Managing and Resolving Conflict in the Supervisory System

The purpose of this article is to offer a brief review of relevant literature on conflict in the therapist-supervisor system. The authors discuss factors that contribute to conflict and the principal areas of disagreement in the supervisory system. Additionally, the authors present several ideas regarding what a supervisor can do proactively to prevent conflict within supervision. Finally, various ways to address and resolve supervisor-trainee conflict, including terminating the supervisory relationship, are discussed.     

Two Challenges for the New Century: Transforming Relationships in Whole Bodies Politic

Two challenges are posed for social scientists, one substantive and the other disciplinary. First, scholars and practitioners should together find ways to transform fragmented and conflictual relationships into relationships capable of building peaceful societies where human dignity is respected. Second, to achieve this goal, they should work to develop non-disciplinary spaces where people from different disciplines can come together to create the requisite conceptual and methodological frameworks.     

Terrorists and Democrats: Individual Reactions to International Attacks

Three experiments conducted in 1997 and 1998 explored individual responses to reported fictitious international conflict involving the United States and other nations. Participants escalated the conflictual level of their responses to repeated attacks. In Experiment 1, escalation of conflict was greater in response to terrorist attacks than to military ones. In Experiment 2, after the initial attacks, men were more conflictual in responding to terrorist attacks by a democratic nation than by a nondemocratic nation, whereas the opposite pattern was found for women. In Experiment 3, participants responded with a higher level of conflict to terrorist attacks on military targets than to attacks on cultural/educational targets. Participants with greater personality dominance showed steeper escalation of conflict in their responses across successive attacks. These results are interpreted within the framework of an image theory of international relations and an expansion of the democratic peace hypothesis.     

西方社会心理学关于群际行为的研究述评

对西方社会心理学就群际行为这种重要的社会行为所开展的研究,主要包括心理动力学取向的研究、相对性匮乏理论及其研究、现实利益冲突理论及其研究、社会同一性理论及其研究的研究成果,进行了系统的介绍和评价．     

Aggressive Behavior of Passengers, Conflict Management Behavior, and Burnout Among Trolley Car Drivers

A sample of 96 trolley car drivers was used to investigate the relationship between aggressive behavior of passengers and burnout, the moderating effect of conflict management behavior of the drivers on this relationship; and the influence of burnout on customer-friendliness, passenger complaints, and absenteeism. The results show that aggressive behavior of passengers was related to all 3 burnout dimensions. The relationship of aggressive behavior of customers and professional efficacy was qualified by 2 significant interactions with 2 conflict management behavior styles: forcing and avoiding. The interactions showed that too much forcing as well as too much avoiding are related to less professional efficacy for drivers confronted with aggressive behavior. Passenger complaints were only related to less professional efficacy. The customer-friendliness of the drivers was related to less cynicism and more professional efficacy. Absenteeism was only related to exhaustion.     

Linking mechanisms of work–family conflict and segmentation

Despite the abundance of work and family research, few studies have compared the linking mechanisms specified in theoretical models of work–family conflict and segmentation. Accordingly, the current study provides a greater degree of empirical clarity concerning the interplay of work and family by directly examining the indirect effects of work–family conflict linkages and the direct effects of segmentation linkages on work and family satisfaction outcomes. Results, based on 209 samples and 994 effect sizes, indicate that indirect effect work–family conflict models explain 2.20% and 6.20% of the variance in job and family satisfaction outcomes, whereas direct effect segmentation models explain 54.10% and 48.50% of the variance in job and family satisfaction outcomes. Theoretical and practical implications of these findings are discussed.     

Goal conflict and facilitation as predictors of work–family satisfaction and engagement

In a study of working adults (N = 131; Mean age = 43.52 yrs; 62 males) in Germany and Finland, the mean level of goal facilitation was found to be significantly higher than that of goal interference. Hence, many individuals seem to be rather successful in constructing a personal goal system that is functional in terms of supportive links. As hypothesized, goal conflict and facilitation were associated with work-related outcomes, especially with work satisfaction. The associations with family-related outcomes were less pronounced when the focus was exclusively on either supportive or interfering goal relationships. However, when the intraindividual relation between goal conflict and goal support was taken into account, we found that the relative dominance of facilitation was clearly positively associated with both work-related and family-related indicators of positive functioning.     

Family-supportive organization perceptions, multiple dimensions of work-family conflict, and employee satisfaction: A test of model across five samples

Using samples of managers drawn from five Western countries, we tested a theoretical model linking employees’ perceptions of their work environment’s family-supportiveness to six different dimensions of work-family conflict (WFC), and to their job satisfaction, family satisfaction, and life satisfaction. Our results are consistent with a causal process whereby employees working in an environment viewed as more family-supportive experience lower levels of WFC. Reduced WFC then translates into greater job and family satisfaction, followed by greater overall life satisfaction. These findings were generalizable across the five samples.