers. Slower reaction times by children using CIs indicate that they found the task more difficult and support the possibility that they require different strategies to process emotion in music than normal.     

Erectness of posture as an indicator of dominance or success in humans

Darwin and others have perceived parallels between the erect bearing of proud, successful humans and the expansive demeanor of dominant animals. Various additional parallels between man and other primates in the characteristics of dominance hierarchies, the facial and postural expression of dominance, and its possible neural mediation are described. In the present study, success by human subjects in various situations was found to be reflected by erect posture. In a longitudinal study, boys who had been ranked by peers as tough, or dominant in agonistic encounters, in early grade school were observed to have erect posture in high school. Further, high school students who were judged by peers as successful by group standards tended to have erect posture. Finally, erectness of posture was related to performance on a college examination, with students' posture changing in erectness upon their receiving their grade. These results are consistent with the hypothesis that human competition for social success is based upon a biological capacity for dominance hierarchization.This research was supported in part by a Wayne State University Faculty Research Award to the first author. Portions of this report were presented at the Animal Behavior Society meeting in June 1980 at Fort Collins, Colorado.     

Gender Differences and Similarities in Dominance Hierarchies in Same-Gender Groups Based on Speaking Time

This study aimed at investigating whether all-women and all-men groups differed in their hierarchical organization and stability of their rank orders across time. One hundred and sixteen European, middle-class, noncollege women and men (average age: 38) participated in small-group discussions twice within a week with the same group members. Speaking time served as the behavioral dominance indicator on which group hierarchies were based. Additionally, group members rank ordered each other on dominance after each interaction. In the first session, all-men groups were more hierarchically structured than all-women groups. During each session, all-women and all-men groups showed a similar significant increase in hierarchical structuring. For both women and men, rank orders remained stable during interactions and from the first to the second session. Results are discussed in terms of three theoretical models describing dominance hierarchies.     

Loneliness and stable friendship in rejected and nonrejected preschoolers

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship of stable mutual friendship to self-reports of loneliness in preschoolers who had been nominated as rejected or nonrejected by their peers. Ninety-four 4- and 5-year-olds were classified into five peer status groups: controversial, neglected, average, popular, and rejected. In addition, the children were classified as having a stable mutual friendship, an unstable mutual friendship, or without mutual friends. Children in the rejected group rated themselves as lonelier than their neglected, popular, and average peers. However, rejected children who had a stable mutual friendship reported levels of loneliness that were similar to those of their nonrejected peers and less loneliness than those rejected children who lacked stable friendship. Loneliness in preschoolers is discussed in terms of the quality of their friendships and peer experience as well as their desire to be sociable.     

The path to glory is paved with hierarchy: when hierarchical differentiation increases group effectiveness

Two experiments examined the psychological and biological antecedents of hierarchical differentiation and the resulting consequences for productivity and conflict within small groups. In Experiment 1, which used a priming manipulation, hierarchically differentiated groups (i.e., groups comprising 1 high-power-primed, 1 low-power-primed, and 1 baseline individual) performed better on a procedurally interdependent task than did groups comprising exclusively either all high-power-primed or all low-power-primed individuals. There were no effects of hierarchical differentiation on performance on a procedurally independent task. Experiment 2 used a biological marker of dominance motivation (prenatal testosterone exposure as measured by a digit-length ratio) to manipulate hierarchical differentiation. The pattern of results from Experiment 1 was replicated; mixed-testosterone groups achieved greater productivity than did groups comprising all high-testosterone or all low-testosterone individuals. Furthermore, intragroup conflict mediated the productivity decrements for the high-testosterone but not the low-testosterone groups. This research suggests possible directions for future research and the need to further delineate the conditions and types of hierarchy under which hierarchical differentiation enhances rather than undermines group effectiveness.     

When birds of a feather flock together and when they do not: status composition, social dominance orientation, and organizational attractiveness

Although similarity-attraction notions suggest that similarity--for example, in terms of values, personality, and demography--attracts, the authors found that sometimes demographic similarity attracts and sometimes it repels. Consistent with social dominance theory (J. Sidanius & F. Pratto, 1999), they demonstrated in 3 studies that when prospective employees supported group-based social hierarchies (i.e., were high in social dominance orientation), those in high-status groups were attracted to demographic similarity within an organization, whereas those in low-status groups were repelled by it. An important theoretical implication of the findings is that social dominance theory and traditional similarity-attraction notions together help explain a more complex relationship between demographic similarity and attraction than was previously acknowledged in the organizational literature.     

Parental Perceptions of the Family and Children's Peer Relations

To study the relationship between American parents' perceptions of the family environment, themselves, and their children's peer relations with preschool peers, data was obtained from 56 boys and 47 girls between 47 and 59 months old and their parents. Questionnaires on perceptions of family cohesiveness, expressiveness, conflict, psychosocial competence of self, and acceptance of children were completed by the parents. Sociometric evaluations of peer ratings and positive and negative nominations among children were completed by the children. Correlations revealed both similarities and differences between father–child and mother–child patterns. In general, boys' peer ratings were related to parents' competence whereas girls' peer ratings were related to parents' cohesion. Positive nominations in boys and girls were related to parents' competence. Negative nominations in boys and girls were related to low acceptance and high conflict in parents. These data suggest important links between parents' perceptions of the family and children's peer relations.     

Social aggression and power relations among preschool children

Social agonism and dominance relations were assessed in two preschool groups. An average of 30 hours of observational data was obtained for each group during free-play over a six-week period. A Social Agonism Inventory describing specific initiation and response behaviors during episodes of social conflict was used to code agonistic activity. Dyadic interactions were examined to determine whether the resolution of agonistic interactions conformed to a linear model of social dominance. Although there were group differences in the relative frequency of different forms of conflict, systematic comparison of agonistic wins and losses re vealed similarly rigid and linear dominance structures at both preschools. The relation of aggression and dominance was empirically examined by comparing the initiation and receipt of agonism by high vs low dominance status children. Higher dominance status children engaged in more agonistic interactions, but a majority of these interactions were directed toward other high-ranking group members.