A prototype matching model of satisfaction in same‐sex friendships

The hypothesis that people experience greater friendship satisfaction when their friendship matches the prototype of intimacy interactions was tested. Consistent with this hypothesis, both women and men reported the greatest satisfaction when their “real‐world” friendship matched the prototype of intimacy interactions. This relation was even stronger when the friendship matched prototypical intimacy interaction patterns (e.g., self‐disclosure) than when it matched nonprototypical patterns (e.g., practical support). Thus, there is evidence that people rely on relational knowledge—in this case, complex knowledge of patterns of relating—when evaluating the quality of their friendships.     

The Relationship Between Creativity and Conformity Among Preschool Children

The current study investigated the relationship between creativity and conformity based on the work of Starkweather (1964). The subjects were 45 preschool children. Creativity was assessed using the Multidimensional Stimulus Fluency Measure (Moran, Sawyers, Fu, & Milgram, 1983), an original thinking task. Two forms of conformity were assessed: social conformity and impersonal conformity using the Starkweather Social Conformity Test and the Starkweather Form Boards Test respectively (Starkweather, 1964). Starkweather's hypothesis of a curvilinear relationship between conformity and creativity was found for the social conformity task (X² = 11.69, p < .01). The findings support the hypothesis that highly conforming and highly nonconforming children do not score as high on creativity measurements as their freedom of expression (i.e., not following a rigid pattern of conforming/nonconforming) counterparts. Chi‐square analyses revealed significantly more children in the high creativity and freedom of expression group as compared to the low creativity and conforming/nonconforming children. That is, significantly fewer children were found in the low conformity/low creativity cell and more in the low conformity/high creativity cell than were expected by chance. No differences were found for impersonal conformity, perhaps due to the insensitivity of the instrumentation to assess conformity. It is concluded that freedom of expression may be seen as an important personality trait in the identification and nurturance of creative potential and problem solving in young children.     

Organizational Conflict Management as Disputing Process The Problem of Social Escalation

In this article, organizational conflict management is conceived as a “disputing process” involving the social escalation from grievance stage to conflict and dispute stages. The Disputing Process Instrument (DPI) was designed as a way to study these phenomena quantitatively. Seven behaviors are represented in the instrument: conciliatory negotiation, third-party mobilization, overt retaliation, covert retaliation, toleration, avoidance, and discipline. The DPI demonstrated high reliability, content, discriminant, and construct validity relative to earlier conflict instruments. An empirical study of social escalation was conducted among peers with different strengths of informal relations in an electronics firm. The study results revealed that interpersonal problems among weakly tied peers are likely to be contained at the grievance stage using covert behaviors or to be socially escalated to disputes involving third parties. More strongly tied peers are likely to escalate their problems from grievances to dyadic confrontations only. These results have implications for understanding disparate results from earlier studies of peer conflict in organizations and for arguments regarding the introduction of external third-party conflict consulting in organizations.