Group Issues and Conflict

Group Dynamics

Donelson Forsyth

Forsyth, D. (2018).  Group Dynamics (7th ed.). Cengage Learning US.  https://mbsdirect.vitalsource.com/books/9798214344799

Forsyth: Chapter 13

Chapter 13. Conflict

Rare is the group—whether team, committee, club, or even best friends—that avoids, at all times, conflict. Conflicts arise from many sources, as disagreements over minor and major issues, personality conflicts, and power struggles cause once close collaborators to become hostile adversaries. Because conflict is a ubiquitous aspect of group life, it must be managed to minimize its negative effects.

What is conflict and its causes?

Why does conflict escalate?

How can group members manage their conflict?

Is conflict an unavoidable evil or a necessary good?

Chapter Outline

The Roots of Conflict

Winning: Conflict and Competition

Sharing: Conflict over Resources

Controlling: Conflict over Power

Working: Task and Process Conflict

Liking and Disliking: Relationship Conflicts

Confrontation and Escalation

Uncertainty → Commitment

Perception → Misperception

Soft Tactics → Hard Tactics

Reciprocity → Retaliation

Irritation → Anger

Few → Many

Conflict Resolution

Commitment → Negotiation

Misperception → Understanding

Hard Tactics → Cooperative Tactics

Retaliation → Forgiveness

Anger → Composure

Many → Few

The Value of Conflict: Redux

Chapter Review

Resources

Jobs versus Sculley: When Group Members Turn against Each Other

It was a time before the iPad, iPhone, and iMac. Apple Inc. had started strong under the leadership of Steve Jobs, but now it was struggling to hold its own during a downturn in sales of technology and software. Jobs and the executive board decided they needed a more traditional chief executive officer (CEO) with a background in business. They picked John Sculley, president of PepsiCo, hoping that he would stabilize Apple, improve efficiency, and increase sales.

All worked well, for a time. Jobs and Sculley admired each other’s strengths as leaders and visionaries, and they conferred constantly on all matters of production and policy. But they did not see eye-to-eye on key issues of corporate goals. Their working relationship dissolved into a series of disagreements, each one more problematic than the last. Both men played central roles as leaders in the company, but their differences in direction, vision, and style were disruptive. As the conflict over Jobs’ pet project, the Macintosh (predecessor of the iMac), reached a peak, Sculley asked the executive board to strip Jobs of much of his authority. The group did so, reluctantly (Linzmayer, 2004).

Jobs did not go quietly into the night. He met with each board member individually, to win approval for his plan to fire Sculley in a corporate coup. He waited to spring his plan when Sculley was traveling in China, but Sculley was tipped off by one of the board members. Sculley cancelled his trip, called a board meeting, and confronted Jobs:

“It’s come to my attention that you’d like to throw me out of the company, and I’d like to ask if that’s true.”

Jobs’ answer: “I think you’re bad for Apple, and I think you’re the wrong person to run this company…. You really should leave this company…. You don’t know how manufacturing works. You’re not close to the company. The middle managers don’t respect you.”

Sculley, his voice rising in anger, replied, “I made a mistake in treating you with high esteem.… I don’t trust you, and I won’t tolerate a lack of trust.”

Sculley then polled the board members. Did they support Sculley or Jobs? All of them declared great admiration for Jobs, but they felt that the company needed Sculley’s experience and leadership. Jobs then rose from the table and said, “I guess I know where things stand,” before bolting from the room (Sculley, 1987, pp. 251–252). Jobs later resigned from the company he had founded. He would return, eventually, but not until Sculley had resigned.

Jobs versus Sculley was one of corporate America’s most spectacular conflicts, but it was no anomaly. Groups of all kinds experience periods of disagreement, discord, and friction. Good friends disagree about their weekend plans and end up exchanging harsh words. Families argue over finances, rules, and responsibilities. Struggling work teams search for a person who can be blamed for their inefficiency. College classes, angered by their professors’ methods of teaching, lodge formal complaints with the dean. Rock bands split up due to artistic differences. When conflict occurs in a group, the actions or beliefs of one or more members of the group are unacceptable to and resisted by one or more of the other group members. Members stand against each other rather than in support of each other (see Dreu, Aaldering, & Saygi, 2015; Greer & Dannals, 2017, for reviews).

Why do allies sometimes turn into adversaries? The process begins when the group’s routine interactions are disrupted by some sort of initial disagreement, aggravation, or irritation (see Figure 13.1). Many disagreements are so minor that the group resolves them easily, but others create a lack of alignment in the group that triggers the conflict cycle. The conflict intensifies as discussion gives way to arguing, emotions take the place of logic, and the once unified group splits into factions (conflict escalation). Eventually, the conflict peaks and begins to dissipate (conflict de-escalation) and the members seek and implement a way to resolve their differences (conflict resolution). The board of directors at Apple, for example, decided to support Sculley and so they demoted Jobs—a rather severe means of dealing with the dispute. This chapter focuses on conflict inside a group—between two or more members—or intragroup conflict. A second form of conflict—conflict between groups or intergroup conflict—is examined in the next chapter.

13-1. The Roots of Conflict

Conflict is everywhere. When the members of 71 groups were asked, “Did your group experience any conflict?” they identified 424 instances of interpersonal irritation (Wall & Nolan, 1987). When Robert Freed Bales and his colleagues used the interaction process analysis (IPA) to record group interactions, some of the groups they observed spent as much as 20% of their time making hostile or negative comments (Bales & Hare, 1965). A researcher who arranged for groups to work on a frustrating, impossible-to-solve task was startled by the intensity of the conflict that overtook the groups. In one particularly hostile group, members averaged 13.5 antagonistic comments per minute (French, 1941).

Most people, if given the choice, avoid situations that are rife with conflict (Roloff & Wright, 2009). Yet conflict seems to be an unavoidable consequence of life in groups. When individuals are sequestered away from other people, their ambitions, goals, and perspectives are their own concern. But a group, by its very nature, brings individuals into contact with other people—people who have their own idiosyncratic interests, motivations, outlooks, and preferences. As these individuals interact with one another, their diverse interests and preferences can pull them in different directions. Instead of working together, they compete against one another. Instead of sharing resources and power, members selfishly claim more than their fair share. Instead of accepting each other for who they are, members treat those they like better than those they dislike.

13-1a. Winning: Conflict and Competition

Before Sculley joined Apple, his success or failure in manufacturing and marketing did nothing to influence Jobs and vice versa. But when they both worked at Apple, they became interdependent, for they could influence each other’s outcomes through individual and coordinated action (Schelling, 1960). At first, their relationship was based on cooperation: if Jobs succeeded Sculley succeeded, and vice versa. But eventually this cooperative relationship gave way to competition: The success of one meant the other would fail. Social psychologist Morton Deutsch (1949b) calls these two types of relationships promotive and contrient interdependence.

Competition versus Cooperation

Competition can be a positive experience. When, for example, we choose to compete in athletic events and contests we often experience elevated motivation and positive emotions such as excitement and the thrill of victory (Franken & Brown, 1995). However, when a situation calls for cooperation and teamwork but devolves into competition, then the positive benefits of competition are few. Instead of collaborating, we become rivals, striving to outperform each other. We no longer take pride in others’ accomplishments; in fact, we sometimes try to block their progress and disrupt their work. When we compete we seek rewards and protect our resources—we become greedy—but we also become wary, even fearful, of others (Kelley et al., 2003). Competition even changes how we talk to others in our group. When competing we make fewer positive but more negative remarks, and we are less likely to discuss shared priorities (Scheia, Rognes, & Shapiro, 2011).

Cooperation and competition trigger different motivational systems: one promotes sharing, trust, and collaboration, and the other promotes selfishness, suspicion, and sequestration. The two orientations are evident when social neuroscientists study individuals who are cooperating and competing (Decety et al., 2004). Both forms of interaction recruited areas of the brain that have been implicated in the production of behavioral choices, particularly in uncertain circumstances. The cooperating brain, however, shows more activity in regions associated with the processing of social rewards and overall psychological satisfaction (the orbitofrontal cortex). In contrast, the competing brain is busy intuiting the motivations of other people (medial prefrontal cortex) and distinguishing between the self and others (right inferior parietal cortex). Other research even suggests that individuals who are competing with others show, in some cases, elevated activity in the amygdala, an area of the brain thought to be responsible for feelings of fear (Bhatt et al., 2012; Fermin et al., 2016; Tsoi et al., 2016).

Mixed-Motive Situations

Few situations involve pure cooperation or pure competition; the motive to compete is often mixed with the motive to cooperate. Sculley wanted to gain control over the Mac division but he needed Jobs’ help with product development. Jobs valued Sculley’s organizational expertise but he felt that Sculley misunderstood the company’s goals. The men found themselves in a mixed-motive situation—they were tempted to compete and cooperate at the same time.

Researchers use a specialized technique known as the prisoner’s dilemma game (PDG) to study mixed-motive situations. Imagine you and your friend Steve have been arrested and the police are questioning you both—but in separate rooms. The police give you a choice: You can remain silent or you can confess and implicate Steve. But they also explain that if you and Steve remain silent, then you will both go free. If both of you confess, you and Steve will receive moderate sentences. But if you confess and Steve does not, then you receive a minimal sentence and Steve will receive the maximum sentence. And vice versa. If Steve confesses and you do not, you get the long sentence. Should you confess or remain silent (Luce & Raiffa, 1957; Poundstone, 1992)?

The dilemma turns into an experimental test of conflict and cooperation when jail time is converted into points or money (see Figure 13.2). If you were playing this experimental game with a partner named Steve, you would both be asked to pick one of two options, labeled C and D. Option C is the cooperative choice. If you both pick C, then you both will earn money. Option D is the competitive choice (defection). If only one of you defects by picking D, that player will make money and the other will lose money. But if you both pick D, both will lose money. Figure 13.2 shows the payoff matrix that summarizes how much money the two of you will win or lose in each of the four possible situations:

You choose C and Steve chooses C, both earn 50¢.

You choose C and Steve chooses D, you lose 50¢ and Steve earns $1.

You choose D and Steve chooses C, you earn $1 and Steve loses 50¢.

You choose D and Steve chooses D, both lose 25¢.

So you are drawn to cooperate (option C), but fear that Steve may defect (option D). You and Steve usually cannot communicate with each other, and so you face an uncertain situation. In the single-trial version, you only make your choice once. In the iterated version, you play multiple rounds. Each pair of choices is termed a trial or round.

Which option do most people pick in the PDG? Some cooperate and some compete, with the proportion of cooperators to competitors varying depending on the relationships between members, their expectations, personalities, and a variety of other factors (Weber & Messick, 2004). If, for example, the gains for competing relative to cooperating are increased (e.g., people would earn $2 instead of only $1 by competing in the game shown in Figure 13.2), people compete more. When people are told they are playing the “Wall Street Game,” they compete more than if the simulation is called the “Community Game” (Gilovich & Ross, 2015). If the instructions refer to the other person as the “opponent,” then competition increases, but the label “partner” shrinks competitiveness (Burnham, McCabe, & Smith, 2000). And, if people know they will be playing multiple trials against the same person, then cooperation increases (Van Lange, Klapwijk, & Van Munster, 2011). In one study, for example, people played the PDG in large groups of 30 to 50 people. The game randomly paired people together on each trial, but the odds of being paired with the same person repeatedly were varied experimentally from low to high. The greater the chances of playing with a person in the future, the more cooperative players became (Bó, 2005).

Behavioral Assimilation

When people play the iterated PDG, their choices are usually influenced by their partner’s prior choices. When playing with someone who consistently makes cooperative choices, people tend to cooperate themselves. Those who encounter competitors, however, soon adopt this strategy, and they, too, begin to compete. Gradually, then behavioral assimilation occurs as group members’ choices become synchronized over time.

The norm of reciprocity is to blame (or credit) for this assimilative process. As noted in Chapter 3, the norm of reciprocity sustains mutuality in exchange: When people who help you later need help, the norm of reciprocity urges you to help them in return. However, the norm of reciprocity also implies that people who harm you are deserving of harm themselves. The converse of “You scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours” is “An eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth.” If one group member criticizes the ideas, opinions, or characteristics of another, the victim of the attack will feel justified in counterattacking unless some situational factor legitimizes the aggression of the former (Falk & Fischbacher, 2006).

Unfortunately, negative reciprocity tends to be stronger than positive reciprocity. Although people consistently return kindness with kindness and thereby maintain equity in their relationship and reward positive behavior, they are even more likely to punish an unkindness with hostility. A cooperative person who runs into a competitive partner is more likely to begin to compete before the competitive person begins to cooperate, so as a result a partner turns into an opponent faster than an opponent turns into an ally (Kelley & Stahelski, 1970a, 1970b, 1970c). This asymmetry in reciprocity is even greater when members believe others’ acted deliberately. A person who intentionally treats another person in a positive way may receive a positive response back, but when a person deliberately mistreats another person, a negative payback is assured (Offerman, 2002).

Social Value Orientation

When situational factors align to create competition between people, conflict becomes more likely. But competition does not result only from situational causes, for some people are quicker to compete than others. Jobs and Sculley, for example, differed in many ways. Jobs was born in 1955 in San Francisco, California. He never finished college, and he was a practicing Zen Buddhist. John Sculley was born in 1939, but as a child lived in Bermuda, Brazil, and Europe. He attended Brown University and received an MBA from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. But the two were alike in one respect: They were both highly competitive.

Are You Proself or Prosocial?

Each of us differs in our orientation to cooperation and competition. Paul Van Lange and his colleagues (1997) developed the social value orientation scale to measure these differences between people. It uses a “decomposed” version of the PDG that asks respondents to choose between three options that yield different consequences for themselves and for another person—labeled the other.

Instructions. Imagine that you have been randomly paired with another person, the other. Both you and other will be picking between three options labeled A, B, and C. These different options produce different amounts of points for you and for other. For example:

  Choice A Choice B Choice C

You get 500 500 550

Other gets 100 500 300

In this example, when you pick A, you receive 500 points and the other gets 100. Picking B yields 500 points for both of you. If you select C, you receive 550 points, and the other receives 300. Before you begin making choices, remember there are no right or wrong answers. Just circle the choice (A, B, or C) you most prefer.

Problem 1 Choice A Choice B Choice C

You get 480 480 540

Other gets 480 80 280

Problem 2 Choice A Choice B Choice C

You get 500 500 560

Other gets 500 100 300

Problem 3 Choice A Choice B Choice C

You get 520 520 580

Other gets 520 120 320

Problem 4 Choice A Choice B Choice C

You get 490 500 560

Other gets 490 100 300

Scoring. The complete SVO scale includes 12 of these choices; only a subset of the items were presented here. However, if you consistently picked option A, then you can be considered prosocial. If you consistently picked B, then you are proself. And if you picked C: you are individualistic. Do your choices match your own intuitions about how you respond in mixed-motive situations?

What makes one person more competitive than another? According to social values orientation (SVO) theory, our willingness to cooperate or compete is determined by two sets of values: our concern for our own outcomes and our concern for other people’s outcomes. Proself individuals seek to maximize personal gains; when they play the PDG, they want to earn as many points as they can. Prosocials, in contrast, are also concerned with others’ gains and losses; they want to maximize others’ outcomes (Van Lange et al., 2007). When both orientations are taken into account, SVO theory identifies four distinct orientations:

Individualists are proself and concerned only with their own outcomes. They neither interfere with nor assist other group members, for they focus only on their own outcomes. Their actions may indirectly impact other group members, but such influence is not their goal.

Competitors are proself and strive to maximize their own outcomes, but they also seek to minimize others’ outcomes (their prosocial value is low). They view disagreements as win–lose situations and find satisfaction in forcing their ideas on others.

Cooperators are both prosocial and proself, so they strive to maximize their own outcomes and others’ outcomes as well. They value accommodative interpersonal strategies that generate win–win situations.

Altruists are prosocial but not proself, so they are motivated to help others who are in need. They willingly sacrifice their own outcomes in the hopes of helping others achieve some gain.

Proselfs are more likely to find themselves in conflicts. Their style is abrasive, spurring cooperative members to react with criticism and requests for fairer treatment. Competitors, however, rarely modify their behavior in response to these complaints, because they are relatively unconcerned with maintaining smooth interpersonal relations (Bogaert, Boone, & Declerck, 2008). Hence, competitors try to overwhelm cooperators who sometimes respond by becoming competitive themselves. For cooperators, the perception of others’ cooperativeness is positively correlated with their own cooperativeness. If they think that others will cooperate, they cooperate. For competitors, perceptions of others’ cooperativeness are negatively correlated with their own cooperativeness. If they think that others will cooperate, they compete (Smeesters et al., 2003). When two competitors meet, the result is an intense conflict like that seen at Apple. When competitors lose, they often withdraw from the group altogether (Shure & Meeker, 1967).

Competitors (and altruists, for that matter) are relatively rare; most people are either cooperators or individualists. However, individualists seek their own outcomes without regard for others, so more individualists usually means more conflict (Balliet, Parks, & Joireman, 2009). In one study, researchers first measured peoples’ SVOs and then created four-person groups with varying mixtures of individualists and cooperators. The groups were then set to work on a task that required considerable negotiation and compromise. As expected, the groups composed entirely of cooperators were more likely to use more diplomatic negotiation tactics than were groups of individualists. This effect, however, was the result of cooperators adapting their styles to match the composition of the group. Finding themselves in a group with all cooperators, they cooperated. But if they were members of groups with individualists, they became less cooperative. Individualists, however, did not make adjustments—they maintained their confrontational style of interaction when interacting with other cooperators and with other individualists (Weingart et al., 2007).

Men, Women, and Competition

What if John Sculley were Joanna Sculley—a woman rather than a man? Would she and Jobs have battled as fiercely? Or would Joanna have used less competitive methods for settling the dispute?

Common sex role stereotypes generally assume that men are more competitive than women. Stories of executives conjure up images of individuals who are driven, ruthless, self-seeking, and male. But some versions of evolutionary theory suggest that men are more cooperative than women—at least when interacting with other men (Thayer & Hudson, 2010). But the data are mixed. Some studies find men to be more competitive, but others suggest women are. For example, men are somewhat more competitive than women when competition is a riskier alternative or will yield a greater payoff (Simpson, 2003). Women are more likely to endorse prosocial SVOs relative to men (Knight & Dubro, 1984). Women’s reactions during conflicts are also more nuanced than men’s. If, for example, their partner is attractive, women make more cooperative choices. If they do not like their partner, they are more likely to compete (Kahn, Hottes, & Davis, 1971). Men do tend to cooperate more in all-male groups than do women in all-female groups, but women are more likely to cooperate in situations that involve sharing rather than competing (Balliet, Li et al., 2011). Men displayed heightened physiological reactions—primarily positive ones—when playing a competitive game, whereas women did not (Kivikangas et al., 2014). Given these various findings, when researchers used meta-analytic methods to combine the results of 272 studies of the responses of over 30,000 participants, they concluded men are no more competitive than women (Balliet, Li et al., 2011).

Competition in High-Stakes Situations

Many popular game shows let viewers watch groups overtaken by conflict. On Survivor, for example, only one contestant can win the grand prize, and members must vote a person out of the group each time their team loses. On Weakest Link, members cooperate by answering strings of questions, but after each round they vote to identify and eliminate the weakest player from their teams. The competition among players invariably introduces tension, conflict, and hostility.

Researchers, to determine if people become more competitive when the stakes are high, systematically analyzed the results of one particular game show, Friend or Foe. On this show the teams play a variant of the prisoner’s dilemma game after each round. If both pick Friend, they split their earnings. If one picks Friend but one picks Foe, Foe keeps everything. And if both players pick Foe, they lose all their earnings. Unlike choices made in experimental studies, their choice to cooperate or compete is a very public one, and they are also negotiating for serious amounts of money; on average, $3,705.

When researchers examined teams’ choices, they discovered that players defected, trying to take all the money, 50% of the time. Men tended to compete more than women (55% vs. 46%), and younger players were much more competitive than older ones (59% vs. 37%). Hence, competitive men who were paired with older women tended to take home much more money than all other players. Competitiveness, however, was unrelated to the size of the stake. People playing for substantial amounts were as likely to compete as they were to cooperate. This competitive urge ended up saving the game show a considerable amount of money. Contestants left nearly $100,000 behind as a result of two players making the fatal Foe–Foe choice (List, 2006; Oberholzer-Gee, Waldfogel, & White, 2010; see, too, a replication of this sex difference in Van den Assem, Van Dolder, & Thaler, 2012).

Do Students Learn Best in Cooperative or Competitive Classrooms?

Most educational settings are competitive places—students compete for grades, honors, and class rank. Competition prompts many students to expend greater effort, but sometimes it shifts the focus to grades and away from learning. Students in competitive settings have two options open to them. First, they can improve their own work in the hopes that they rise above the others. Second, they can undermine, sabotage, disrupt, or interfere with others’ work so that their own becomes better by comparison (Amegashie & Runkel, 2007). Students in cooperative classes, in contrast, can help one another reach their learning goals.

Deutsch studied the dark side of competition by creating two different grading systems in his college classes. In competitive classes, students’ grades were relative: The individual who did the best in the group would get the highest grade, whereas the individual who did the worst would get the lowest grade. Deutsch created cooperative groups as well. These students worked together in groups to learn the material, and everyone in the group received the same grade. As Deutsch predicted, conflict was much more pronounced in the competitive groups. Members reported less dependency on others, less desire to win the respect of others, and greater interpersonal animosity. Members of cooperative groups, in contrast, acted friendlier during the meetings, were more encouraging and supportive, and communicated more frequently (Deutsch, 1949a, 1949b, 1973, 1980).

Deutsch is not the only educator and researcher who questions the benefits of competitive classroom goals (Meece, Anderman, & Anderman, 2006). Educational psychologists David Johnson and Roger Johnson (2009), in a meta-analytic review, identified 1,200 studies that examined cooperation, competition, and learning. Their analysis indicated that students in classrooms that stress cooperation rather than individualism or competition work harder, display better psychological adjustment, and have higher self-esteem. Students in cooperative classes also outperformed those in competitive ones: They displayed better reasoning skills, perspective-taking ability, and higher levels of achievement overall. Given these robust results, Johnson and Johnson strongly encourage educators to reevaluate their reliance on competitive goal structures and shift to more group-centered, cooperative methods of instruction.

13-1b. Sharing: Conflict Over Resources

Steve Jobs faced a dilemma. The board of directors of Apple had hired John Sculley to be the CEO, and they expected all the company’s employees to support Sculley’s initiatives. But Sculley called for sacrifices, for he wanted to shift personnel and financial resources away from Jobs’ division. Jobs could have accepted this decision and gone along with the group’s choice, but instead he followed his own path.

Group life, by its very nature, is sometimes a social dilemma. As individuals, members try to extract resources from the group and minimize the amount of time and energy the group takes from them. Yet, as group members, they also wish to contribute to the group, for they realize that their selfishness can destroy the group. Conflicts arise when individualistic motives trump group-oriented motives, and the collective intervenes to redress the imbalance (Parks, 2015).

Commons Dilemmas

The “tragedy of the commons” epitomizes the commons dilemma (also known as a social trap). Shepherds with adjoining farms all share a common grazing field. The common can support many sheep, so the shepherds grow prosperous. Then, one or two shepherds decide to add a few sheep to their flock so that they can make more profit. Others notice the extra sheep, so they, too, add to their flocks. Soon, the commons is overgrazed, and all the sheep die of starvation (Hardin, 1968). The members, tempted by short-term gains, acted selfishly and in so doing brought about long-term losses to the collective (Kramer, 2011).

Any group whose members must share a finite resource faces this social trap. Members may be tempted to take as much as possible of the resource, but if they take too much, the resource will be destroyed. Can groups escape this dilemma? Experience in dealing with the situation, communication, and social pressures that encourage conservation are all critical factors. People who are given two chances to harvest a pool are much more cooperative the second time, for they have learned what can happen if they act selfishly (Allison & Messick, 1985a). Communication, so long as it focuses on strategy, also increases prosocial resource conservation (Brechner, 1977). The commons dilemma can also be partially remedied by developing, within the group, normative standards that stress efficient consumption of the resource rather than greedy exploitation. When members are aware of others’ choices, they tend to conform to those choices so long as the group is harvesting very little from a small pool but is taking more from a larger one (Brucks, Reips, & Ryf, 2007).

Public Goods Dilemmas

The commons is a “take some” dilemma: Members can draw on the resource, but they must not take too much. A public goods dilemma, in contrast, is a “give some” dilemma: Members are asked to contribute to the group, but members often don’t fulfill this obligation. For example, some residents who use their community’s resources, such as public parks, highways, and libraries, may not contribute to the community by paying taxes. Similarly, when students work on class projects as teams, one member may miss meetings and leave assignments undone, but still get a good grade because the group scores well on the final project. When everyone is asked to bring a covered dish to a reception, a few attendees will show up empty-handed. We met these people in Chapter 10’s analysis of social loafing: These individuals are free riders.

Free riding can spark group conflict. When group members in a college class described the sources of conflicts in their project groups, more than 35% of their comments targeted disputes over workload. People had much to say about the dedication of their comembers to the group’s goals, for some members of the group did not put in as much time, effort, and resources as the others expected (Wall & Nolan, 1987). Free riding can also be contagious, for some group members, seeing that others are free riding, may reduce their own contributions or withdraw from the group altogether (Komorita & Parks, 1994). Fortunately, the opposite of free riding—consistent contributing—is also contagious: Free riding decreases in groups where one or more of the members consistently contributes at a high level even though others in the group do not (Weber & Murnighan, 2008). A note of warning, however, for those who pride themselves on doing more than their fair share: Paradoxically, members who are too self-sacrificing—they give much to the common good but take nothing for themselves—are sometimes excluded from the group. They set a standard that others in the group cannot reach (Parks & Stone, 2010).

Free riding poses a significant threat to effective group functioning. As an evolutionary perspective suggests, humans’ ancestral groups could not survive if too many of their members failed to do their share of their group’s work. In consequence, humans are equipped with the mental apparatus needed to detect free riders. Groups can tell the difference, for example, between a person whose lack of contribution is unintentional—someone, for example, who is incompetent, ill, or just confused about the group’s requirements—and a person who is intentionally avoiding work (Delton et al., 2012). But once the group identifies a shirker in their midst, they intervene in various ways. Some groups remind those who contribute too little of their obligations and extract promises of improved performance. Others publically reward those who do their share. Groups also impose costs on the free riders—criticism, public humiliation, physical punishment, and fines are all ways to punish free riders. People are even willing to impose costs on themselves if it means that free riders can be punished in some way (Balliet, Mulder, & Van Lange, 2011).

Fairness Dilemmas

Jobs and Sculley, even many years after their conflagration, disagreed not only about the causes but also about the essential facts. Sculley (2011) denied ever firing Jobs. He admits that he reassigned Jobs, but it was Jobs’ decision to resign. Jobs, in contrast, remembers being fired. In a commencement address given at Stanford University in 2005, he asked, “How can you get fired from a company you started?” (quoted in Ong, 2012). Jobs did not consider the board’s decision to be a fair one, but Sculley did.

Fairness judgments are determined by two forms of social justice: procedural and distributive. As discussed in Chapter 11, procedural justice is based on the methods used to make decisions about the allocation of resources, whereas distributive justice concerns how rewards and costs are shared by (distributed across) the group members. In the case of Jobs versus Sculley, the fairness of firing Jobs depends in part on how the board of directors made their decision. If they weighed the decision carefully, sought all the data they needed, and discussed the problem with all concerned parties, then the decision would be a fair one—at least in terms of procedural justice. Distributive justice, however, asks, “Did Jobs get what he deserved?” When one’s piece of cake seems smaller than it should be, when others get the best seats right up near the front of the bus, when workers who do the same job are paid different salaries, when the person who started the company is fired by the person he hired to help him run the company, some may feel that distributive justice has not been done (Tyler, 2013).

Distributive justice depends, in part, on the norms the group uses to allocate rewards. In some groups, such as Apple, rewards are given for productivity and performance—and individuals who contribute little can expect little in return. Other groups, in contrast, base the distribution of rewards on other factors, such as status, duration of membership, or need. Some common distributive norms follow:

Equity: The group gives more to members who have done more for the group. Someone who has invested a good deal of time, energy, money, or other type of input in the group receives more than individuals who have contributed little.

Equality: The group treats all members equally, no matter what their contribution to the group. For example, a person who contributes 20% of the group’s resources receives as much as the person who contributes 40%.

Power: The group allocates more of its resources to those with more authority, status, or control over the group and less to those in lower-level positions (“to the victor go the spoils”).

Need: The group takes into consideration the level of need of each of its members and allocates more of its resources to those with the greatest needs and less to those who need less, irrespective of how much these individuals contributed to the group. This norm is sometimes termed the social responsibility norm since those who have more are expected to share with those who have less.

Equity versus Equality

Money (and other resources) may not be the root of all evil, but its distribution often causes conflicts within groups (Allison & Messick, 1990; Samuelson & Allison, 1994). Members who contribute less to the group often argue in favor of the equality norm, whereas those who contribute more tend to favor the equity norm. Women prefer equality over equity even when they outperform their coworkers (Wagner, 1995). Members of larger groups prefer to base allocations on equity, whereas members of smaller groups stress equality (Allison, McQueen, & Schaerfl, 1992). Some countries stress equality and need more than equity, as do different organizations and groups within each country (Fischer et al., 2007). Members of groups working on tasks when one individual’s contributions are critically important for success prefer equitable distributions over egalitarian ones.

Group members who feel that they are receiving too little for what they are giving—negative inequity—sometimes withdraw from the group, reduce their effort, or turn in work of lower quality. Receiving too much for what one has given—positive inequity—sometimes causes people to increase their efforts so they deserve what they get, but it is negative inequity that causes conflict (Fortin & Fellenz, 2008; Rivera & Tedeschi, 1976). These reactions are driven, in part, by self-interest. Most people strive to maximize their personal rewards, so they react negatively when they are denied what they feel they deserve. But people also react to negative inequity because they recognize that the rewards the group gives them are an indication of their status and prestige within the group—if the group gives more to Sculley than to Jobs, then the group must think Sculley is better than Jobs. In general, however, members’ reactions are shaped more by procedural justice than distributive justice. Members who believe that their group has acted with integrity while allocating rewards feel a sense of pride in their group (Blader & Tyler, 2003, 2009).

Are Humans the Only Species That Understands Fairness?

Humans are not the only species with a highly evolved sense of distributive justice, at least according to research conducted by primatologists Sarah Brosnan, Frans de Waal, and their colleagues. They trained capuchin monkeys to work for food rewards. The monkeys, when given a token, would be rewarded with a small portion of food when they handed the token back. These monkeys would work for a bit of cucumber (low-value reward), but they preferred a grape above all else (high-value reward).

Once trained, Brosnan and de Waal set up different payment conditions to see how the monkeys would respond. In the equity condition, two monkeys worked side by side for the same low-value reward; and work they did, diligently exchanging a coin for food. In the inequity condition, one of the monkeys received the high-value reward and the other was given the low-value reward. The latter monkeys were none too pleased. In addition to vocalized complaints and gestures of defiance, they refused to continue exchanging the tokens for food, and, when given their food reward, they would indicate their displeasure by returning it—aiming for the researchers. These reactions were worse still in a third, “free food” condition. Conflict reached its peak when the one monkey was given grapes without even having to trade coins back and forth (Brosnan, 2011; Brosnan & de Waal, 2003).

Brosnan and De Waal conclude that these monkeys’ reactions were guided by their instinctive sense of fairness, for they appeared to recognize the inequity of the situation. But not all primate species react so negatively. Rhesus monkeys, for example, do not seem to be sensitive to distributive justice, perhaps because they live in small groups with very differentiated chains of authority that create great inequalities in the distribution of rewards. They also note that the monkeys that prospered under the inequitable arrangement showed no sign of concern over getting more than their fair share. They were not so altruistic that they shared their ill-gotten gains with their unrewarded partner.

Responsibility Dilemmas

When a group completes its work, members often dispute who deserves credit and who deserves blame. The board of directors at Apple blamed Jobs for the company’s economic misfortunes. Sculley credited his skilled marketing interventions for Apple’s prosperity in the years following Jobs’ dismissal. Jobs blamed Sculley for ruining the company.

Just as individuals carry out extensive appraisals of their own successes and failures, so do group members devote significant cognitive resources to the analysis and comprehension of their collective endeavors. This appraisal, however, is complicated by the collaborative nature of group activities. Group members must identify the factors that contributed to each member’s performance, assign credit and blame, and make decisions regarding rewards, power, and status. Each group member, however, generally sees himself or herself as somewhat more worthy of credit than others in the group. This tendency, termed egocentrism, can be easily documented just by asking people to indicate how responsible they feel they are for any group activity, where 0% means they are not responsible at all and 100% that they alone are responsible for what the group has achieved. These scores, when summed across group members, invariably exceed 100% (Burnette & Forsyth, 2008; Ross & Sicoly, 1979).

This bias occurs, in part, because people are far more aware of their own contributions than those of others—they literally see themselves busily contributing to the group effort and overlook the work of others. Thus, egocentrism can be reduced by asking group members to think about their collaborators’ contributions, a process termed unpacking. When, for example, the authors of multiauthored research articles were asked to estimate their responsibility for the joint project, they were less egocentric if they were also asked to estimate how much the other coauthors had contributed (Caruso, Epley, & Bazerman, 2006; Savitsky et al., 2005).

Group members’ claims of responsibility can be either group-serving (sociocentric) or self-serving (egocentric). After success, members may praise the entire group for its good work with such comments as “We all did well” or “Our hard work really paid off.” Likewise, after failure, members may join together in blaming outside forces and absolving one another of blame. Because these types of responsibility claims protect and enhance the group, they lower the levels of relationship conflict within the group (Peterson & Behfar, 2003). Frequently, however, self-serving members blame one another for the group’s misfortunes or take the lion’s share of the credit after a success (Forsyth, Zyzniewski, & Giammanco, 2002).

These self-serving attributions result in conflict and a loss of cohesion (Gibson & Schroeder, 2003). In one study, members of successful and unsuccessful groups were asked to complete a confidential report of their responsibility and others’ responsibilities for the outcome. Then, to their surprise, this report was shared with other group members. Unbeknown to the group members, the actual reports were switched with standard ones indicating that another group member either took high, moderate, or low responsibility for the outcome. Group members who blamed others for failure or tried to claim the lion’s share of responsibility after success were not well liked (Forsyth, Berger, & Mitchell, 1981). Other studies confirmed that those who engage in self-serving attributions in groups are often viewed as braggarts, narcissists, or even untrustworthy liars, but that those who share responsibility appropriately are considered trustworthy teammates (Dattner, 2011).

13-1c. Controlling: Conflict Over Power

Jobs thought that he would be content to allow another person to make key decisions about Apple’s future, but when those decisions did not mesh with his own vision, he sought to regain control. Sculley believed that Jobs was undermining his authority. Both Jobs and Sculley sought the power they needed to control the company, and their power struggle caused turmoil within the group.

As noted in earlier chapters, the differentiation of members in terms of status, prestige, and power is a ubiquitous feature of groups. As the group strives to coordinate its members’ task-directed activities, some individuals will begin to assert more authority over the others. Those who occupy positions of authority have the right to issue orders to others who are expected to follow those directives. Once individuals gain power over others, they tend to defend their sources of power through manipulation, the formation of coalitions, information control, and favoritism. These power processes occur with great regularity in groups, but they nonetheless cause waves of tension, conflict, and anger to ripple through the group (Greer, 2014).

Infighting, power struggles, and disputes are particularly common in business and corporate settings. Sociologist Calvin Morrill (1995) spent several years collecting ethnographic data on the sources and consequences of conflict between executives in corporations. His analysis confirmed the image of companies as arenas for power struggles, when group members compete with each other for power, promotions, and prominence, often by using manipulative, illicit tactics. Contests of authority and power were so commonplace in one company that the executives developed an elaborate set of terms and expressions pertaining to company politics, which Morrill recorded much like an anthropologist would record the rituals of the members of an isolated tribe. An ambush was a “covert action to inconvenience an adversary” (synonyms: bushwhack and cheap shot); blindsiding was “an intentional and surprising public embarrassment by one executive at another’s expense”; an outlaw was “an executive who handles conflict in unpredictable ways but who is regarded as especially task competent.” In some cases, this maneuvering would result in a meltdown—a “physical fight between executives” (1995, pp. 263–265).

13-1d. Working: Task and Process Conflict

When Sculley first went to work at Apple, he and Jobs disagreed about such things as marketing, research and development, and long-term strategy, but they worked through these disagreements. They also disagreed about the way the company should operate and how decisions should be made. These disagreements, in the end, were their undoing.

Task Conflict

As the group goes about its work on shared tasks and activities, members sometimes disagree with one another. This type of conflict is termed task conflict, or content conflict or substantive conflict, because it stems from disagreements about issues that are relevant to the group’s goals and objectives. No group of people is so well coordinated that its members’ actions mesh perfectly, so conflicts over group tasks are inevitable. Groups and organizations use such conflicts to make plans, increase efficiency and creativity, solve problems, decide issues, and resolve misunderstandings. Periods of tension and disunity are so typical in groups that a “storming stage” or “fight-and-flight” stage is included in most theories of group development (see Chapter 5). Sculley and Jobs, as the leaders of Apple, were supposed to argue and debate over substantive issues having to do with making and selling computers (Jehn, 2014).

Process Conflict

Task conflict occurs when ideas, opinions, and interpretations clash. process conflict, or procedural conflict, occurs when strategies, policies, and methods clash. Group members may find themselves uncertain about how to resolve a problem, with some championing continued discussion and others favoring a vote. The leader of the group may make decisions and initiate actions without consulting the group; but the group may become irritated if denied an opportunity to participate in decision making. Members dislike the way roles have been allocated within the group, and they try to change their positions and responsibilities. Members who are assigned particular tasks do not do them or they do them very poorly. Members disagree about how they are supposed to be working together (Behfar et al., 2011).

The Benefits of Task and Process Conflict

Both task and process conflict have been implicated as causes of dissatisfaction and inefficiency in groups, but they do not necessarily lead to full-blown, table–pounding, harsh words shouted, and relationship rending conflict. When groups disagree about issues of substance and about process, as they often do, resolving these disagreements eliminates problems that may undermine their performance in the future. Group members must understand one another’s perspectives, and such understanding sometimes deepens when conflict has surfaced, been confronted, and been resolved. If groups never confront their differences and disagreements and resolve them, they may find that cohesiveness, and efficiency, always elude them (Bradley et al., 2015; Maltarich et al., 2016).

But both content and process conflict, if not skillfully managed by the group’s members, will destabilize the group and undermine its performance (De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). People who disagree with the group, even when their position is a reasonable one, often provoke considerable animosity. The dissenter who refuses to accept others’ views is liked less, assigned low-status tasks, and sometimes ostracized. As the group struggles to reach consensus on the substantive issues at hand, it responds negatively to those group members who slow down this process (Kruglanski & Webster, 1991). Researchers studied this process by planting a confederate in discussion groups. The confederate deliberately slowed down the group with such interruptions as “What do you mean?” “Do you think that’s important?” or “I don’t understand.” In some groups, the confederate had an excuse: He told the group that his hearing aid was not working that day. Other groups, in contrast, received no exculpating explanation. At the end of the session, members were asked to identify one person to exclude from the group. Everyone (100%) picked the disruptive confederate if there was no excuse for his actions (Burnstein & Worchel, 1962).

13-1e. Liking and Disliking: Relationship Conflict

When school psychologists studied children playing together during recess, they discovered this period of relatively unsupervised interaction was rife with conflict: arguments about a game’s rules, disputes about what is fair and what is not, and who gets to make decisions. But the most intense conflicts were personal. Children who disliked each other got into fights. Children who had irritating personal habits were routinely excluded by others. Children in one clique were mean to children in other cliques and to those who were excluded from all cliques. When children who said they had a rotten time at recess were asked why, in most cases they explained, “I had to play alone” and “Other kids would not let me join in” (Doll, Murphy, & Song, 2003).

Adults do not always play well together either. Relationship conflict, or personal conflict, is rooted in individuals’ antipathies for other group members. Personal likes and dislikes do not always translate into group conflict, but people often mention their disaffection for another group member when they air their complaints about their groups (Alicke et al., 1992). Morrill’s (1995) study of high-level corporate executives, for example, revealed both task and power conflicts, but more than 40% of their disputes were rooted in “individual enmity between the principals without specific reference to other issues.” Disputants questioned each other’s moral values, the way they treated their spouses, and their politics. They complained about the way their adversaries acted at meetings, the way they dressed at work and at social gatherings, their hobbies and recreational pursuits, and their personality traits. They just did not like each other very much (Morrill, 1995, p. 69).

Sources of Relationship Conflict

Just as any factor that creates a positive bond between people can increase a group’s cohesion, so any factor that creates disaffection can increase conflict. In many cases, people explain their conflicts by blaming the other person’s negative personal qualities, such as moodiness, compulsivity, incompetence, communication difficulties, and sloppiness. People usually dislike others who evaluate them negatively, so criticism—even when deserved—can generate conflict. Group members who treat others unfairly or are quarrelsome engender more conflict than those who behave politely (Albert & Moskowitz, 2014).

People who have agreeable personalities are usually better liked by others, and they also exert a calming influence on their groups. In a study of dyads that included people who were either high or low in agreeableness, dyads with two highly agreeable individuals displayed the least conflict, whereas dyads that contained two individuals with low agreeableness displayed the most (Graziano, Jensen-Campbell, & Hair, 1996). Agreeable people also responded more negatively to conflict overall. When people described their day-to-day activities and their daily moods, they reported feeling unhappy, tense, irritated, and anxious on days when they experienced conflicts—especially if they were by nature agreeable people (Suls, Martin, & David, 1998).

Conflict and Balance in Groups

Mature adults who do not like each other can usually manage to overlook their personal differences and work well with one another. Until, that is, they find themselves on different sides of a substantive issue. Once Sculley and Jobs’ personal liking for each other deteriorated, each time they discussed matters of substance their personal hostility spilled over into task and process conflict.

Sociologist Howard Taylor examined task and relationship conflict by arranging for male college students to discuss an issue with another student whom they liked or disliked. This student was Taylor’s confederate who he trained to deliberately agree or disagree on key issues. Taylor then watched the groups for evidence of conflict, including tension (nervousness, stammering, blushing, expressions of frustration, and withdrawal), tension release (giggling, joking, cheerfulness, and silliness), and antagonism (anger, hostility, taunting, and defensiveness).

Taylor, drawing on balance theory, predicted that conflicts between friends would elevate levels of tension, but that conflicts with enemies would generate more open hostility. As noted in Chapter 6, disagreeing with someone who is liked is an imbalanced state that will create psychological discomfort. Disagreeing with someone you dislike, in contrast, is cognitively “harmonious”—the elements of the situation all “fit together without stress” (Heider, 1958, p. 180). Such a situation may not cause psychological tension, but it will likely cause conflict, for it combines both task conflict with personal conflict.

Figure 13.3 partly summarizes the findings. As balance theory suggests, tension was highest in the unbalanced pairs—when disagreeing people liked each other or when people who disliked each other agreed. People did not like disagreeing with friends or agreeing with their foes. The greatest amount of antagonism, however, occurred when discussants both disagreed and disliked each other. So, the predictions of balance theory were only partially confirmed. The most harmonious groups were those whose members liked each other and found themselves in agreement. However, the least harmonious groups were balanced, but by negative rather than positive forces: Members disliked each other and they disagreed. Taylor (1970) concluded that such groups would likely not long endure outside the confines of the laboratory.

13-2. Confrontation and Escalation

Early in 1985, Sculley and Jobs began moving toward a showdown, pushed into conflict by their incompatibilities, their marked differences of opinion about the company, the competitive nature of their interdependence, and their refusal to take less than they felt was their due. They tried to quell the tension, but by spring, the men were trapped in an upward spiral of hostility.

Conflicts escalate. Although the parties to the conflict may hope to reach a solution to their dispute quickly, a host of psychological and interpersonal factors can frustrate their attempts to control the conflict. As Sculley continued to argue with Jobs, he became more committed to his own position, and his view of Jobs and his position became biased. Sculley used stronger influence tactics, and soon other members of Apple were drawn into the fray. All these factors fed the conflict, changing it from a disagreement to a full-fledged corporate war.

13-2a. Uncertainty → Commitment

As conflicts escalate, group members’ doubts and uncertainties are replaced by a firm commitment to their position. Sculley, for example, became more certain that his insights were correct, and his disagreement with Jobs only increased his commitment to them. When people try to persuade others, they search out supporting arguments. If this elaboration process yields further consistent information, they become even more committed to their initial position. People rationalize their choices once they have made them: They seek out information that supports their views, they reject information that conflicts with their stance, and they become entrenched in their original position. Moreover, people feel that once they commit to a position publicly, they must stick with it. They may realize that they are wrong, but to save face, they continue to argue against their opponents (Tavris & Aronson, 2007).

The dollar auction illustrates the impact of conflict on commitment. Members bid for $1, but one special rule is added. The highest bidder gets to keep the dollar bill, but the second highest bidder gets no money and must pay the amount he or she bid. Bids flow slowly at first, but soon the offers climb over 50 cents toward the $1 mark. As the stakes increase, however, quitting becomes costly. If a bidder who offers 50 cents for the $1 is bested by someone offering 60 cents, the 50-cent bidder will lose 50 cents. So he or she is tempted to beat the 60-cent bid. This cycle continues upward—well beyond the value of the dollar bill in some cases. On occasion, players have spent as much as $20 for the $1 (Teger, 1980).

Reactance can also cause a person to become overly committed to their position and resistant to compromise. When reactance occurs, individuals strive to reassert their sense of freedom by affirming their autonomy. In one study in which teammates had to make a choice between two alternatives marked 1-A and 1-B, 73% chose 1-A if their partner said, “I prefer 1-A,” but only 40% chose 1-A if the partner demanded, “I think we should both do 1-A” (Brehm & Sensenig, 1966). In another study, 83% of the group members refused to go along with a group participant who said, “I think it’s pretty obvious all of us are going to work on Task A” (Worchel & Brehm, 1971, p. 299).

13-2b. Perception → Misperception

Individuals’ reactions during conflict are shaped in fundamental ways by their perception of the situation and the people in that situation. Group members’ inferences about each other’s strengths, attitudes, values, and other personal qualities provide the basis for mutual understanding, but during conflict these perceptions tend to be so distorted that they inflame rather than smooth conflict (Thompson, Nadler, & Lount, 2006).

Misattribution

Sometimes group members settle on explanations that sustain and enhance members’ interpersonal relations. Jobs, in trying to explain Sculley’s actions, may have assumed Sculley was under pressure from the board, was unaccustomed to the demands of running a high-tech firm, or was dealing with the stress of his relocation. But frequently, people explain their conflicts in ways that make the problem worse. For example, Jobs would think that Sculley’s actions were caused by his personal qualities, such as incompetence, belligerence, argumentativeness, greed, or selfishness. Jobs might also believe that Sculley was deliberately trying to harm him and that Sculley therefore deserved to be blamed and punished (Fincham & Bradbury, 1992, 1993). In short, Jobs would fall prey to the fundamental attribution error (FAE) and assume that Sculley’s behavior was caused by personal (dispositional) rather than situational (environmental) factors (Ross, 1977). If the conflict continued, he may have eventually decided it was an intractable one. People expect intractable conflicts to be prolonged, intense, and very hard to resolve (Bar-Tal, 2007).

Misperceiving Motivations

When conflict occurs in a group, members begin to wonder about one another’s motivations. “Why,” Steve Jobs may have wondered, “is Sculley not supporting my work with the Mac? He must know how important this project is to the company, so why is he not giving it the attention it deserves?”

During conflict, members often become distrustful of one another. This loss of trust is one of the primary reasons why people, when they begin to compete with one another, have difficulty returning to a cooperative relationship. Researchers examined this process by pairing people playing a PDG-like game with partners who used one of four possible strategies described earlier: competition, cooperation, individualism, and altruism. When later asked to describe their partners’ motives, the players recognized when they were playing with an individualist or a competitor, but they had more trouble accurately perceiving cooperation and altruism (Maki, Thorngate, & McClintock, 1979).

People with competitive SVOs are the most inaccurate in their perceptions of cooperation. When cooperators play the PDG with other cooperators, their perceptions of their partner’s strategy are inaccurate only 6% of the time. When competitors play the PDG with cooperators, however, they misinterpret their partner’s strategy 47% of the time, mistakenly believing that the cooperators are competing (Kelley & Stahelski, 1970a, 1970b, 1970c; Sattler & Kerr, 1991). Competitors are also biased in their search for information, for they are more likely to seek out information that confirms their suspicions—”I am dealing with a competitive person”—rather than information that might indicate the others are attempting to cooperate (Van Kleef & De Dreu, 2002). Competitors also tend to deliberately misrepresent their intentions, sometimes claiming to be more cooperative than they actually are (Steinel & De Dreu, 2004).

13-2c. Soft Tactics → Hard Tactics

People can influence other people in dozens of different ways; they can promise, reward, threaten, punish, bully, discuss, instruct, negotiate, manipulate, supplicate, ingratiate, and so on. Some of these tactics are harsher than others. Threats, punishment, and bullying are all hard, contentious tactics because they are direct, nonrational, and unilateral. People use softer tactics at the outset of a conflict, but as the conflict escalates, they shift to stronger and stronger tactics. Sculley gradually shifted from relatively mild methods of influence (discussion, negotiation) to stronger tactics (threats). Eventually, he demoted Jobs (Lindsley, Brass, & Thomas, 1995).

But as Chapter 8’s analysis of power explained, harsh, coercive, and unilateral influence tactics often trigger reactance, negative emotions, and the use of hard tactics of influence in return. When members express their ideas as questions, soften their claims with tag phrases such as “Do you see what I mean?” or “What do you think?” and explicitly underscore their uncertainty, disagreements are less likely to turn into conflicts (Weingart et al., 2015). Stronger tactics may gain initial compliance, but people generally “fight fire with fire:” When John threatened Steve, Steve answered with threats of his own.

What Should You Say to Someone Who Refuses to Cooperate?

Social psychologist Dean Pruitt and his colleagues (1997) studied conflict by creating a simulated birthday card factory. They paid participants, who worked individually or in groups, for each card they made. The sessions went well until one person (or group, in the group condition) began acting selfishly by hoarding materials that the other members needed. The hoarder, as you might suspect, was part of the research team. As the hour wore on, it became clear that this person or group was going to make far more money than everyone else, and the real participants became more and more frustrated. If they couldn’t get the supplies they needed, they would never reach their goal.

The subjects, to coax the hoarder into sharing, began gently—with polite requests and statements, such as “May I use the glue?” or “We need the glue.” But when those methods failed, most shifted to demands and complaints. When those methods failed, they tried problem solving and appeals to a third party: nearly half complained to the experimenters, asking them to intervene. In the most extreme cases, they used threats, abuse, and anger to influence the irritating confederate: “Please may I use the glue” eventually became “Give me the glue, you pig, or else.”

Pruitt and his research team discovered that groups used harsher influence tactics than individuals, and that harsh tactics were coupled with more negative evaluations of the noncooperator(s). In fact, only groups used the more negative types of influence methods, such as verbal abuse and threats. Pruitt and his colleagues also found that the women in the study tended to use more threats than did the men, but the men were more likely to be the targets of stronger rather than weaker influence tactics (Mikolic, Parker, & Pruitt, 1997). These findings confirmed the advice of our grade school teachers: Play nice and share your toys.

The Trucking Game Experiment

People who use hard tactics often overwhelm their antagonists, and such methods intensify conflicts. Social psychologists Morton Deutsch and Robert Krauss (1960) examined this intensification process in their classic trucking game experiment. In their simulation pairs of women role-played the owners of two trucking companies, Acme and Bolt, carrying merchandise over the roads mapped in Figure 13.4. Acme and Bolt each earned 60 cents after each completed run, minus 1 cent for each second taken up by the trip.

The truck route set the stage for competition and conflict between Acme and Bolt. The shortest path from start to finish for Acme was Route 216 and for Bolt was Route 106, but these routes merged into a one-lane highway. When trucks encountered each other along this route, one player had to back up to her starting position to let the other through. Acme and Bolt could avoid this confrontation by taking the winding alternate route, but this path took longer.

All the pairs played the same basic game, but some were provided with the power to threaten their opponents and others were not. In the unilateral threat condition, Acme was told that a gate, which only she could open and close, was located at the fork in Route 216. When the gate was closed, neither truck could pass this point in the road, making control of the gate a considerable benefit to Acme. If Bolt attempted to use the main route, all Acme had to do was close the gate, forcing Bolt to back up and enabling Acme to reopen the gate and proceed quickly to her destination. Thus, when only Acme possessed the gate, Bolt’s profits were greatly threatened. In the bilateral threat condition, both sides had the use of gates located at the ends of the one-lane section of Route 216, and, in the control condition, no gates were given to the players.

Deutsch and Krauss’s control participants soon learned to resolve the conflict over the one-lane road. Most of these pairs took turns using the main route, and, on average, each participant made a $1 profit. Winnings dwindled, however, when one of the players was given a gate. Participants in the unilateral threat condition lost an average of $2.03. Bolt’s losses were twice as great as Acme’s, but even Acme lost more than $1 at the game. Conflict was even worse when both Acme and Bolt had gates. In the bilateral threat condition, both players usually took the longer route because the gates on the main route were kept closed, and their losses in this condition averaged $4.38.

Power and Conflict

These findings convinced Deutsch and Krauss that the capacity to threaten others intensifies conflict. They also noted that establishing a communication link between adversaries does not necessarily help them to solve their dispute (Krauss & Morsella, 2006). If one party can or does threaten the other party, the threatened party sometimes fares best if he or she cannot respond with a counterthreat. Equally powerful opponents often, but not always, learn to avoid the use of their power if the fear of retaliation is high (Coleman et al., 2013).

13-2d. Reciprocity → Retaliation

Conflict-ridden groups may seem normless with hostility and dissatisfaction spinning out of control. Yet upward conflict spirals are in many cases sustained by the norm of reciprocity. If one group member criticizes the ideas, opinions, or characteristics of another, the victim of the attack will feel justified in counterattacking unless some situational factor legitimizes the hostility of the former (Osgood, 2017).

If members comply exactly with the norm of reciprocity, a mild threat would elicit a mild threat in return, and an attack would lead to a counterattack. But most people apply the rule of rough reciprocity—they give too much (overmatching) or too little (undermatching) in return. Those who retaliate tend to overmatch: They feel that their response is a fair one, whereas the punished transgressor thinks the level of retaliation is excessive (Stillwell, Baumeister, & Del Priore, 2008).

Rough reciprocity causes conflicts to escalate. One researcher studied this process by arranging for women to play a PDG-like game, but modified it so they could send messages back and forth and penalize each other. When a woman received a note from her partner threatening her with a penalty, she sent back a threat in return. When one woman sent multiple threats, her partner did as well. This reciprocity, however, was rough rather than exact. At low levels of conflict, the participants’ threats were somewhat stronger, and the penalties they warned of were somewhat greater. At higher levels of conflict, most of the participants undermatched their partner’s threats. The overmatching that occurs initially may serve as a strong warning, whereas the undermatching at high levels of conflict may be used to send a conciliatory message (Youngs, 1986).

13-2e. Irritation → Anger

When disputes arise, tempers flare, and this increase in negative emotions exacerbates the initial conflict. Most people, when asked to talk about a time when they became angry, said that they usually lost their temper when arguing with people they knew rather than with strangers. They admitted that their anger increased the negativity of the conflict; 49% became verbally abusive when they were angry and 10% said they became physically aggressive (Averill, 1983). Participants in another study reported physically attacking someone or something, losing emotional control, or imagining violence against someone else when they were angry (Shaver et al., 1987). Even when group members began by discussing their points calmly and dispassionately, as they became locked into their positions, emotional expression begins to replace logical discussion (De Dreu et al., 2007). Individuals who endorse the principle of negative reciprocity—they agree with such statements as “If someone treats me badly, I feel I should treat them even worse”—tend to become angry when they feel they have been treated badly (Eisenberger et al., 2004, p. 791).

Emotions serve important functions in groups, and anger is no exception. Anger is a way to communicate one’s displeasure to others in the group and, in some contexts, is considered appropriate and justified. Anger can be an effective means of influencing others, for individuals who express anger during one meeting tend to be treated more circumspectly in the next, and their demands are more likely to be met. Anger, however, can trigger all manner of negative interpersonal behaviors, including the rejection of concessions, the tendering of unworkable initial offers, and the use of contentious influence strategies. When people express their anger, it redefines the situation, changing it from a cooperative one into one of conflict (Van Kleef, 2016). Others often interpret a display of anger as an expression of contempt, and expressing contempt for fellow group members is rarely a good thing (Fischer & Roseman, 2007). Anger is also a contagious emotion in groups. Group members, when interacting with someone who has become angry, tend to become angry themselves (van Kleef & Fischer, 2016). Even when people are physically separated from each other and interacting via the Internet, they still manage to communicate their displeasure to one another, and the result is often increased rather than decreased conflict.

How Do Group Members Yell at Each Other Online?

People use the Internet for all kinds of constructive purposes, such as accessing and exchanging information, discussing important issues, and strengthening interpersonal connections, but just because people are communicating at a distance does not mean that they will be immune from conflict. People in online groups can’t raise their voices, shake their fists, or stare each other down, but they can include profanities in their emails, type their posts in capital letters, and write insulting, degrading things in their messages (Turnage, 2007).

Online conflict is triggered by the same factors that cause conflict in offline groups: competitiveness, personality differences, concerns about fairness and distribution of workload and resources, struggles for power, disagreement over the group’s tasks and processes, and personal likes and dislikes. But the online context adds a few unique and influential elements to the conflict mix. Working online can lead to disinhibition, so people express sentiments and opinions that they would never say aloud in face-to-face conversations where they are inhibited by norms of civility or by self-control mechanisms. Online groups, too, allow members to express themselves immediately, so there is no opportunity for members to regain their composure after something or someone irritates them. In consequence, “members are prone to immediate articulation of negative emotions in response to a conflict” (Ayoko, Konrad, & Boyle, 2012, p. 169). The technology itself can also be a source of process conflict—a group sitting in a room conversing does not encounter the irksome technical problems that online groups often do.

The discourse of online groups, however, is regulated by social norms; individuals are not free to express themselves in ways that are openly contemptuous of others’ preferences or the group’s standards. In some Internet groups, a post that is hostile, rude, or contains profanity will generate a strong reproach from the community, warning the individual to refrain from such behaviors. Some groups, too, have established rules about how disputants should communicate. The contents of Wikipedia, for example, are created, reviewed, and revised by a community of volunteers, and the community’s norms, termed the five pillars, include “interact with each other in a respectful and civil manner” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Five_pillars). However, Wikipedians (as the editors of pages are called) do not always agree about either the content of a given entry (task conflict) or the way in which another editor went about making a change (process conflict). Wikipedia therefore offers an area for every entry where editors can discuss their issues and resolve their disputes in a “respectful and civil manner.” In many cases, however, the Wikipedians cannot meet this high standard, and an edit war breaks out. “An edit war occurs when editors who disagree about the content of a page repeatedly override each other’s contributions, rather than trying to resolve the disagreement by discussion” (http://en.wikipedia.org/). Even though the community spends considerable time editing its policies, when researchers examined the communication of editors working behind the scenes at Wikipedia, they found little evidence of the application of basic principles of civil discourse (Black et al., 2011). Even in the member-friendly world of Wikipedia, disagreements, disputes, and debates often escalated into conflict.

13-2f. Few → Many

During the Jobs versus Sculley conflict, Jobs tried to persuade each member of the board to side with him in the dispute. His goal was to form a powerful coalition that would block Sculley’s plans and swing the vote of the board in his favor.

Coalitions exist in most groups, but when conflict erupts, group members use coalitions to shift the balance of power in their favor. The initial disagreement may involve only two group members, but as conflicts intensify, previously neutral members often join with one faction. Similarly, even when members initially express many different views, with time, these multiparty conflicts are reduced to two-party blocs through coalition formation. Coalitions can even link rivals who decide to join forces temporarily to achieve a specific outcome (a mixed-motive situation). Although allies may wish to compete with one another, no single individual has enough power to succeed alone. Hence, while the coalition exists, the competitive motive must be stifled (Komorita & Parks, 1994).

Coalitions draw more members of the group into the fray. Coalitions are often viewed as contentious, heavy-handed influence tactics because individuals in the coalition work not only to ensure their own outcomes but also to worsen the outcomes of noncoalition members. Coalitions form with people and against other people. In business settings, for example, the dominant coalition can control the organization, yet it works outside the bounds of the formal group structure. Those who are excluded from a coalition react with hostility to the coalition members and seek to regain power by forming their own coalitions. Thus, coalitions must be constantly maintained through strategic bargaining and negotiation (Jehn et al., 2013).

13-3. Conflict Resolution

In one way or another, conflicts subside. Even when members are committed to their own viewpoints, high levels of tension cannot be maintained indefinitely. Disputants may regain control of their tempers and break the upward conflict spiral. The group may fissure, splitting into two or more subgroups whose members are more compatible. One member may leave the group, as was the result in the Jobs versus Sculley dispute. In time, group hostility abates.

13-3a. Commitment → Negotiation

Just as conflicts escalate when group members become firmly committed to a position and will not budge, conflicts de-escalate when group members are willing to negotiate with others to reach a solution that benefits all parties. Negotiation is a reciprocal communication process whereby two or more parties to a dispute examine specific issues, explain their positions, and exchange offers and counteroffers.

Distributive and Integrative Negotiations

Negotiation sometimes amounts to little more than simple bargaining or mutual compromise. In such distributive negotiation, both parties retain their competitive orientation and take turns making small concessions until some equally dissatisfying middle ground is reached. Haggling and bartering (“I’ll give you $20 for it, and not a penny more!”) illustrate this form of negotiation. Integrative negotiation, in contrast, is a collaborative conflict resolution method. Rather than trying to only maximize one’s own outcomes, integrative negotiators search for solutions that will benefit both sides. Bargainers need not be motivated by a concern for the other’s well-being, but they recognize that a solution that benefits everyone will be one that will likely be more readily adopted and implemented (Pruitt, 2012; Thompson, Wang, & Gunia, 2013).

Negotiation Styles

Individuals differ in their approach to negotiations. The Harvard Negotiation Project, for example, identified three basic types of negotiators—soft, hard, and principled (see Table 13.1). Soft bargainers see negotiation as too close to competition, so they choose a gentle style of negotiation. They make offers that are not in their best interests, they yield to others’ demands, they avoid any confrontation, and they maintain good relations with fellow negotiators. Hard bargainers, in contrast, use tough, competitive tactics during negotiations. They begin by taking an extreme position on the issue, and then they make small concessions only grudgingly. The hard bargainer uses contentious strategies of influence and says such things as “Take it or leave it,” “This is my final offer,” “This point is not open to negotiation,” “My hands are tied,” and “I’ll see you in court.”

Table 13.1 Comparisons between the Three Approaches to Negotiation

Element Soft Negotiation Hard Negotiation Principled Negotiation

Perception of others Friends Adversaries Problem solvers

Goals Agreement Victory A wise outcome reached efficiently and amicably

Concessions Make concessions to cultivate the relationship Demand concessions as a condition of the relationship Separate the people from the problem

People versus problems Be soft on the people and the problem Be hard on the problem and the people Be soft on the people, hard on the problem

Trust Trust others Distrust others Proceed independently of trust

Positions Change your position easily Dig into your position Focus on interests, not positions

Negotiation Make offers Make threats Explore interests

Bottom line Disclose your bottom line Mislead as to your bottom line Avoid having a bottom line

Losses and gains Accept one-sided losses to reach agreement Demand one-sided gains as a price of agreement Invent options for mutual gains

Search Search for a single answer—the one they will accept Search for a single answer—the one you will accept Develop multiple options to choose from; decide later

Criteria Insist on agreement Insist on your position Insist on using objective criteria

Contest of wills Avoid a contest of wills Win the contest of wills Reach a result based on standards, independent of wills

Pressure Yield to pressure Apply pressure Reason and be open to reason; yield to principle, not pressure

Principled negotiators, meanwhile, seek integrative solutions by sidestepping a commitment to specific positions. Instead of risking entrapment, principled negotiators focus on the problem rather than the intentions, motives, and needs of the people involved. Positional bargaining, they conclude, is too dangerous:

When negotiators bargain over positions, they tend to lock themselves into those positions. The more you clarify your position and defend it against attack, the more committed you become to it. The more you try to convince the other side of the impossibility of changing your opening position, the more difficult it becomes to do so. Your ego becomes identified with your position. (Fisher & Ury, 1981, p. 5)

The Harvard Negotiation Project recommends that negotiators explore a number of alternatives to the problems they face. During this phase, the negotiation is transformed into a group problem-solving session with the different parties working together in search of creative solutions and new information that the group can use to evaluate these alternatives. Principled negotiators base their choice on objective criteria rather than on power, pressure, self-interest, or an arbitrary decisional procedure. Such criteria can be drawn from moral standards, principles of fairness, objective indexes of market value, professional standards, tradition, and so on, but they should be recognized as fair by all parties (Kolb & Williams, 2003).

13-3b. Misperception → Understanding

Many conflicts are based on misperceptions. Group members often assume that others are competing with them, when in fact those other people only wish to cooperate. Members think that people who criticize their ideas are criticizing them personally. Members do not trust other people because they are convinced that others’ motives are selfish ones. Group members assume that they have incompatible goals when they do not (Simpson, 2007).

Group members must undo these perceptual misunderstandings by actively communicating information about their motives and goals through discussion. In one study, group members were given the opportunity to exchange information about their interests and goals, yet only about 20% did. Those who did, however, were more likely to discover shared goals and were able to reach solutions that benefited both parties to the conflict (Thompson, 1991). Other studies have suggested that conflict declines when group members communicate their intentions in specific terms, make explicit references to trust, cooperation, and fairness, and build a shared ingroup identity (Costa & Anderson, 2017).

Communication is no cure-all for conflict, however. Group members can exchange information by communicating, but they can also create gross misunderstandings and deceptions. Communication offers group members the means to establish trust and commitment, but it can also exacerbate conflict if members verbalize feelings of hatred, disgust, or annoyance. For example, when Deutsch and Krauss (1960) let participants in their trucking game experiment communicate with each other, messages typically emphasized threats and did little to reduce conflict (Deutsch, 1973). Communication is detrimental if these initial messages are inconsistent, hostile, and contentious (McClintock, Stech, & Keil, 1983). Communication can be beneficial, however, if interactants use it to create cooperative norms, if it increases trust among participants, and if it generates increased cohesion and unity in the group (Messick & Brewer, 1983).

What Is Your Preferred Conflict Style?

People respond to conflict in many different ways, but the dual-process model of conflict resolution styles suggests each one of us has a preferred way of dealing with the conflicts that overtake our groups.

Instructions: Select your preferred way of dealing with each one of these problems.

During a group meeting one of the other group members disagrees with many of the points you make. He speaks very critically of you and your ideas. You will

try to skip meetings he attends.

just go along with him, no sense in fighting over it.

plan out a strategy so that you can take advantage of his anger.

meet with him so that you can find a way to work together more effectively.

offer him something he wants in return for his cooperation.

After discussing the matter for several hours, the group decides on a course of action that you think is a mistake. You will

let the others do what they want and keep a low profile.

lend your support to the group’s decision, even though you don’t agree with it.

dig in and continue to argue until you can win them over.

try to identify new solutions that satisfy you and the others.

find a compromise between what you favor and what they favor.

During a meeting the group disagrees on an important issue, with one side arguing in favor of a proposal and one against it. You will

stop going to the meetings until the problem blows over.

urge the faction with fewer members to just go along with the others.

join the side that you agree with and try to help them overcome the other side.

work out a solution that benefits everyone.

act as the peacemaker who tries to make both sides happy.

If the group starts to argue over an issue, you will

keep quiet and don’t get involved.

go along with whatever the group decides.

argue your position; you don’t give up.

carefully discuss ideas and solutions.

keep everyone calm by finding a middle ground that everyone can accept.

Scoring. For each item, response A indicates avoiding, B is the yielding style, C is the fighting style, D is cooperation, and E is conciliatory. If you picked one letter more frequently than the others, then that is the style of conflict resolution you think you prefer.

13-3c. Hard Tactics → Cooperative Tactics

Group members cope with conflict in different ways. Some ignore the problem. Others discuss the problem, sometimes dispassionately and rationally, sometimes angrily and loudly. Still others push their solution onto others, no matter what the others may want. Some actually resort to physical violence (Sternberg & Dobson, 1987). Some of these tactics escalate conflicts, but others are reliably associated with reduced hostility.

Dual Concerns

As with social values orientations, variations in methods of dealing with conflict can be organized in terms of two essential themes: concern for self and concern for the other person. According to the dual concern model of conflict resolution, some strategies aim to maximize one’s own outcomes; others—such as overlooking a problem until it subsides—de-emphasize proself goals. Some conflict resolution strategies are also more other-focused. Yielding, for example, is prosocial, whereas contending and forcing are less prosocial (Thomas, 1992; Tjosvold, Wong, & Chen, 2014).

When both concern for self and concern for the other person are taken into account, the dual concern model identifies the five core conflict resolution modes shown in Figure 13.5.

Avoidance: Inaction is a passive means of dealing with disputes. Those who avoid conflicts adopt a “wait and see” attitude, hoping that problems will solve themselves. Avoiders often tolerate conflicts, allowing them to simmer without doing anything to minimize them. Rather than openly discussing disagreements, people who rely on avoidance change the subject, skip meetings, or even leave the group altogether. Sometimes, they simply agree to disagree (a modus vivendi).

Yielding: Accommodation is a passive but prosocial approach to conflict. People solve both large and small conflicts by giving in to the demands of others. Sometimes, they yield because they realize that their position is in error, so they agree with the viewpoint adopted by others. In other cases, however, they may withdraw their demands without really being convinced that the other side is correct, but—for the sake of group unity or in the interest of time—they withdraw all complaints. Thus, yielding can reflect either genuine conversion or superficial compliance.

Fighting: Contending is an active, proself means of dealing with conflict that involves forcing others to accept one’s view. Those who use this strategy tend to see conflict as a win–lose situation and so use competitive, powerful tactics to intimidate others. Fighting (forcing, dominating, or contending) can take many forms, including authoritative mandate, challenges, arguing, insults, accusations, complaining, vengeance, and even physical violence (Morrill, 1995). These conflict resolution methods are all contentious ones because they involve imposing one’s solution on the other party.

Cooperation: Cooperation is an active, prosocial, and proself approach to conflict resolution. Cooperating people identify the issues underlying the dispute and then work together to identify a solution that is satisfying to both sides. This orientation, which is also described as collaboration, problem-solving, or a win–win orientation, entreats both sides in the dispute to consider their opponent’s outcomes as well as their own.

Conciliation: Some theorists consider conciliation to be a fifth distinct way to resolve conflicts—a middle ground between yielding and fighting (Euwema & Van Emmerik, 2007). Conciliation, however, is often difficult to distinguish from the other modes of conflict resolution (van de Vliert & Euwema, 1994).

Cooperation and Conflict

When conflict erupts, group members can use any or all of the basic modes of conflict resolution shown in Figure 13.5, but most conflict management experts recommend cooperation above all others: “work things out,” “put your cards on the table,” and “air out differences,” they suggest. This advice assumes that avoidance, fighting, and yielding are only temporary solutions, for they quell conflicts at the surface without considering the source. Avoiding and fighting are generally considered to be negative methods, for they tend to intensify conflicts, and they are viewed as disagreeable. The more positive, prosocial methods, yielding and cooperation, mitigate conflict and are viewed as more agreeable. They are more likely to involve more of the members in the solution, and hence they tend to increase unity (Tjosvold et al., 2014).

Groups may respond well to cooperation when it is used to deal with task conflicts, but what if the problems stem from personal conflicts—differences in personalities, values, lifestyles, likes, and dislikes? Research conducted by organizational psychologists Carsten De Dreu, Laurie Weingart, and their colleagues suggests that, in such cases, collaborative approaches may aggravate the group conflict more than they mollify it (see De Dreu, 2010; De Dreu & Van Vianen, 2001; De Dreu & Weingart, 2003). In one field study, members of semiautonomous teams working on complex, nonroutine tasks were asked about the ways they handled conflicts in their teams. All these teams included both men and women, and they ranged in size from 4 to 13 members. Members of these teams typically interacted with each other in face-to-face settings at least once a week in planning sessions, and they reported interacting with each other informally nearly every day. As expected, negative methods of dealing with conflicts, such as arguing and forcing one’s views onto others, were associated with negative team functioning. In these groups, however, collaborative methods of conflict resolution (e.g., “discussing the issues,” “cooperating to better understand others’ views,” and “settling problems through give and take”) were also negatively correlated with team functioning. Only passive responses, such as “avoiding the issues,” “acting as if nothing has happened,” and “hushing up the quarrel,” were associated with increases in group adjustment to the conflict. Apparently, the consistent use of collaboration to deal with intractable differences or petty disagreements distracted the groups from the achievement of their task-related goals (De Dreu & Van Vianen, 2001).

These findings suggest that groups may wish to heed the advice of one member of a successful musical quartet who, when asked how his group managed conflicts, explained, “We have a little saying in quartets—either we play or we fight” (Murnighan & Conlon, 1991, pp. 177–178). Cooperative, prosocial solutions work in many cases, but sometimes groups must ignore the conflict and focus, instead, on the work to be done.

13-3d. Retaliation → Forgiveness

Consistent cooperation among people over a long period generally increases mutual trust. But when group members continually compete with each other, mutual trust becomes much more elusive. When people cannot trust one another, they compete simply to defend their own best interests (Peterson & Ferguson, 2014).

Reversing the Conflict Spiral

How can the upward spiral of competition and distrust, once initiated, be reversed? Political scientist Robert Axelrod (1984) explored this question by comparing a number of strategies in simulated competitions. After studying dozens of different strategies, ranging from always competing with a competitor to always cooperating with one, the most effective competition reverser to emerge was a strategy called tit for tat (TFT, or “this for that”). TFT begins with cooperation. If the other party cooperates, too, then cooperation continues. But if the other party competes, then TFT competes as well. Each action by the other person is countered with the matching response—cooperation for cooperation, competition for competition.

The TFT stratagem is said to be nice, provocable, clear, and forgiving. It is nice because it begins with cooperation and only defects following competition. It is provocable in the sense that it immediately retaliates against individuals who compete. It is clear because people playing against someone using this strategy quickly recognize its contingencies. It is forgiving because it immediately reciprocates cooperation should the competitor respond cooperatively.

TFT is also a reciprocal strategy, for it fights fire with fire and rewards kindness in kind. Individuals who follow a tit-for-tat strategy are viewed as “tough but fair”; those who cooperate with a competitor are viewed as weak, and those who consistently compete are considered unfair (McGillicuddy, Pruitt, & Syna, 1984). Because the effectiveness of TFT as a conflict reduction method is based on its provocability, any delay in responding to competition reduces the effectiveness of TFT. If a group member competes and this defection is not countered quickly with competition, TFT is less effective. TFT also loses some of its strength in “noisy” interactions, when behaviors cannot be clearly classified as either competitive or cooperative. It is less effective in larger groups, although this decline is minimized if individual members believe that a substantial subgroup within the total group is basing its choices on the TFT strategy (Kerr, 2013; Komorita & Parks, 1994; Parks, 2015).

Forgiveness

Greek scholars used the word aphiemi, or forgiveness, to describe letting go or voluntarily setting aside an obligation to punish. Viewed from an evolutionary perspective, forgiveness undoes the damaging effects of conflict by reversing the upward spiraling cycle of repeated retaliation following real or perceived injury. Retaliation requires one party to impose sanctions on another, but revenge is risky: It can destroy the social relationship between the wrongdoer and the retaliator and can also provoke counter-retaliatory actions. Forgiveness, in contrast, reduces the likelihood of vengeful behavior and also strengthens the positive relational bonds in the group (McCullough, Kurzban, & Tabak, 2011). Forgiveness may increase both the forgiver’s and the forgiven’s sense of connectedness to the group (Burnette et al., 2012).

13-3e. Anger → Composure

Just as negative emotions encourage conflicts, positive affective responses increase concession making, creative problem solving, cooperation, and the use of noncontentious bargaining strategies (Forgas, 1998). Hence, when tempers flare, the group should encourage members to regain control over their emotions. “Count to ten,” calling a “timeout,” or expressing concerns in a written, carefully edited, letter or email are simple but effective recommendations for controlling conflict, as is the introduction of humor into the group discussion (Mischel, DeSmet, & Kross, 2006). Apologies, too, are effective means of reducing anger. When people are informed about mitigating causes—background factors that indicate that the insult is unintentional or unimportant—conflict is reduced (Betancourt & Blair, 1992). Groups can also control anger by developing norms that explicitly or implicitly prohibit shows of strong, negative emotion or by holding meetings on controversial topics online (Yang & Mossholder, 2004).

13-3f. Many → Few

Conflicts intensify when others take sides, but they shrink when third-party mediator help group members reach a mutually agreeable solution to their dispute (Moore, 2014). Although uninvolved group members may wish to stand back and let the disputants “battle it out,” impasses, unflagging conflict escalation, or the combatants’ entreaties may cause other group members or outside parties to help by the following:

Creating opportunities for both sides to express themselves while controlling contentiousness.

Improving communication between the disputants by summarizing points, asking for clarification, and so on.

Helping disputants save face by framing the acceptance of concessions in positive ways and by taking the blame for these concessions.

Formulating and offering proposals for alternative solutions that both parties find acceptable.

Manipulating aspects of the meeting, including its location, seating, formality of communication, time constraints, attendees, and agenda.

Guiding the disputants through a process of integrative problem-solving.

However, if the disputants want to resolve the conflict on their own terms, third-party interventions are considered an unwanted intrusion (Carnevale, 2008).

Go-betweens, facilitators, diplomats, advisers, judges, and other kinds of mediators vary considerably in terms of their power to control others’ outcomes (LaTour, 1978; LaTour et al., 1976). In an inquisitorial procedure, the mediator questions the two parties and then hands down a verdict that the two parties must accept. In arbitration, the disputants present their arguments to the mediator, who then bases his or her decision on the information they provide. In a moot, the disputants and the mediator openly and informally discuss problems and solutions, but the mediator can make no binding decisions. Satisfaction with a mediator depends on how well the intermediary fulfills these functions and also on the intensity of the conflict. Mediational techniques, such as arbitration, are effective when the conflict is subdued, but they may not work when conflict intensity is high. Overall, most people prefer arbitration, followed by moot, mediation, and inquisitorial procedures (LaTour et al., 1976; Shestowsky, 2004).

Is Cooperation Universally Valued?

No two cultures deal with conflict in exactly the same way. In some societies, rather than letting disagreements threaten the quality and stability of relationships, people maneuver around their disagreements to stop them from escalating into full-fledged disputes. In other cultures, in contrast, conflict is considered more of a test between competitors and is framed as a win–lose situation. Many Western societies, for example, openly value competition (Gibson & McDaniel, 2010).

The differences across societies are linked to variations in cultural values pertaining to individualism/collectivism and power hierarchy. For example, in China, a collectivistic culture, members are more likely to adopt harmony-enhancing strategies that minimize conflict, including following the rules that will yield a fair resolution to the disagreement. In a more individualistic country, such as America, a more direct, confrontational approach may be preferred (Gelfand, Leslie, & Keller, 2008).

Most of the world’s peoples, however, recognize the value of one particular conflict resolution method: cooperation. This approach satisfies both individuals who are seeking their own best outcomes, but also those who are concerned with the overall well-being of the group (Cai & Fink, 2002). But in individualistic cultures, conflict is generally viewed as something that should be confronted directly: A person should “directly express what you believe,” “verbally defend your views,” and “get straight to the point” (Hammer, 2005, p. 685). In more collectivistic cultures, in contrast, people prefer to handle conflict indirectly, with more subtlety: A person should “offer indirect suggestions,” “express complaints indirectly,” and “talk around disagreements” when possible (Hammer, 2005, p. 685). Individuals in these cultures prefer avoidance, but avoidance does not indicate a low concern for others’ outcomes as the dual-process model suggests. In collectivistic countries, avoidance is a more active strategy; a positively valued means of dealing with conflict that sustains, rather than threatens, the group.

These findings offer a warning to people who work in multicultural groups. Even though well-meaning group members may hope to quell a conflict with a deft intervention, they may only make matters worse by using a method that is considered contentious in other cultures (Brew et al., 2011). The collectivist who seeks to deflect the group’s attention away from the conflict may irritate the individualist who wants to solve the problem, not dodge it. Conversely, the individualist, believing that the conflict can be cleared up if people just speak their minds, pushes everyone to deal with the issues in open discussion. The collectivists in the group will wonder why anyone who seems so intelligent in other ways would use such a clumsy method of dealing with conflict. The culturally competent group will, instead, use a variety of methods to deal with conflict, shifting from one approach to the other depending on the strength of the relations among members, the level of harm the conflict can cause, and the extent to which others in the group have expressed a public commitment to their position.

13-3g. The Value of Conflict: Redux

Did Apple gain from the Jobs versus Sculley conflict, or did it suffer a setback as its top executives fought for power and control? The group resolved the dispute, but not without a considerable investment of time, resources, and energy. Two men who were once friends parted as enemies. A company that once profited from the leadership of two visionary thinkers lost one of them to a competitor.

Is conflict always harmful—a pernicious process that should be avoided? When Carsten De Dreu and Laurie Weingart (2003) conducted a meta-analysis of dozens of studies of conflict in groups, they discovered that, in study after study, conflict undermined satisfaction and lowered performance. Subsequent work confirmed their findings, but also identified factors that moderate the strength of the conflict–performance relationship. Organizational behavior researcher Karen Jehn and her colleagues, for example, suggest that some groups—such as top-level management teams and strategy groups—may even perform more effectively in the long run if they have experienced a modicum of task conflict. So long as task conflict is not too high in intensity, prolonged, and the catalyst for other forms of conflict, then its negative effects are restrained (de Wit, Greer, & Jehn, 2012; Jehn, 2014).

So maybe the problem is not conflict, but mismanaged conflict. As noted in Chapter 5, many groups pass through a period of conflict as they mature. This conflict phase, so long as it is managed well, expands the range of options, generates new alternatives, and enhances the group’s unity by making explicit any latent hostilities and tensions. Conflict can make a group’s goals more explicit and help members understand their role in the group. It may force the members to examine, more carefully, their assumptions and expectations and may help the group focus on its strengths and diagnose its weaknesses. A group without conflict may be working so perfectly that no one can identify any improvements, but more likely it is a group that is boring and uninvolving for its members. Conflict, then, is not the culprit. It is poor management of the conflicts that inevitably arise in groups that leads to problems (DeChurch, Mesmer-Magnus, & Doty, 2013; Jehn, 1997, 2014).

Organizational and business administration researcher Kristin Behfar and her colleagues (2008) examined the consequences of poorly managed conflict in their detailed quantitative analysis of 57 autonomous work teams. These groups all worked with the same resources, on the same types of projects, and with the same time constraints. Over time, some of the groups became more capable in the task realm, but others did not. Some, too, enjoyed increasingly positive relations among members, whereas others exhibited declines in the quality of their cohesion.

Behfar’s group discovered that these changes in task success and interpersonal bonds were related to the group’s methods of dealing with conflict. All of the groups experienced conflicts as their work progressed, but they dealt with these problems in different ways. The 21 best teams proactively forecasted possible problems before they happened. They developed schedules and assigned responsibilities carefully, in unemotional, fact-driven discussions, to reach consensus. They did not report dealing with relationship conflict, because they did not have any. A second set of 11 high-performance groups had little cohesiveness, but these groups all expressly discussed their lukewarm interpersonal relations and dismissed the importance of social connections. These groups resolved task and process conflicts by voting. The 14 worst teams, who exhibited both declining performance and interpersonal dysfunction, also used discussion, but the discussion never resolved their problems. These groups reported trying to deal with their problems openly, but members would just give in to more dominant members because they grew tired of arguing. They dealt with their performance problems by rotating duties from one member to another, but they never analyzed the effectiveness of this technique.

These findings suggest that the impact of conflict on a group cannot be predicted until the group’s capacity for managing its conflict is known. Groups that take proactive steps to prevent conflict from arising in the first place tend to be more satisfying to members than those that only respond—and respond poorly at that—to conflicts when they arise. Successful groups also tended to adopt pluralistic strategies for dealing with conflict, rather than particularistic ones. They resolved conflicts using methods that applied to the group as a whole, such as developing rules, standardizing procedures, and assigning tasks to members based on skill and expertise rather than status. Less successful groups, in contrast, used strategies that focused on specific individual complaints or the group’s concerns about one or two members. In these groups, the “squeaky wheel would get the grease,” but the repair was not sufficient to restore the group to health.

Resources

Chapter Case: Jobs versus Sculley

Apple Confidential 2.0: The Definitive History of the World’s Most Colorful Company by Owen W. Linzmayer (2004) provides a well-researched history of the many conflict-laden episodes in the life of Apple, Inc.

Causes of Conflict

“A History of Social Conflict and Negotiation Research” by Dean G. Pruitt (2012) reviews the history of conflict studies from the perspective of a leading theorist and researcher in the field.

The Handbook of Conflict Resolution: Theory and Practice, edited by Morton Deutsch, Peter T. Coleman, and Eric C. Marcus (2006), is the definitive sourcebook for general analyses of conflict’s causes as well as empirically based recommendations for resolving conflicts.

The Handbook of Conflict Management Research, edited by Oluremi B. Ayoko, Neal M. Ashkanasy, and Karen A. Jehn (2014), provides a broad overview of all major topics related to conflict in groups, including negotiation, conflict in teams, and culture’s effects on conflict processes.

“Collaboration and Conflict in Work Teams” by Eduardo Salas, Maritza R. Salazar, Jennifer Feitosa, and William S. Kramer (2014) examines definitions and forms of collaboration and conflict in groups before examining the organizational climate, practices, and procedures that help group members manage conflicts and promote collaboration.

Conflict Resolution

Getting to YES: Negotiating Agreement without Giving In (2nd ed.) by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton (1991) describes a step-by-step strategy for resolving conflicts to the mutual benefit of both parties.

Conflict Management in Organizations, edited by William K. Roche, Paul Teague, and Alexander J. S. Colvin (2014) offers practical advice for dealing with conflict in groups and organizations through mediation, negotiation, and other forms of dispute resolution; the final section includes recommendations for dealing with conflicts in international contexts.

Friend and Foe: When to Cooperate, When to Compete, and How to Succeed at Both by Adam Galinsky and Maurice Schweitzer (2015) searches for the social psychological foundations of conflict and suggests ways to balance cooperation with competition to achieve positive outcomes for all parties.

Making Conflict Work: Harnessing the Power of Disagreement by Peter T. Coleman and Robert Ferguson (2014) draws on case studies, empirical studies, and the authors’ unique practical expertise to offer clear advice on ways to work through conflicts successfully.