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80Mugny, Power of minorities, p. 216; Crano, W. D. (2000). Social influence: Effects of leniency on majority and minority-induced focal and indirect attitude change. Revue Internationale de Psychologie Sociale, 15, 89–121. 81Baron, R., & Bellman, S. (2007). No guts, no glory: Courage, harassment and minority influence. European Journal of Social Psychology, 37, 101–124. 82McLeod, P., Baron, R., Marti, M., & Yoon, K. (1997). The eyes have it: Minority influence in face-to-face and computer mediated group discussion. Journal of Applied Psychology, 82, 706–718.
group members actively avoid minority members, their attitudes about related topics might change.80
In some cases, minorities might be harassed or pressured by the majority. In fact, a “harassed” minority is actually more persuasive than a nonharassed minority on both direct and indirect measures of influence.81 The reason why harassed minorities are viewed more positively is rooted in the courage hypothesis—people who persist in the face of hardship and ridicule are viewed as particularly sincere, confident, and coura- geous, given that they are willing to risk social censure. The braver the members of the minority appear to be, the greater their impact. And, if harassed minorities persist in public (rather than in private), they are even more admired and persuasive.82
WORK–FAMILY CONFLICT
Some teams struggle because team members experience a conflict between work and team obligations and commitment to their own family. Work–family conflict (WFC) might be expressed at the individual level, such as when a person feels stress about their own work–family situation or at the level of the team. WFC is stronger for people who are demographically dissimilar to their team in terms of gender and number of depen- dents.83 WFC at the work group level leads to WFC at the individual level. When team members feel that they have social support from the team, however, WFC is reduced.
ORGANIZATIONAL CULTURE CONFLICT
Leaders’ conflict management behaviors give rise to three distinct cultures in organiza- tions: collaborative, dominating, and avoidant. An investigation of 92 branches of a large bank revealed that conflict cultures affect branch viability (i.e., cohesion, potency, and burnout) and branch performance (i.e., creativity and customer service).84
CONFLICT MANAGEMENT
Next, we present models for resolving conflict.
CONFLICT MODES
According to Thomas, people can take at least five courses of action when they find themselves involved in conflict.85 The five choices differ depending upon the extent to which people are concerned for themselves and the other party (see Exhibit 8-3).
83Bhave, D. P., Kramer, A., & Glomb, T. M. (2010). Work-family conflict in work groups: Social information processing, support, and demographic dissimilarity. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 145–158. 84Gelfand, M., Leslie, L., Keller, K., & Dreu, C.K.W. (2012). Conflict cultures in organizations: How leaders shape conflict cultures and their organizational-level consequences. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(6), 1131–1147. 85Thomas, K, W, (1992). Conflict and conflict management: Reflection and update. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 13(3), 265–274.
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