Introduction Social conflict often makes our experience
Now it was, after the passing of days
that Cain brought, from the fruit of the soil, a gift to God and as
for Abel, he too brought—from the firstborn of his flock, from
their fat parts.
God had regard for Abel and his gift, for
Cain and his gift he had no regard.
Cain became exceedingly upset and his face fell.
God said to Cain:
Why are you so upset? Why has your face fallen? Is
it not thus:
If you intend good, raise it up! But if you do not
intend good, at the entrance is sin, a crouching
demon toward you his lust—but you can rule
over him.
Cain said to Abel his brother, come, let us go out into the field
but then it was, when they were out in the field that Cain rose
up against Abel his brother and he killed him.
Genesis 4: 3-8 (Everett Fox, trans., 1997)
Social conflict often makes our experience of the everyday social world
unpredictable and complex. This unpredictability and complexity seems inevitable and
far from reassuring. Self-help books become best sellers by promising to aid readers in
navigating inevitable conflicts and much like predecessors in ancient texts—such as
Genesis’ account of Cain and Abel—these texts provide accounts of conflict, moral
lessons, and relationship advice (e.g., Elgin, 1980; Rosen, 1998). These texts also
explain how to manage conflict, addressing the dynamics of personal and public
relationships encountered in everyday social environments (e.g., Greene, 1998; Jandt &
Gillette, 1985).
Historical memory, likewise, is populated with famous figures and protagonists
of fiction who exemplify shrewdness, wisdom and clarity in conflict. History lauds
those who are skilled in conflict—one reason, Prime Minister Churchill famously
quipped, is that “history is written by the victors.” In war, historical memory valorizes
leaders who succeed and makes unseen or notorious those who fail. American
economic history also has its heroes, the industrialist ethos producing admirable and
daunting characters in Carnegie, Rockefeller and Vanderbilt. Conflict tests mettle and
resilience; those who prevail draw generations of interest.
Professional attention to social conflict is as extensive as that found in popular
literature and historical memory. A review article from 1977 documented over 1,000
studies published on experimental conflict simulation between 1950 and 1976 (Pruitt &
Kimmel, 1977). Conflict simulation (e.g., experimental gaming) remains a popular
approach to research on social conflict. Nevertheless, it represents a minor aspect of the
field when considering the literatures of sociology, jurisprudence, political science,
ethics, economics, mathematics, anthropology, business, medicine and psychology. In
fact, a literature search conducted in 2005 for studies related to social conflict yielded
over 12,000 hits in the PSYCHINFO and ISI Social Science Citation Index databases,
spanning a century of publications.
The Present Investigation
Absent in the literature is an investigation of the phenomenology of social
conflict. One reason for this is the topic’s extraordinary breadth. A viable solution
emerges, however, when considering the social constructivist contention that knowledge
of the social world comes directly from experiences of face-to-face interaction in
everyday life (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). A comparable claim from the conflict
literature suggests that dyadic (two-person) conflict is the simplest, commonest and most
experientially salient form of social conflict (e.g., Simmel, 1908/1955; Smith, 1987). If
face-to-face encounters ground everyday social experience, perhaps a basis for
understanding social conflict is to be found in the meaning of conflicts we experience
with others who are, or were, directly present to us.
Conflicts take place within an individual or between an individual and his or her
environment. They also take place between individuals, within or between groups, and
within or between nations, religions, cultures, ethnicities, and so on (Cheldelin,
Druckman, & Fast, 2003). Understanding the human meaning of face-to-face conflict
may open us to exploring the more general meaning of social conflict as it emerges in
our experience, thought and discourse about it. While each form of conflict necessitates
a different analysis of causes, processes and consequences (Fink, 1968), the face-to-face
situation seems to crosscut these various forms and exhibits an underlying structure that
derives from direct human experience and that may inform our understanding of other
forms of social conflict. The present investigation utilizes a phenomenological method
to address the meaning of the human experience of face-to-face conflict, a phenomenon
that seems prototypic for what becomes the reflected understanding of social conflict.
Phenomenological Methods Applied to Face-to-Face Conflict
Phenomenological methods in the social sciences focus on describing the
structure of meanings that emerge in everyday life experiences. The data are linguistic,
rather than numeric, and are collected in an open-ended dialogue between participant
and investigator. Phenomenological methods seek meaningful consistencies among
different experiential accounts of a phenomenon (Ihde, 1986). Quantitative approaches
to social conflict have primarily understood the phenomenon in terms of objectively
measurable characteristics. This investigation, however, seeks to elaborate consistent
patterns of meaning that crosscut otherwise diverse accounts of face-to-face conflict.
Many approaches to social conflict often conceptualize factors of interest—such
as decision-making, stereotyping, conflict-handling styles, agreeableness, etc.—in terms
of cause-effect relationships that are addressed using inferential methods, such as
hypothesis testing (Cheldelin, Druckman, & Fast, 2003). Causal relationships are
established when experimental manipulations have a measurable effect on some
dependent variable (Druckman, 2005). Phenomenological research has no independent
or dependent variables, no experimental methodology (in the positivist sense) and thus is
not a proper procedure for establishing causal relationships.
Existentialphenomenological methods focus instead on the human meaning of a
phenomenon as it is communicated in participant descriptions of everyday life
experiences (Pollio, Graves, & Arfken, 2005). The outcome of this investigation will
help define the thematic structure of meanings that emerge for individuals in life
situations of conflict.
This investigation is located within the constructivist tradition of social
psychology. This perspective suggests that conflict is prototypically situated in face-
toface interaction. It is an interaction—or dialogue—integrally shaped by its historical,
cultural and institutional contexts (McNamee & Gergen, 1999). Language is a
significant mode by which culture and history shape human social experience (Whorf,
1956) and it is important then for the results of this investigation to be presented in the
idiom participants have used to describe their experience. In using idiomatic language,
the investigator maintains a stance toward the social reality of the phenomenon in as
close a way as possible while retaining the methodological rigor necessary for a proper
empirical investigation (Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997). In accord with this
tradition, the investigator defines a situated perspective and an additional voice within
this investigation, as both an interpreter and co-constructor of meaning in dialogue with
participants and their accounts.
Data Collection and Analysis
Eleven participants described life experiences of ‘conflict between themselves
and another person.’ These descriptions were produced in an open-ended, dialogical
situation. Participants were interviewed until they felt that their account had fully
addressed the central aspects of their experience as they lived it. Some interviews were
as brief as 30 minutes (covering a single situation of conflict) and others as long as 3.5
hours (covering multiple situations). The typical interview lasted between 1 and 1.5
hours and covered approximately five situations.
In the process of data collection, participants were interviewed until the
investigator began to notice central sets of themes were repeating across diverse
accounts. While no statistical test allows for estimation of sample size for a
phenomenological investigation, the typical practice is that additional interviews are
conducted until themes begin to repeat and no new themes emerge. At this point, the
corpus of interviews is understood to have reached thematic saturation (Pollio, Graves,
& Arfken, 2005). The corpus of accounts seemed to reach thematic saturation at nine
interviews. Two additional interviews were conducted to verify saturation. The present
analysis is based on approximately 17 hours of face-to-face dialogue with participants.
These interviews often were extensive, as participants were encouraged to provide as
much detail as necessary to feel that the account they had given did justice to their lived
experiences of conflict.
Before conducting interviews with participants, I engaged in a bracketing
interview. In a phenomenological approach, participating in a bracketing interview
allows an investigator to become aware of the personal meanings being brought to the
interviewing situation and thereby allows for greater openness to the similarities and
differences in meanings that emerge in dialogue with participants (Van Manen, 1990).
This interview was conducted by an individual who has had graduate-level training and
practice in this method of interviewing. This interview elicited the prejudgments and
biases I brought to the situation of the interviews and later hermeneutic analysis of the
resulting corpus.
A single statement opened the interviews: “Please describe a situation (or
situations) in which you experienced a conflict between yourself and another person.”
This statement was intended to focus participants on face-to-face situations in which
they were directly a party to a conflict rather than a bystander or witness to a conflict, as
is possible with the statement: “…describe a situation (or situations) in which you
experienced conflict with another person.” Utilizing the phenomenological interviewing
protocol described in Pollio, Graves, and Arfken (2005), follow-up questions were asked
only to clarify meanings or to ask for in-depth description of points already addressed by
the participant. Interviews were recorded using a SONY ICD-SX25 digital recorder and
transcribed using proprietary software designed for use with this recorder.
The investigator and an interpretive group at the University of Tennessee Center
for Applied Phenomenological Research (CAPR) carefully read and interpreted four
interview transcripts, including the investigator’s bracketing interview transcript. In the
group readings, the investigator and the interpretive group derived a set of themes for
each account. The investigator then developed a general set of themes by interpreting
across the remaining accounts. This set of general themes was presented to members of
the Phenomenological Research Group at the University of Tennessee Nursing College
— an interpretive group unfamiliar with the work done by the group at CAPR.
Additional input was sought from this group about the reasonableness of the thematic
structure developed from CAPR’s and of my own interpretive work.
Concluding Remarks
From the present perspective, face-to-face social conflict is a dialogical event that
has the potential to shape, alter and reframe an individual’s basic understandings of self,
other and world. The predominant understanding of social conflict in the social sciences
usually assumes that human beings are rational, utilitarian and independent social agents.
Conflict processes are viewed as emerging in exchange relations between rational actors
who perceive, evaluate, decide and act with the intention of maximizing personal gain
(benefits) and minimizing personal loss (costs). Many techniques have been developed
to research conflict processes and often these employ the rational-actor assumption.
This assumption is powerful for developing abstract mathematical models of conflict
dynamics; however, by maintaining the very assumptions that make it so elegant and
compelling, one may lose the experienced human meanings of the phenomenon.
Two general objectives motivate this investigation: one is a pure concern, the
other, applied. First, phenomenological methods have not been applied to address the
human meaning of face-to-face social conflict and this has resulted in a gap in the social
scientific understanding of conflict. By addressing face-to-face conflict in this way, the
results of this investigation may serve as an additional criterion with which to assess the
validity of various theoretical conceptualizations of social conflict as well as of various
experimental analogs and operational definitions of the phenomenon.
Another potential theoretical benefit of this research is that psychologists and
other social science researchers may utilize its findings to complete the empirical chain
of scientific reasoning about social conflict from direct experience, to description, to
theorizing, to hypothesis testing, to assessing the results of experimentation in light of
further direct observation. As Pollio, Graves, and Arfken (2005) observe: ‘the scientific
method begins in experience and ends in interpretation,’ and the phenomenological
method is a systematic and rigorous approach for addressing human experience and its
meaning.
A second significant concern for this investigation is an applied one: in
developing a description of the structure of meanings that emerge in situations of
conflict, professional conflict analysts and other specialists in conflict mediation and
arbitration will come to possess a template with which to compare and understand the
experiences of the conflicting parties with whom they are now working. This template
—in the form of a thematic structure—may serve to further nuance professional
understandings of conflict causes, processes and consequences by adding a dimension of
understanding in terms of the experiential meanings of social conflict and the
fundamentally nonrational process of conflict dialogue.
A phenomenological approach encourages a suspension of any assumptions of
rationality in the prereflective experience of conflict and allows us to describe the
emergence of rational (e.g., reflected) understanding that takes place within conflict
when it is conceived of as in an ongoing dialogical relation. The conflict experience is
both a dialogical process and a configuration of meanings of which rationality and
irrationality are aspects. What I hope to achieve is to make comprehensible the
phenomenology of conflict activities and meanings by providing a depth understanding
of the prereflective meaning of conflict as it relates to reflected, after-the-fact,
understandings of such conflicts.
The phenomenological approach, with its focus on the lived meaning of human
social experience, has the advantage of not assuming a utilitarian basis for individual
choices and actions. Further, it does not assume a particular moral stance toward
conflict phenomena nor towards the outcomes of conflict. Here, I attempt to assume a
position of neutrality with respect to my own and the participants’ experiences of
conflict. This neutrality should not be taken as a lack of empathy for the significance of
the life events that participants have revealed to me in good faith; it is an indication of
the necessary rigor for proper phenomenological investigation.
A phenomenological approach also allows for a focus on the culturally particular
meanings that emerge in how participants come to make sense of and describe their
conflict experiences (Thompson, Locander, & Pollio, 1994). It is significant to note that
one finds across cultures many different interaction rituals, role relationships (cf.
Goffman, 1967) and practices for specifying the relevant causes of, and strategies for
managing, social deviance and conflict (cf. Herdt & Stoller, 1990). A body of literature
has developed in social psychology, cultural psychology and psychological anthropology
concerning the similarities and differences in conflict handling, power dynamics, and
other conflict-relevant phenomena in cross-cultural contexts (Oetzel & Ting-Toomey,
2003). The results of this investigation may contribute to this literature if viewed as
describing face-to-face conflicts that have taken place largely within the context of a
culture that tends to be highly individualistic. This tendency may instigate, perpetuate,
and intensify conflicts between persons viewed as independent social agents (McNamee
& Gergen, 1999).
Individualistic biases may also permeate the accounts and interpretations that
serve as the basis of this investigation. In Chapter III, however, I argue that face-to-face
conflict is a basic interpersonal process that allows individuals within a social system to
develop a meaningful social world out of problems that emerge from the shared
existential situation of being-together in human life. This basic existential situation may
be understood to be present across social/cultural worlds (Shweder, 1991). As
Sedikides, Gaertner, and Toguchi (2003) argue, even in cultures that can be broadly
classified as collectivistic, a member may seek to differentiate his or her self from the
group identity (i.e., to engage in “tactical self-enhancement”); he or she tends to do so,
however, along dimensions valued to the group, e.g., ‘I am a better team player than the
others.’ The basic existential situation of negotiating a relationship between self and
other is one that transcends culture; how this problem is resolved, however, is
fundamentally cultural as it emerges in different practices and with respect to embedded
meanings associated with those practices. It seems that no type of social organization is
free of conflict, but the particular issues around which conflict emerges, and is
conceptualized and handled, vary with considerable margin.
The phenomenological meaning of face-to-face conflict is significant in itself and
in that it seems to be an aspect of social conflicts taking place between groups and
nations as well as of psychological conflicts within an individual or between an
individual and his or her environment. The phenomenological approach leads one to
consider carefully the human meaning of social conflict as it emerges in everyday life
contexts. I assume that persons in conflict are neither rational nor irrational but that they
are co-constructors and negotiators of meaning (rationality and irrationality being
aspects of that meaning) and that the possibility for that meaning has (within our cultural
world) a particular phenomenological pattern that is coherent and knowable to social
science.
As the interpretive anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973) has maintained,
Man is an animal suspended in webs of significance he himself has spun, I take culture
to be those webs, and the analysis of it to be therefore not an experimental science in
search of law but an interpretive one in search of meaning (pg. 5).
Face-to-face conflict is perhaps one way in which these webs of significance are spun
and as such, it is a phenomenon of great social and scientific import.
CHAPTER II REVIEW OF LITERATURE ON SOCIAL CONFLICT
Face-to-face situations are the experiential basis of the social world (Berger &
Luckmann, 1966). Across social, historical and linguistic traditions, face is an
everpresent metaphor. The Fourth-century Chinese, for instance, captured the
connotations in two words used to describe face: Lien, meaning ‘moral character,’ and
Mien-tzu, meaning ‘reputation’ (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001). A face is also a
concrete object of social experience. To be face-to-face is to be in another’s presence,
and the concrete presence of the other makes significant demands. Faces, as objects in
the world, are perplexing: they are the only objects that can be genuine or duplicitous,
that can turn toward us in admiration or away in disdain. As faces—that is, as concrete
things in the social world— we accede to, and make demands of, each other (Levinas,
1969).
The hyphenated term, face-to-face, is meant to capture the existential situation of
interdependence in social life; what McNamee and Gergen (1999) call the conjoint
relation. When face-to-face, and present to each other, each person’s possibilities for
action are contingent upon the actions of the other. Not only actions are contingent on
this relationship, social meanings are also at stake. Our own face is an open region in
our experience; we come to know its meaning by its reflection in the social world, in the
response of other faces (Mead, 1934). The sociologist Goffman (1959; 1967) and the
phenomenologist Levinas (1969) have explored the social and experiential meanings of
face in the face-to-face relation. Levinas (1969) describes his experience:
The face resists possession, resists my powers. In its epiphany, in expression, the
sensible, still graspable, turns into total resistance to the grasp. This mutation can occur
only by the opening of a new dimension. For the resistance to the grasp is not produced
as an insurmountable resistance, like the hardness of the rock against which the effort of
the hand comes to naught, like the remoteness of a star in the immensity of space. The
expression the face introduces into the world does not defy the feebleness of my
powers, but my ability for power.…[T]he face speaks to me and thereby invites me to a
relation incommensurate with a power exercised (Levinas, 1969, pg. 197).
Social presence, face-to-face, is a situation in which claims are made for care, for
time, for emotional involvement and attention, etc., and no less for a share of valued
resources. For Levinas (1969), the most fundamental claim the face makes is on
conscience. Another’s face demands of us acknowledgement and moral treatment,
fairness and consideration, and a willingness to share in the social and natural world.
Levinas contends that most actions toward objects in world are those of possession and
consumption, as we might own a book or consume food. A face, while an object in the
world, is the outward expression of another human being, thus it cannot be possessed,
and no power exercised over it.
It is true that one can present one’s face strategically, perhaps in politeness or
deception, but one cannot determine the meaning one’s face has for another. The social
meaning of face, our social presence, emerges from an interdependent relation—that is,
when we are face-to-face. It is face-to-face in everyday life in which we create the calm
and the conflict of our personal relationships and the stability and instability of the social
world.
While Levinas (1969) views the face as an existential reality that demands of us a
moral conscience, Goffman (1967) articulates an entirely different set of concerns. The
face-to-face situation for Goffman is one of interpersonal complicity in which social
actors make claims and maintain lines concerning the public presentation of self. Berger
and Luckmann (1966) see human beings as creating and conveying a meaningful social
world face-to-face; Levinas (1969), as making possible for each other a moral social
existence. For Goffman, however, face-to-face is a strategic and instrumental social
relation—a ‘play for each other on the stage of the social world’ (Pollio, 1982). Face-
toface conflict seems much more than a play in the social world. It brings together these
variants of face in a co-constructive dialogue of moral concern and strategic
maneuvering; of egalitarian and, at other times, greedy motives. Our conflict
interactions go well beyond those of claiming, exchanging and distributing finite
resources. Face-toface interaction is a primary mode of relation in which personal
identities and meanings are challenged and recreated between concrete persons in the
social world.
The Structure of the Review
This review weaves together philosophical treatises and empirical studies from
disparate social science fields and seeks to describe a common set of issues that emerge
for our understanding of the human experience of face-to-face conflict as it is situated in
the Western sociocultural world. The first section enumerates the features of ‘social
conflict’ as a scientific construct, as these are presented in contemporary social science
research. This overview will focus on the construct’s interpersonal, emotional and
temporal characteristics.
The second section moves from the construct to various theories concerning the
causes, processes and consequences of conflict; its role as a social process and its
relationship to individual experiences in, and of, the social world. Here, we will
consider research by historical social theorists, such as Weber, Marx, Durkheim and
Simmel, whose impressions remain on current-day social science theory.
Section three follows a similar plan. As with most phenomena that are
considered fundamentally social, conflict has characteristics that crosscut different levels
of explanation. The third section of this review therefore turns to conflict processes as
these have been described in biological terms, i.e., in terms of the natural rather than
social world, since these descriptions have been used to explain conflict in the social
world. Particularly, it addresses the role of conflict processes in Darwinian evolutionary
theory and how the sociologist Spencer (and others) applied the concept of natural
selection to the social world.
Together, the second and third sections define two essential historical
understandings, which agree in many key ways about the causes, processes and
consequences of social conflict. The fourth section provides a synthesis of these views
that focuses on the human meaning of conflict as it emerges in our interactions with
others in the social world. The view discussed here derives from existentialist and
constructivist theories of social conflict and concludes by looking at face-to-face conflict
as a special type of dialogue in which social actors and their actions and meanings, are
situated in a cultural and historical world.
Section five shifts to specific social psychological theories of social conflict.
Since traditional social psychology is a science based on observations of other people, a
phenomenological description of the experience of others offered by Nowell and Pollio
(1991; as in Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997) proved appropriate as a classificatory
scheme for organizing selected theoretical and empirical work. Social psychological
theories are discussed in terms of their central emphases, be these relational factors (such
as interdependence), perceptual or cognitive factors related to social comparisons (e.g.,
discrimination, categorization), or rational decision-making in conflict (e.g., cognitive
exchange, microeconomic behavior, game theory). These approaches represent general
research trends within experimental social psychological studies of conflict.
As an alternative to the perspective outlined in section five, section six explores
qualitative and other meaning-centered approaches to conflict-related phenomena. In
meaning-centered studies, the victim’s role is constructed and his or her perspective
articulated. This perspective understands conflict-related phenomena in terms of issues
of social meaning, identity, expectations of reciprocity and morality, relational breaches
or violations, disruptions of self and/or time experiences, emotional experiences and
expressions, and issues surrounding power/powerlessness, control/loss-of-control and
others.
Section seven responds to the fact that qualititative research has often presented
conflict-related phenomena from the victim’s perspective. A description of the
perpetrator’s perspective was, therefore, sought in philosophical, historical and social
psychological accounts of ‘evil.’ In the seventh section, I also address issues of
accountability, blindness to the consequences of actions, social complicity and other
phenomena associated with the perpetrator’s perspective.
Finally, a concluding section addresses an existential-phenomenological
and social constructivist understanding of issues in the social scientific and more
general cultural meanings of social conflict.
The Scientific Construct of Social Conflict
Social science researchers have approached the problem of identifying the
central characteristics of social conflict in a variety of ways, each reflecting the
researchers’ particular disciplinary affiliations and a priori research concerns. Since
social conflict possesses characteristics that may be viewed as emerging both between
and within disputants (Druckman, 2005) a core issue has been whether to place emphasis
on observable aspects of conflict contexts and behaviors and/or on the perceptions and
emotional experiences of disputants (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001).
Characteristics of the phenomenon that may be viewed as within an individual
are related to relationship perceptions, interpretations of beliefs and goals, the values of
the disputants and of the causes, processes, and outcomes of the conflict situation
(Greeff & de Bruyne, 2000). The understandings that disputants have of their shared
situation may have significant consequences for the escalation and de-escalation of
conflict (Bargal, 2004) and for transforming the interaction from blame and opposition
to one of mutual problem-solving (McNamee & Gergen, 1999). When emphasizing
observable aspects of social conflict, however, researchers view the interaction as a
sequence of communicative exchanges and/or behaviors exhibited when disputants
interfere with each other’s goaldirected behavior and seek to obtain a disproportionate
share of a limited resource (Carothers, Vaske, & Donnelly, 2001).
One way researchers define the phenomenon is in terms of both covert (i.e.,
subjective or first-person) and overt (i.e., objective or third-person) aspects. Oetzel and
Ting-Toomey (2003), for instance, specify both ‘perceived’ and/or ‘actual’
incompatibility and interference. What this definition loses in parsimony, it gains in
offering a greater understanding of what is involved. Since conflicts often are rooted in
different perceptions and interpretations, researching first-person experience is as
important as documenting observable interactions and behaviors (Cheldelin, Druckman,
& Fast, 2003).
Features of Social Conflict
In reviewing research on interpersonal conflict in the work place, Barki and
Hardwick (2001) identify four general features: relational interdependence,
disagreement, interference and negative emotion. They emphasize the contextual and
relational nature of social conflict by grounding it in interdependence, much like
Deutsch (1973). Parties are interdependent when one party’s actions affect the
possibilities for another party’s actions, each party being subject to shared consequences.
Interdependence may be perceived as a detriment particularly when gain-producing
actions of one party consistently result in losses for the other party (Deutsch, 1973), with
the relationship perceived of as a constraint (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001).
Three further characteristics define social conflict. The first is a perceived and/or
actual divergence of values, needs, goals or objectives, which Barki and Hardwick
(2001) refer to as disagreement. Disagreement emerges in the understanding that
although parties are interdependent, their motives are incompatible. A second
characteristic, interference, emerges when one or both parties perceive the other as
impeding goaldirected behavior. In conflict, each party is seeking to influence the
other’s ability to pursue objectives. In disagreement and interference parties act and
react, escalating the conflict. Reciprocal interactions that escalate the conflict are
referred to as the conflict spiral, and create a situation with potential for violent action
(Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001). A conflict spiral may lead parties to develop a single-
minded objective to destroy each other.
When caught in a spiral, parties intensify already negative feelings toward each
other and their shared situation. Fear, jealousy, anger, frustration, anxiety and so on,
further escalate conflict. Intense emotions often lead to blaming and resentment between
parties (Barki & Hardwick, 2001). The final characteristic, negative emotion, also
increases the likelihood of aggressive actions. Intense negative emotion can move
parties from realistic concerns, focusing on problem-solving and resolution, to
nonrealistic concerns, focusing on attacking and destroying ‘the opposition’ (Coser,
1956; Rapoport, 1960).
It is generally accepted that the situated nature of conflict and its emergent
communicative pattern are significant to understanding it (Cheldelin, Druckman, & Fast,
2003). Conflict emerges in a particular context and its dynamic aspects are shaped as
much by the interactions of the parties as by the structure of meanings brought to, and
developed within, the situation (Lewin, 1948; Martin & Bergman, 1996). The conflict
episode is a Gestalt (Deutsch, 1973) emerging both from the context of interaction and
the approaches of each party to the problem at hand—what is at issue for each party—as
well as from the exchanges between parties that transform and develop the conflict
(Friedman, Tidd, Currall, & Tsai, 2000). Taking these general points concerning social
conflict into account, one may define face-to-face conflict as a reciprocally coconstituted
social activity that emerges between two or more interdependent persons who are known
to each other and who are interacting within a particular institutional, social, cultural,
temporal, and geographic context concerning matters that are in dispute and that are
meaningful to both.
Patterns of Social Conflict
Researchers have sought to describe the temporal patterns of conflict by utilizing
case studies of conflicts in organizational, labor relations and negotiation contexts (cf.
Morley & Stevenson, 1977; Pondy, 1967; Rummel, 1976). In common among the
developed models are the initiating conditions of conflict, which exist within the
particular structure of the parties’ interdependent relationship and available resources
(Pondy, 1967; Rummel, 1976). The first phase of conflict does not have overt
characteristics but exists as a potential incompatibility in terms of the respective
attitudes, beliefs or goals and the limitations the shared environment imposes. A conflict
begins when one or both parties recognize mutual differences in goals and objectives and
a limited resource in dispute (Pondy, 1967). Suspicion and hostility emerge in this
phase. The triggering event for overt conflict comes when each party begins to interfere
with the other in acting to claim portions of the limited resource (Pondy, 1967; Rummel,
1976). Various tactics are used to test demands and to gauge the opponent’s ability and
willingness to use force or to make concessions (Morley & Stevenson, 1977). If all is
going well, parties attempt to achieve a balance of power, to establish rules for the
interaction and to arrive at criteria for a mutually satisfactory solution (Rummel, 1976).
Cheldelin, Druckman, and Fast (2003) note that in this phase the focus of interaction
shifts from processes of differentiation to integration, with parties beginning to focus not
so much on what makes them different but on what makes them similar. When parties
are able to recognize their mutual interests, and that cooperation will produce the best
outcome for both, the issues of conflict may be addressed and become a solvable
problem, with actions moving from coercion to persuasion and conciliation (Morley &
Stevenson, 1977).
Once a balance of power has been achieved, solutions implemented, and
consequences assessed (Rummel, 1976), parties begin to explore and evaluate the new
relationship (Morley & Stevenson, 1977; Pondy, 1967). Rummel notes, however, that
over time the potential for new conflict surfaces since either party may later perceive
themselves to be disadvantaged by the solution and might choose to initiate another
conflict episode.
Patterns of Conflict Narrative
Another way that the temporal characteristics of social conflict have been
addressed is in terms of narrative structure (Kellett & Dalton, 2001). Social conflicts
may mirror culturally familiar structures of narrative that circulate in a cultural world
(Laursen & Collins, 1994). Another possibility is that conflicts are interpreted in terms
of narrative structures to provide coherence and meaning for an otherwise chaotic social
process (Kellett & Dalton, 2001). The conflict narrative is often conceptualized in terms
of a protagonist and an antagonist who engage in a series of exchanges that increase in
complexity until a climax occurs. At the point of climax, one or both parties are put into
crisis, in which the hoped-for outcome of the interaction is in jeopardy. Subsequent
exchanges lead to a resolution of the initial conflict.
In light of parallels between narrative structures and Western conceptualizations
of social conflict, Kellett and Dalton (2001) produced a guide for laypersons and
mediation professionals for analyzing personal and social conflict in terms of narrative
structure. These researchers believe that formulating life conflicts as complex,
wellformed narratives has benefits for individuals and may provide researchers and other
conflict-management professionals with a systematic approach to analyzing the
convergent and divergent perspectives and interests of conflicting parties. Kellett and
Dalton use narrative analysis as an organizing principle in their approach to conflict
analysis in a similar way to uses of narrative in therapeutic practice (cf. Greyner &
Luborsky, 1996) or in contemporary research practice (cf. Baumeister, Stillwell, &
Wotman, 1990).
Beyond simply elaborating the temporal elements of conflict, narrative analysis
provides access to the social context of stories, how particular story structures arise, how
individuals understand these stories, and how story structures differ across cultures
(Johnston, 2005). Various approaches to narrative ask investigators to attend to the
structural characteristics of the conflict narrative in terms of setting, themes, plot
structures, episodes, resolution, organizational structure of the story, and so on (cf.
Greene, 1986; Johnston, 2005; Riessman, 1993; Toolan, 1988). Narrative analyses of
conflict provide a researcher access to a disputant’s description of a particular conflict
episode as this account transmits a ‘cultural commentary’ and provides an indication of
the mental processes involved in constructing a plausible account that can be shared
meaningfully with other individuals (Johnston, 2005).
As examples of this cultural commentary, Kellett and Dalton (2001) enumerate
five basic ‘life metaphors’ that serve to structure personal conflict narratives. Each of
the metaphors creates a particular type of “communicative reality” for the
disputant/narrator. For instance, the metaphor of life as an ‘adventurous journey’ may
tend to frame conflicts as necessary and essential turning points in a life, with “conflicts
remain[ing] an important, if sometimes painful, part of the journey” (pg. 55). For
individuals who frame his or her conflict narrative in terms of ‘life as a learning process,’
conflict becomes a source of deep life lessons and knowledge. Conflict from this
perspective is a motivator and creator of knowledge. When an individual adheres to a
metaphor of ‘life as a cycle of give and take,’ he or she will tend to frame conflicts as
collaborative ventures. Life metaphors that cast conflict in a negative light are those of
‘life as conspiracy’ and ‘life as a game.’ The ‘life as conspiracy’ metaphor tends to relate
to narratives that exhibit elements of coercion and violence and little open dialogue
between disputants. Finally, the ‘life as game’ metaphor tends to frame conflict as
competitive and includes elements of rational calculation, strategy, and manipulation.
While Kellett and Dalton’s description of how to construct a conflict narrative is
significantly complicated to capture the phenomenon from many perspectives, their
process tends to assume beforehand how the narrative should be structured in order to
maximize a disputant/narrator’s understanding of his or her life experience.
Key Features of Conflict: Summing Up
What becomes clear in looking at social conflict in terms of its characteristics
and temporal patterns is that a structure seems to emerge. This structure suggests that
different strategies and approaches may be appropriate to understanding different aspects
of conflict (Munduate, Ganaza, Peiro, & Euwema, 1999). The particular patterns of
interaction, however, need to be understood in terms of the particular cultural world in
which they become meaningful in the social practices of everyday life (Oetzel &
TingToomey, 2003). Cognitive psychology makes a similar point in that patterns of
social interaction may relate to culturally particular schemas, which are learned through
direct experiences and observations of conflict (Braver & Rohrer, 1978). Conflict
schemes may also be learned through hearing descriptions of other’s experiences and
encountering fictional representations of conflict in movies, novels, and other media
accounts (Asendorf & Wilpers, 1998). Researchers have developed their ideas of social
conflict along the lines of first person and third person perspectives, but have not yet
addressed the co-constructed phenomenological meanings of experiences of face-to-face
conflict for individuals in the context of their everyday lives.
Conflict in the Social World
A long-standing issue in the history of the social sciences is the relationship
between the self and the social world. The debate continues today in fields such as
psychological anthropology, cultural psychology and social psychology, with some
researchers arguing that cultural worlds create individual subjectivities, others arguing
that interactions between subjectivities create cultural worlds, and still others arguing
that the self and the social are inextricable in that they ‘make each other up’ (Shweder,
1991). Early theorists recognized the constructive and destructive possibilities of social
conflict for individual lives and social institutions and sought to explicate the
relationship between operations of culture and the social world (the macrocosm) and the
face-to-face activities of individuals within that social world (the microcosm).
Much of this early research developed in response to industrial modernization
beginning in the early 19th century (Turner, 1996); an historical period defined by its
extraordinary economic and social change. Populations began to concentrate in cities.
Market economies moved from a local focus to ever-increasing national, even global,
foci. Agrarian and artisan means of production became the repetitive work of mass
production in factories and on assembly lines. Religious beliefs declined, individuals
became more alienated from each other, and social institutions underwent steady
secularization.
The sociologist Weber (1904/1930) noted that these events brought about
dramatic changes in how individuals experienced themselves and their social world. In
the pre-industrial world, individual identity centered on being connected to a local
community and to one’s history and functional role within a community. When
individuals began to leave rural communities for the urban environment, however, social
connectedness became a system of affiliation. Under the best of circumstances, the
displaced individual could connect with others who held similar beliefs, interests,
hobbies, jobs, etc., and under the worst of circumstances, individuals found themselves
isolated and lost, without a clear core of identity and meaning (Turner, 1996).
Urban industrial contexts fostered the competitive ethos of capitalism and
encouraged the exploitation and sacrifice of the individual to the mechanized activities
and bureaucratic structures of the modern economy. While Weber (1904/1930) sought to
describe the experience of living in the modern industrialized world, other theorists such
as Durkheim (1893/1997; 1902/1997), Marx and Engels (1848/1978), and Simmel
(1908/1955) developed explanatory theories to describe the process and anticipate the
effects of these extraordinary changes in the social order, both for society and the
individual. Central to the work of these theorists is the problem of social conflict.
Marx and Engels: Conflict Theory, False Consciousness and Alienation
Karl Marx was one of the first theorists to address the role of conflict in social
history. Within his scheme, class conflict enacted between the proletariat and
bourgeoisie is the fundamental driving force of history. Rather than viewing historical
progress as Hegel (1837/1991) did—as a pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis—
Marx believed that history is a series of unending antitheses; the result of persistent
exploitation and economic conflict. The Hegelian position, he claimed, is a fiction used
to justify and maintain the status quo that allows the owners of the means of production
to continue to deceive and exploit the working classes by maintaining an economic
system that makes material products (capital) more valuable than the labor (people) that
produces them. Marx and Engels (1848/1978) state:
The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles…. Our epoch,
the epoch of the bourgeoisie, possesses, however, this distinctive feature: it has
simplified the class antagonisms: Society as a whole is more and more splitting up into
two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other: bourgeoisie
and proletariat (pg. 473).
In The Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels were responding to the social and
economic changes brought about by industrial modernization and believed that these
changes would ultimately intensify class conflicts, forcing society to address
unacknowledged inequalities and effect positive social change. According to this view, a
society without class conflict indicates that the proletariat has abdicated its identity, and
hence its true value, to the interests of the ruling class. Marx and Engels refer to this as
false consciousness and its consequences for social relations, alienation from authentic
social identity.
The ultimate result of such social conflicts is a violent revolution, and its
consequences in overthrowing a capitalist system are viewed as positive for the
proletariat. When false consciousness and alienation are overcome, a class-conscious
proletariat will unite, seize control of the economic structure built by the bourgeoisie and
establish a communistic state in which all people are considered equal and all have
access to the means of production. This change in economic relationships will dispense
with the competitive acquisition of private property or capital as an organizing principle
and thus ultimately will result in decreased social conflict. From this perspective,
conflict may be troublesome in the short term, but its long term effects indicate that
Marx and Engels viewed it as a positive social process, resulting in shared power and
social equality.
The critical conflict theorist, Darendorf (1959) has been heavily influenced by
the Marxist tradition in his understanding of social conflict as resulting from opposed
interests and power disparities between groups in society. Society, in his view, consists
of dialectically opposed groups: those with power and those without. Conflict emerges
when individuals who are deprived of power and resources become aware that the
structure of social relations is not in their best interest and they commit themselves to
contesting the power disparity as a cohesive group (Turner, 1975). In Darendorf’s
account, power has a face—a person or group with whom to engage; other theorists who
are influenced by Marx, such as Foucault (1980), argue that power disparities are
inherent in the discursive practices and structures of knowledge present in a
sociohistorical tradition. For Foucault, there is no escape from the effects of power, even
in situations of revolution and social conflict, as power operates covertly in the very
things we know. What we know identifies for us that which is significant within our
social world and it is within this system of knowledge that we orient our activities—both
activities that support and/or undermine the social system.
Durkheim: Disequilibrium and Anomie
Durkheim, in The Division of Labor in Society (1893/1997), made use of an
organic/homeostatic metaphor to describe the structure and function of society and to
explain the changes associated with industrial modernization as the cause of social
conflict. The core assumption here is that a healthy social system is one with minimal
social conflict; that is, one operating at equilibrium. When a social system becomes
anomic it is out of balance and this has significant social and existential consequences
for members of that society. Like Weber (1904/1930), Durkheim (1902/1997) argued
that in this state of social conflict individuals lost their sense of connectedness to each
other and to a meaningful social world. The chaotic social context and cause of this
interpersonal loss, he called anomie:
It is this anomic state that is the cause … of the incessantly recurrent conflicts, and the
multifarious disorders of which the economic world exhibits so sad a spectacle. For as
nothing restrains the active forces and assigns them limits they are bound to respect, that
tend to develop haphazardly, and come into collision with one another, battling and
weakening themselves. To be sure, the strongest succeed in completely demolishing the
weakest, or in subordinating them. But if the conquered, for a time, must suffer
subordination under compulsion, they do not consent to it, and consequently this cannot
constitute a stable equilibrium (pg. 3).
Anomie results from the exploitative practices of the industrial economy and perpetuates
a system that is out of balance. In Durkheim’s world, face-to-face social interactions
take on a hue of antagonism, oppression and alienation, leading to widespread suicide in
the urban population.
The solution to this problem was, for Durkheim (1902/1997), social regulation:
“…only social rules can prevent abuses of power” (pg. 4). This position suggests that
Durkheim believed the social order open to regulation by law and it was through
regulation that social equilibrium could be reestablished and conflict controlled (Woehrle
& Coy, 2000). Major 20th century theorists of social conflict temper his view of the role
of conflict in society while upholding his general view of the social system as organic.
Consider Coser’s (1956) position:
No group can be entirely harmonious, for it would then be devoid of process and
structure. Groups require disharmony as well as harmony, dissociation as well as
association; and conflicts within them are by no means altogether disruptive factors
….On the contrary, both “positive” and “negative” factors build group relations.
Conflict as well as cooperation has social functions. Far from being necessarily
dysfunctional, a certain degree of conflict is an essential element in group formation and
the persistence of group life (pg. 31).
For Coser (1956) social conflict should not be regulated out of existence nor interpreted
as reflecting disequilibrium; rather some types of social conflict serve to “build group
relations” and so have essential social functions.
Simmel: Face-to-Face Conflict and Social Change
The sociologist Simmel (1908/1955), who also influenced Coser (1956) and later
social constructivists such as Schutz (1967) and Berger and Luckmann (1966), held a
positive view of the role of conflict in society, focusing on the face-to-face aspect of
social experience. Simmel parallels the activities of individuals face-to-face in the social
world and ongoing historical change in the social world. Social institutions, from this
perspective, represent the historical events of their creation and seek to maintain the
tradition that grew out of those events.
Individuals within a social system are in a constant state of change and this
existential fact puts individuals in direct conflict with the social order: “Man is always in
danger of being slain by those objects of his own creation which have lost their original
human coefficient” (pg. 2). Human beings establish and maintain a social order in
everyday interactions with each other, but sometimes the social order becomes outmoded
and oppressive—as in Durkheim’s view. Simmel (1908/1955) understood processes of
social conflict as taking place in a relationship between the macrocosm of social
institutions and the microcosm of individual acts of rebellion against these social
institutions. These acts take place in face-to-face encounters between individuals within
the context of the institutionalized social order. The “dialectic of life” produced in these
interactions takes on an oscillating pattern of creation and destruction—as “life is always
in latent opposition to form” (Simmel, 1908/1955, pg. 12). Conflict in the everyday
lives of individuals produces the unyielding force of historical change.
Given a sufficient number of individuals engaged in acts of individuation against
outmoded social institutions, new institutions come to be established. Simmel
(1908/1955) understood this process in the long view, with conflict serving a creative
rather than a destructive function. Social conflict is indicative of a healthy and vibrant
society rather than an underlying systemic pathology. Simmel’s emphasis on face-to-
face interactions in social life has been carried forward by Berger and Luckmann (1966),
and his approach to understanding the societal role of transgression, by Stivers (1983).
The Individual in the Social World
Personal, societal and cultural domains often organize around the management,
regulation and control of face-to-face conflict (Simmel, 1908/1955). The first reason for
this is the prevalence of the phenomenon (Smith, 1987), the second, its potential
negative effects on the relational processes of the social world (Oetzel & Ting-Toomey,
2003) and the third, the consequences these processes have for individual, and socially
maintained, identities (Goffman, 1959; Lewin, 1948). Face-to-face conflicts are
dialogical relations and as such introduce “an existential risk—a moment of transparency
in which a seam in our everyday performance of being ourselves appears” (Kellett &
Dalton, 2001, pg. VIII). The seam that face-to-face conflict opens can destabilize and
reconfigure ongoing relationships between individuals and the social supports for
individual meanings and identities (Goffman, 1959; 1967). Face-to-face interactions in
everyday social life provide the stability, coherence and meaning necessary for
producing and maintaining personal and social identities and may serve reciprocally to
legitimize the activities and meanings of the social world itself, both for individuals and
groups (Berger & Luckmann, 1966).
Significant conflicts may also demarcate periods of life in an individual’s
autobiographical story. The “moments of transparency,” to which Kellett and Dalton
(2001) speak, takes place when two face-to-face disputants come to realize that what
they thought they knew about each other and what they are experiencing is incongruous
— social relationships, like individuals, are always in a process of becoming something
other than what they presently are (May, 1983). Conflict, in otherwise stable
relationships, may indicate powerful personal and interpersonal change and, writ large,
sociohistorical change (Jensen-Campbell, Gleason, Adams, & Malcolm, 2003).
Psychological research has long placed conflict in a central position in human social and
emotional development (Suls, Martin, & David, 1998)—Piaget, Freud and Erikson’s
theories each place their relative emphases on an individual’s cognitive, intrapsychic,
and interpersonal conflicts. Throughout the life span, conflicts may elicit positive
personal change (Jensen-Campbell, Gleason, Adams, & Malcolm, 2003) and may be
necessary in establishing and strengthening interpersonal and intergroup relationships
(Canary, Cupach, & Serpe, 2001). The early sociological theorists recognized the
parallel between experiences of the individual interconnected with other individuals in
society and the larger scale changes of the social system in historical context.
Since interdependence is the basis of interpersonal relationships, it can also be
seen as the basis for social conflict (Barki & Hardwick, 2001). In interdependent
situations, a shared moral code develops as the relationship develops. When partners are
highly interdependent, the greater the consequences of conflict and the higher the
expectation for following an established code. Such situations allow more latitude for
occasional transgressions (Canary, Cupach, & Serpe, 2001) and this creates a situation of
security by supporting predictable face-to-face relations with those to whom we are
closest. Predictability is a significant basis for interpersonal trust (Insko, Kirchner,
Pinter, Efaw, & Wildschut, 2005) and judgments about trustworthiness are based on the
perceived consonance of the other’s actions with our own (Canary, Cupach, & Serpe,
2001).
Interdependence establishes the Gestalt of a relationship, in which relational
conflict may or may not be perceived to have negative consequences (Deutsch, 1973).
The social world facilitates our survival in terms of both interdependent support and
oppositional competition for scarce resources. Interdependence between individuals is a
basic condition of social life; it is defined by the limits and possibilities it creates for
personal and social action (Barki & Hardwick, 2001). Political and economic systems
may foster particular types of interdependence: either positive relations of
interdependence in which all members of a social group benefit or exploitative relations
in which a small group of individuals gains greater access to basic resources necessary
for physical survival and psychological well-being (see Burton, 1990 for discussion of
contemporary human needs/critical theory; also Maslow, 1968). Interdependence
consequently can serve as a ground against which opposition and interference emerge in
face-to-face situations (Simmel, 1908/1955).
Take, as an example, the etymological roots of ‘conflict’: con, meaning
‘together,’ and fligere, ‘to strike’ (Websters International 2nd Edition, 1955). The original
usage of the word confligere pointed to instances of people or things ‘striking-together.’
What is essential here is that social conflict occurs in the context of an interdependent
relationship: the meaning of the “strikes” each party makes in opposing and interfering
with the other is inseparable from the “together” aspect of the preexisting face-to-face
relationship. When interdependent parties both need and oppose each other,
‘strikingtogether’ can be among the most significant, frustrating and emotionally
difficult experiences of everyday social interactions (Barki & Hartwick, 2001).
Conflict as a Basic Process of the Natural World Schellenberg
(1996) offers a useful overview of the relationship between evolutionary theory and
historical developments in theories of social conflict. He argues that the theory of
natural selection has been one of the more influential theories in the social sciences, its
sway ranging from sociological to psychoanalytic theory. Darwin’s (1859/1995) theory
of natural selection concerned a way to explain the already established phenomenon of
evolutionary change in biological organisms. Darwin’s theory was introduced in The
Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favored Races in
the Struggle for Life. The relevance for conflict research falls conspicuously at the end
of title of this book: the Struggle for Life. Species in the natural world are engaged in a
struggle for life, and those who are able to obtain a greater share of resources necessary
for survival are able to live long enough to reproduce. The adaptive characteristics that
facilitated survival in one generation are passed on to subsequent generations.
Extending this logic, one may argue that current day species possess characteristics that
facilitated their ancestors’ ability to survive in harshly competitive environments and
thus they too will be better able to survive and pass on these adaptive characteristics.
What perhaps became the most controversial aspect of natural selection theory was its
application to human psychological processes and social behavior, and then by extension
to macro-level social processes and to particular groups within society (Jahoda, 1992).
In Descent of Man, Darwin (1871/1997) introduces the concept of sexual selection.
Sexual selection occurs when conspecifics mate selectively with others who exhibit
characteristics indicating health, ability to acquire resources and to defend themselves
against same-sex competitors.
During the 1860’s, the sociologist Spencer was influenced by Darwin’s natural
selection and sexual selection theories. Spencer was further concerned by the
demographer Malthus’s (1803/1992) contention that the human population was growing
at an exponential rate such that available natural resources would eventually no longer
sustain the world’s population (Schellenberg, 1996). In Spencer’s First Principles
(1862/2002) he applied natural selection insights to human social processes, coining the
famous phrase the “survival of the fittest” (Schellenberg, 1996). Spencer argued that in
society people are engaged in a struggle to survive, as are institutional and other cultural
forms. In early societies these struggles took the form of militaristic competition, in
industrial society, they take the form of functional cooperation in which economic
competition facilitates or inhibits survival. Unlike Durkheim and Marx, Spencer viewed
the struggle for life as the foundational force of social evolution from which higher
cultural forms have emerged, such as the market economy against which Marx railed.
Responding to Durkheim, Spencer would have viewed state regulation of conflict as
stultifying to individual and social progress.
According to this view, governments should not regulate conflict processes
because regulation interferes with the selection of better social institutions. In this
respect, Spencer tends to take a view toward social conflict similar to Coser (1956) and
Simmel (1908/1955). Spencer’s ideas were primarily influential in both paralleling and
differentiating processes of biological and socio-cultural evolution. This comparison is
of particular significance when interpreting current day theorists such as E.O. Wilson
(1980) and various contemporary applications of sociobiological ideas to human social
behavior (cf. Aylor & Dainton, 2004; Buss, 1989; Keltner, Young, & Buswell, 1997).
Wilson (1980) has argued that patterns of aggressive behavior may be adaptive
for human beings. Aggression for Wilson is a mixture of behaviors directed toward
different threats or concerns in the environment (Schellenberg, 1996). In higher animals,
cultural forms may substitute for aggressive behaviors, but only as an evolutionary
adaptation. Wilson’s scheme plays down the reciprocal cultural influence on
evolutionary processes. Within this scheme, one may come to view the human
development of language as an evolutionary adaptation because it allows us to resolve
conflicts that emerge in social life with recourse to words, rather than violence.
Consider Pinker’s (2000) point:
In all cultures, social interactions are mediated by persuasion and argument. How a
choice is framed plays a large role in determining which alternative people choose. Thus
there could easily have been selection for any edge in the ability to frame an offer so
that it appears to present maximal benefit and minimal cost to the negotiating partner,
and in the ability to see through such attempts and to formulate attractive
counterproposals (Pinker, 2000, pg., 380).
Within this perspective, even inheritances that many would consider among the most
sociocultural in nature, such as the unique linguistic system of a cultural group, can be
viewed in terms of a response to evolutionary pressures.
Existential Theories of Conflict
Like evolutionary biology, existential philosophy also concerns itself with
understanding the basic conditions and meanings of human existence. One significant
concern in this tradition is the relationship between an individual and the social world,
not in terms of relational processes per se, but what these relational processes mean as a
contextual ground for human existence (Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997). Various
phenomena, such as anaclitic depression, indicate that human beings require the
supportive reassurance of companionship and community to survive and flourish (Pollio,
1982). Thus, the relationships we have with others are significant to core existential
issues such as our own and other’s personal and social identities, the meaning of life and
other matters of ultimate concern.
Sartre: The Dilemma of the Social World
The existentialist philosopher Jean-Paul Sartre avows a cynical view of the social
world, casting interdependence in a tense and ironic role. The following monologue
delivered by Garcin, a male character in Sartre’s play No Exit (1945/1989), sums up this
view. Garcin is speaking of two women, Inez and Estelle, trapped eternally with him in
a windowless room in Hell:
Only two of you? I thought there were many; many more . . . . So this is Hell. I’d never
have believed it. You remember all we were told about the torture-chambers, the fire
and brimstone, the “burning marl.” Old wives tales! There’s no need for red-hot pokers.
Hell is—other people! (pg. 47).
In No Exit, each character finds interminable meaninglessness in a triangle of lust and
hatred. Spending eternity together in a room in Hell, without windows or mirrors,
Garcin, Inez and Estelle each look to another to see his or her self reflected and affirmed,
only to find that the object of their desire is indifferent, even hateful. Suicide or murder
is no option as all already are dead. So there they are, eternally seeking what they can
neither have nor give—connection, affirmation and meaning.
Suffering for these three is in recognizing that the one they desire desires another.
Inez is a lesbian whom Garcin can never impress as she views him as a coward. Inez
consequently desires the other woman, Estelle. Estelle, however, is a callously
selfcentered socialite, who wants from Garcin the self-affirming affections of a man—
any man will do, and Garcin is all there is. Garcin recognizes the callousness and
superficiality of Estelle’s desire, and that if Estelle were not present, Inez would have no
choice but to love him.
As social beings, Garcin, Inez and Estelle each need the other to affirm his or her
self-value by consenting to consummate a one-sided desire. Each needs to be cared for
and acknowledged by the other. Even so, with opposed agendas and desires, each
individual refuses to give in to the other because to give in means to give one’s self to
the other. In the act of affirming another, the affirmer gives up his or her sense of self.
What Sartre (1945/1989) seems to be indicating by this irresolvable dilemma is
that human beings both have no choice but to be interdependent and, at the same time, to
exist as an object in another’s schemes and plots. From this dark, and somewhat
paranoid, perspective social life is persistently diminishing one’s possibilities for being.
A person is destined to exist as an object of another’s judgments, desires, and
manipulations; and in turn to play the objectifier, judger, desirer, and manipulator; in
human interaction, for Sartre, we all dehumanize each other. This perspective directly
opposes what we have found in the philosophies of the phenomenologist Levinas (1969)
and of the existentialist Buber (1924/1987; 1951/1999).
Buber: Social Conflict and the Possibility of Meaning
When compared to Sartre (1945/1989), Buber presents a more evenhanded
assessment of this fundamental problem of the social world in his book I and Thou
(1924/1987) and in the essay “Distance and Relation” (1951/1999). Although I and
Thou is twenty-one years the predecessor of Sartre’s No Exit, one may read the following
passage as a response to the position Sartre takes:
But you believe then in the existence of a paradise in the earliest days of mankind?—
even if it was a hell—and certainly that time to which I can go back in historical thought
was full of fury and anguish and torment and cruelty—at any rate it was not unreal ....
The relational experiences of man in earliest days were certainly not tame and pleasant.
But rather force exercised on being that is really lived than shadowy solicitude for
faceless numbers! From the former a way leads to God, from the latter only one to
nothingness (Buber, 1924/1987, pg. 24).
Unlike Garcin, Inez and Estelle, human beings do not only find themselves
thrown into a self-destructive situation of irreconcilable difference, objectification, and
manipulation; we are also the creators and beneficiaries of our face-to-face conflicts.
One may argue, as Buber (1924/1987) does, that it is in conflict with others that we
become open to the possibilities to create, as well as to lose, our sense of identity. The
outcome for us depends on the attitude we take with respect to our interdependent
situation and what we do within it. Buber recognizes the tension Sartre (1945/1989)
elaborates in No Exit, but frames Sartre’s problem in a more intricate way, holding out
the possibility that there is always something more meaningful to be found in the
conflicts of human life. It is in conflict with others that we may find a way leading to
God, to insight and understanding, a path to more authentic relationships. Face-to-face
conflict has the power to create and transform as well as to destroy the meanings, beliefs
and relationships that serve as an essential ground for our experiences in human life.
Buber (1951/1999) views the fundamental face-to-face condition of social life as
exhibiting an ultimate transformative and spiritual possibility. In face-to-face disputes
different perspectives are given concrete form and the transformative possibilities of
human interaction may emerge if disputants accept an attitude of openness toward each
other, refusing to see the other as an object to be manipulated. In acknowledging the
other’s difference and seeking to influence or be influenced by the other, possibilities for
new meanings come into existence. As Buber states:
The desire to influence the other … does not mean the effort to change the other, to
inject one’s own ‘rightness’ into him; but it means the effort to let that which is
recognized as right, as just, as true … through one’s influence take seed and grow in the
form suited to individuation (pg. 13).
Social conflict in Buber’s sense is, at its best, a creative act taking place between two or
more individuals who approach some issue from different perspectives and, at its worst,
a dogged forcing of one’s own perspective on others, as in propaganda.
Both evolutionist and existentialist theories address the basic conditions of
human life in relation to social processes. The evolutionist tends to view social relations
in terms of competition for resources and selective pressures for survival in the natural
environment. The existentialist addresses these issues as they emerge as meaningful
problems in the face-to-face situation of conflict. The existentialist opens the possibility
for conflict, or any human dialogue, to eradicate life or to be a source of transcendent
meaning in life.
Constructivism, Dialogue and Social Conflict
While existential philosophy seeks to describe the conditions of human existence,
social constructivism seeks to understand how human beings co-create and maintain
meaning as they interact against the ground of an inherited sociohistorical context
(Berger & Luckmann, 1966; McNamee & Gergen, 1999). A related philosophy,
hermeneutic phenomenology, may be used to describe the social meanings that
individuals draw on and create to make sense of their life experiences in dialogue with
others in the social world (Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997). Two philosophers,
Merleau-Ponty (1962) and Levinas (1969), are particularly significant in bringing
together the perspectives of constructivism and phenomenology. While these
philosophers acknowledge their ties to existentialist philosophy they focus on describing
the meaning of human experience as it emerges in dialogue.
According to Merleau-Ponty’s philosophy, the interdependent situation of the
social world is one in which we never completely control the processes and outcomes of
conflict, as the meanings and outcomes of conflict are co-constituted. The meaning of a
conflict emerges in the interactions of two or more individuals at a particular place and
time. As Merleau-Ponty (1962) has so aptly stated concerning the co-constitution of
meaning in dialogue:
[T]here is constituted between the other person and myself a common ground; my
thought and his are interwoven into single fabric, my words and those of my
interlocutor are called forth by the state of the discussion, and they are inserted into a
shared operation of which neither of us is the creator (354).
According to this view, a conflict is a type of ‘shared operation’ enacted in an
interdependent relationship. It is reasonable then to understand Merleau-Ponty (1962) in
light of Buber’s (1924/1987) existentialism more so than Sartre’s (1945/1989). The
meanings that emerge in conflict escape the direct agendas and strategies of the parties
involved; the meaning, process and outcome of conflict are co-constituted in the face-
toface situation. Thus, while individuals may be parties to a conflict, dialogical acts of
conflicting can fundamentally shape the lives of those so engaged, creating new
meanings and new patterns of interaction beyond anything initially intended:
[T]he objection which my interlocutor raises to what I say draws from me thoughts which
I had no idea I possessed, so that at the same time that I lend him thoughts, he
reciprocates by making me think too. It is only retrospectively, when I have withdrawn
from the dialogue and am recalling it that I am able to reintegrate it into my life and
make of it an episode in my private history, and that the other recedes into his absence,
or, in so far as he remains present for me, [his presence] is felt as a threat (354).
Like Buber (1951/1999) and Levinas (1969), Merleau-Ponty (1962) argues that
the other is particularly salient in face-to-face conflict when we recognize the other
exists as a standpoint, or perspective, different from our own. In recognizing the other is
different from us, we are both frustrated and challenged in taking up the present situation
in a different way and in reforming our autobiographical history to account for our
changed perspective and our changed self-understanding. Buber, who takes a position in
accord with Merleau-Ponty, and counterpoint to Sartre, maintains that while social life
has always been “full of fury and anguish,” the other option, an escape into the niceties
and deceptions of “shadowy solicitude,” may lead us to meaningless relationships with
others.
For Levinas (1969) the other is represented concretely as a face we experience in
the social world and that elicits from us moral concern. For Buber (1924) the presence
of the other represents the possibility of a relation that can fundamentally transform our
understanding of the meaning of our existence. For Sartre (1945/1989) (like Goffman,
1967) the presence of the other defines an instrumental social situation in which
duplicity limits our own possibilities for freedom and meaningful existence. And, for
MerleauPonty (1962), the presence of the other is that of a dialogical partner that offers
to us the possibility of understanding perspectives different from our own.
In light of Merleau-Ponty’s position, it is interesting to note that in a
phenomenological study of the meaning of the experience of other people, Nowell and
Pollio (1991; as reported in Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997) identified nine situations
in which participants reported being aware of others. Three of these situations clearly
deal with situations of conflict and/or potential conflict: “feeling judged (and judging)
others,” “threatening situations,” and “when people are irritating” (pg. 142). It would
seem that the findings of this atheoretical study support the position that conflict is a
central mode of human relating through which an awareness of others emerges.
Conflict in Social Psychological Theory
Social psychology has as its central concern reciprocal relationships between
individual psychological processes and processes of the social world. Slawski (1981)
makes the case that within the quantitative traditions of American social psychology
there are three major types of theories: (1) structure and change, (2) behaviorist, and (3)
congruency theories. Structure and change theories focus on dynamic patterns of social
interaction, such as those in situations of bargaining or negotiations. Behaviorist
theories take as their point of emphasis predicting and controlling human behavior under
various social and environmental conditions. This approach has been primarily applied
in conflict simulation in which very subtle changes in the contingencies impinging on
individuals or groups in conflict can be studied. Congruency theories take as their
primary focus the cognitions of individuals pertaining to other people or groups as well
as to general aspects of the social world.
These theories are tested in situations that emphasize the observer’s position visà-
vis other people (study participants) and thus apply the epistemological perspective of
rationalism. It is interesting to note a parallel here between Nowell and Pollio’s (1991)
findings concerning the human experience of other people and the social psychological
theories enumerated by Slawski (1981). Nowell and Pollio (1991) identified three
general themes in the everyday awareness of other people: relationship (structure and
change theories), utility/benefit (behaviorist theories) and comparisons (congruency
theories). Each of these theories and their parallel in the phenomenology of social
observation will be discussed in turn.
When participants in the Nowell and Pollio (1991) study described their
awareness of relationships to other people they described subthemes of proximity,
synchrony and connection. Proximity concerns the social distance between one’s self
and the other person: for example, is the other person experienced as a family member, a
neighbor or a colleague from work, a stranger, etc. Each of these relationships indicates
gradations of social distance. The subthemes concerning synchrony and connection
address an awareness of whether one’s own and another’s actions and emotions coincide,
and that one feels a deep interpersonal meaning that is shared by the other. A positive
interpretation of relationship emphasizes the benefits of relational interdependence,
whereas a negative interpretation emphasizes social distance, being ‘out of sync’ with,
and alienation from, others. The relationship theme seems closely related with
interdependence theories such as those developed by Deutsch (1973) concerning conflict
climates (i.e., as relational Gestalten) and others such as the human relations school of
social/organizational psychology.
Theories Emphasizing Relationship Dynamics
With the early work of Follett (1940), researchers in the relational tradition were
interested in identifying conflict-handling strategies consistently used by parties acting
within organizational contexts. Among the most influential theories developed was the
“dual concerns” model (Blake & Mouton, 1964). Dual concerns presents
conflicthandling strategies, basically communicative strategies, in terms of two core
dimensions: concern for self (assertiveness) and concern for others (cooperativeness)
(Blake & Mouton, 1964; cf. Thomas, 1976). These strategies can be represented in
terms of a two dimensional Cartesian space, thereby providing a graphical representation
of the dynamics of conflict-handling strategies during conflict episodes (Van de Vliert,
1997). In the following section we will discuss the basic conflict-handling strategies
investigated in this literature. Then, we will address two critiques of the traditional
version of this approach that remain within its general theoretical purview (i.e.,
Sternberg & Dobson, 1987; Davis, Capobianco, & Kraus, 2004).
A conflict-handling strategy that is high in concern for self, yet low in concern
for the other is called competing or forcing. The forcing strategy relates to strategies in
other conflict-handling schemes labeled as domination (Follett, 1940), competition
(Deutsch, 1973), control (Putnam & Wilson, 1982), or contending (Pruitt, 1983). It
tends not to be effective for long-term conflict resolution as forcing fails to consider the
needs of the other party and thus escalates conflict if the ‘losing’ party later seeks
compensation for his or her loss (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001). A person adopting a
forcing strategy approaches the conflict relation with the attitude of: “I don’t care what
you want; you will do what I want or else.” Usually this occurs when the dominating
party perceives little positive interdependence, when a significant power disparity exists
between parties, or when acting quickly to resolve the conflict is imperative—i.e., when
a situation turns violent (Rahim, Buntzman, & White, 1999).
A conflict-handling scheme that is low in concern for self and high in concern for
other is called obliging within Blake and Mouton’s (1964) and Thomas’s (1976) scheme.
Obliging is a cooperative strategy within Deutsch’s (1973) scheme and relates to aspects
of suppression in Follett’s (1940) because it suppresses self-interest. By suppressing
selfinterest, only a temporary resolution to conflict may be found. Within Putnam and
Wilson’s (1982) scheme, obliging would be a non-confrontational strategy and, for Pruitt
(1983), a yielding one. It has also been referred to as appeasement and is a strategy
often used to maintain the integrity of a relationship in a conflict situation (Folger, Poole
& Stutman, 2001). A person using this strategy is approaching conflict in terms of: “I
want what is best for you; what will make you happy?” Here, the relationship between
parties is more important than the conflict issue.
In Blake and Mouton’s (1964), Thomas’s (1976) and Follett’s (1940) scheme, a
strategy that is low in concern for other (uncooperativeness) and low in concern for self
(unassertiveness) is called avoiding. Avoidance has also been referred to as flight or
leaving-the-field (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001), non-confrontation (Putnam &
Wilson, 1982), or inaction (Pruitt, 1983). Rahim and Magner (1995) use the vernacular
examples of passing-the-buck, sidestepping, or ‘see-no-evil, hear-no-evil, speak-no-evil’
to describe the motivation for parties using this strategy.
While avoidance is sometimes used to withdraw from a conflict situation, it can
also escalate the conflict if the other party perceives high interdependence and expects a
response. Under situations of high interdependence and limited time to resolve a
conflict, avoidance presents a threat and may be interpreted as covert-aggression (Greeff
& de Bruyne, 2000). A person using this strategy is in a sense saying something to the
effect of “keep me out of it” or “screw you, you are not worth a response” or “I am
taking time to consider this.” Generally, this is a strategy in which communication is
absent, so the motives of the other party remain unknown—this may either escalate a
preexisting conflict or make a potential conflict a non-issue.
Empirical research suggests that these three conflict-handling styles tend to have
generally negative effects on social relationships. This is because they do not facilitate
long-lasting and mutually satisfying resolutions (Rahim, Buntzman, & White, 1999;
Rahim & Magner, 1995). In these types of relational situations we revisit Sartre’s
(1945/1989) dilemma concerning how much of one’s self-interest should be
compromised in one’s relationships with others. Forcing, obliging and avoidance each
presuppose incompatible agendas between the conflicting parties and tend to emerge in
situations in which one party’s gains correspond to another party’s losses.
Many researchers, however, believe that almost all conflicts in organizational
settings have a solution with which both parties will be satisfied. Janssen and Veenstra
(1999) indicate that highly interdependent parties often have relational qualities of
openmindedness that lead them to be better informed of each other’s positions, to hold
each other in higher regard, and to work toward solutions that are mutually beneficial.
In this type of situation, it is mutually beneficial for the parties to consciously maintain a
relational attitude of synchrony and connection.
In accord with this possibility, Blake and Mouton (1964) and Thomas (1976)
identify two strategies that take into account both a position of assertiveness—concern
for self—and cooperativeness—concern for other. The strategy that exhibits middlelevel
concern for self and middle-level concern for other is compromising (Follett, 1940;
Blake & Mouton, 1964; Thomas, 1976). Compromising is a cooperative strategy in
Deutsch’s (1973) scheme, parallels a solution-orientation in Putnam and Wilson (1982)
and problem-solving in Pruitt (1983). Folger, Poole, and Stutman (2001) refer to it as
“horse-trading” or “splitting the difference.” A person adopting this strategy is saying:
“I’m willing to give a little to get a little.” The problem with this strategy is that it is
vulnerable to power disparities and may be used by a more powerful party to dominate
the interaction (Rahim, Buntzman, & White, 1999).
The final, and what is considered the ideal strategy, is one defined by high
assertiveness or concern for self, and high cooperativeness, concern for other. Rahim
and Magner (1999) refer to this strategy as cooperative-integrative, Blake and Mouton
(1964) and Thomas (1976) as collaborating, Follett (1940) as integration, Putnam and
Wilson (1982) as solution-oriented, and Pruitt (1983) as problem-solving. This strategy
is defined by parties working together to reach a mutually satisfying solution. The
disadvantage to this approach is that it is time consuming and may be inappropriate for
situations in which no win-win solution is possible or when a quick decision must be
made (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001). A person using this strategy adopts the attitude:
“There is a resolution to this conflict that will meet both of our needs, we just need to
work to create it.”
Sternberg and Dobson (1987) take issue with the conflict-handling styles
approach and note that contemporary human relations studies use hypothetical conflict
scenarios developed a priori by the researcher and concern conflicts in structured (i.e.,
organizational) social settings. They note a trend in the research that points to a
discrepancy between what people imagine they would do in response to hypothetical
scenarios, and what they actually do in conflicts with friends, family members, and other
individuals. Participants have a tendency to imagine that they are fairer and more
cooperative in conflict situations than when observations are taken by external raters
(Sternberg & Dobson, 1987). Due to this discrepancy between belief and behavior,
Sternberg and Dobson propose a novel approach to understanding conflict-handling that
focuses on self-reported conflict behaviors and that connects behavioral preferences to
their consequences for ongoing relationships. These preferences, they argue, tend to be
far more consistent between hypothetical and real-life conflicts and are related strongly
to the way in which a person perceives a conflict situation.
In developing a list of conflict behaviors, Sternberg and Dobson (1987) had
participants write brief descriptions of real life conflicts and how these conflicts were
resolved. The particular behaviors that the investigators derived from these accounts
include putting financial pressure on the other party, using violence or threats, waiting
things out, lowering demands on the other, apologizing or negotiating a solution, among
others. This typology focuses on specific behaviors, rather than a general classification
of styles.
Davis, Capobianco, and Kraus (2004) also offer a model similar to Sternberg and
Dobson’s (1987) except they derive their conflict-handling behaviors from those
enumerated in professional and lay literatures on conflict resolution. These researchers
take issue with Blake and Mouton’s (1964) dual concerns model because of inherent
dynamism within conflict situations. In terms of conflict behaviors, the shifts make
sense; within the context of the human relations approach, however, such shifts seem
illogical or contradictory. For example, a particularly effective conflict strategy is to
initially present one’s objectives strongly, and then slowly become more cooperative as
the relationship develops and negotiation continues. To combine behaviors of
forcing/dominating with cooperation seems an odd contradiction in the abstract, but
makes perfect sense as a strategy in face-to-face conflict.
Theories Emphasizing Congruency in Self-Other Comparisons
The second major theme articulated in Nowell and Pollio (1991) concerns
participants being aware of comparing themselves to others. Comparison is significant
in conflict since recognized differences in beliefs, values or goals often contribute to
escalating or de-escalating a conflict (Cheldelin, Druckman, & Fast, 2003). Recognition
of difference is also a central aspect of ethnic, religious, cultural or other identity-group
based conflicts. In fact, an us/them mindset often permeates intergroup conflict, with
group schemas forming the basis of comparison (Bargal, 2004). With respect to
comparisons based on similarity, however, it has been noted that when disputants
recognize a common ground it represents a significant step toward mutual
problemsolving and integrative solution-seeking (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 1991). These
issues fall within the purview of what Slawski (1981) has classified as congruency
theories.
Within the context of conflict interactions there are two basic communicative
phases (Thomas, 1976). In one phase—differentiation—the parties escalate the conflict
and attempt to understand each other’s positions, to strategize concerning the other’s
position, and to emphasize differences between positions. Conflicts go through multiple
stages of increasing differentiation as different needs, positions, and strategies come into
play. In the integration phase that follows, parties begin to resolve the conflict by
emphasizing commonalities, seeking different options for solutions, and moving toward
a solution. If communication breaks down in this phase, it may serve to again initiate
differentiation (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001).
Gallo and Smith (1999) describe this process as a transactional cycle. This cycle
includes an assessment by both parties of the other’s overt behaviors, but also an
awareness of individual experiences of the self and inferences about the other’s
experience. So while this perspective looks toward relational dynamics, such dynamics
are explained in terms of an interplay of overt and covert processes and information
exchanges. These assessments concern social information that is assessed with respect
to differences and similarities between self and other. The movement from
differentiation to integration then is one of seeking congruity between one’s own internal
and external experience as well as between one’s self and the other party. It is important
to note that deception and information control may be key aspects of strategy in an
information exchange context.
In line with the approach of congruency theory, Eidelson and Eidelson (2003) have
identified five ‘distorted’ beliefs that individuals and cultural groups may endorse to
increase the potential for engagement in nonrealistic conflicts, i.e., conflicts that do not
have an integrative solution as a goal, but instead destruction of the opposing party.
The first of these is the belief in one’s own (or one’s group’s) superiority to others. At
the individual level, superiority beliefs serve to establish a “sense of specialness,
deservingness, and entitlement” (pg. 184). In its more negative manifestations,
superiority can cut a person off from meaningful interactions with others because of a
tendency toward judging them in a negative way. At the group level, this belief may
manifest in the group believing itself to be morally superior, chosen, entitled and/or
destined to a special role in the world—a belief that cross-cuts many cultural groups
and that may intensify intercultural and religious conflicts into “no negotiation, no
compromise” situations (Payne, 1995). A belief in superiority seems to be addressing
the question of ‘how am I or we different from other I’s and/or we’s?’ It addresses the
question of identity and of the boundary between self and other to establish the meaning
of having a particular identity. It may also create the situation of aggressively
defending this identity against perceived opposition and/or loss.
A second belief concerns perceived unjust treatment at the hands of others. For
the individual, this belief comes from the feeling of being mistreated by some specified
or non-specified other people or group. At the group level, this type of belief can
become particularly dangerous if it articulates grievances at another group, which may
have deep and at times legitimate historical roots. In one sense, such beliefs may be
positive because they increase solidarity within a group; they can also be negative
because they direct hostility against another group without taking into account changes
that may have occurred over time. It is the tension and resentment emerging from these
types of beliefs that may lead to genocidal violence and religious wars with incentives
varying from protection and safety to those of revenge. For individuals and groups, a
belief that the world is, or should be, just and fair is important for satisfactory
interactions with others and for assessing conflict processes and resolutions. The
violation of an individual’s or group’s belief in a just world may elicit intense emotions
and destructive actions. Vulnerability is a third “dangerous” belief Eidelson and
Eidelson (2003) enumerate. The belief that one’s group is vulnerable centers on the
feeling of being constantly threatened by dangers from outside. This type of belief may
lead individuals to act more aggressively than a situation may call for simply because
they perceive a threat as present or as greater than it may be. For the group that holds
this belief, it can consolidate aggression toward outsiders perceived to be a threat and
lead in-group members to proactively attack representatives of that group.
A fourth belief, distrust, leads the individual to expect others are intending to do
harm. At the group level, distrust can become what Eidelson and Eidelson (2003) refer
to as “collective paranoia.” This belief may lead groups to interpret the actions of other
groups as having malicious intent. The authors also note that this may create a cycle of
distrust that can make interpersonal and intergroup conflicts extremely complicated to
resolve.
The final of these beliefs concerns helplessness. This belief at the individual
level speaks to feelings of efficacy in actions producing useful outcomes. At the group
level, this belief can be associated with feelings of “powerlessness and dependency”
(Eidelson & Eidelson, 2003, pg. 187), which inevitably fosters feelings of resentment
and anger in both individuals and groups.
While existing at the level of private beliefs and interpretations, each of these
beliefs may increase the probability of a task or process oriented conflict becoming
person- and/or emotion-oriented. This shift may escalate the violent aspects of a conflict
and lead to an intractable spiral of escalation and distrust. The major threat that emerges
in such a situation is that it can result in the destruction of one or both of the conflicting
parties as neither is willing to seek a solution (Coser, 1956; Eidelson & Eidelson, 2003).
Perceptions of difference and all that it entails may contribute to creating
situations of nonrealistic conflict. Nonrealistic conflicts—such as those about issues of
racial or religious identity—are of significant concern to conflict researchers since these
often prove extraordinarily destructive and long-standing. Consider the events of the
Armenian Genocide in Turkey, the Holocaust in Nazi-occupied Europe, the
SerbianCroatian conflict, as well as the recent Tutsi Genocide by Rwandan Hutus as
examples of the negative outcomes of nonrealistic conflict. When individuals or groups
create impermeable physical or cognitive boundaries between themselves and others, the
situation can quickly become one in which nonrealistic conflict erupts. The ways in
which individuals in conflict come to understand each other’s social meaning and
objectives can have significant effects on the developing conflict dialogue.
Theories Emphasizing Rational Assessments of Utility/Benefit
The third theme reported by Nowell and Pollio (1991) concerns an awareness of
whether another benefits oneself. Evaluating benefit comprises calculations of utility as
well as feelings of satisfaction and annoyance. This theme speaks to the value-exchange
schemas that make intelligible many types of social relationships in the contemporary
world (cf. Fiske, 1992). When others are viewed as not benefiting the self, the potential
for conflict is increased; as a corollary, when others are viewed as benefiting the self, the
potential for conflict diminishes so long as the relationship involves reciprocity
(Cheldelin, Druckman, & Fast, 2003).
Value-exchanges are a central mode for understanding social relations, an
emphasis that highlights a rationalistic bias—the root word ‘ratio’ indicating numeric
calculation (Websters International 2nd Edition, 1955). Particularly distinct to this view
is that the social world consists of interactions between otherwise autonomous
individuals, each seeking to maximize his or her own claim on scarce resources, whether
or not this claim is to the detriment of others (McNamee & Gergen, 1999). The rational
actor— homo economicus—perceives and assesses conflict with an eye toward
utilitarian calculations of gains and losses, costs and benefits, strategic power moves and
manipulations (Miller & Bersoff, 1992). Western understanding thus tends toward
viewing relationships and social conflict in the context of an economic understanding of
value, exchange and competition.
From this perspective, themes of equity and equality in the distribution of
valuable resources within social groups speak to the significance of power, social rank
and identity in conflict relationships. Fiske (1992) has explored basic relational
templates, which he views as cognitive schemes used in “seeking, making, sustaining,
repairing, adjusting, judging, construing and sanctioning relationships” (pg. 689). The
first relational model, communal sharing, views each member within a relation as
equivalent based on some shared characteristic. The focus here is on commonalities,
rather than differences. Equivalences, however, may change and some individuals may
move in or out of the core social group. Under changing conditions, value systems
dictating how people should be treated may change with changes in communal roles and
social identities. Property exchange in this relation is fluid and open as all valuables are
owned by the group and each person contributes to and shares in the pooled resources.
Authority ranking is a second relational model (Fiske, 1992). This model
structures relationships hierarchically and makes relative power central to the
interaction. The relationship often centers on issues of control for the authority figure
and of protection and care for subordinates. Within this model, those who are in higher
status are accorded more positive characteristics, the higher-ranked being seen as ‘better’
than their subordinates. Superiors have freer access to resources but, in return for this
access, are responsible for protecting subordinates. Resources tend to be distributed
unequally, with authority figures receiving larger allocations.
The third model—equality-matching—focuses on relational balance, turn-taking
and one-to-one distribution of resources. In other words, what one person does to or for
you, you can and should do to or for them (Gouldner, 1960). The focus here concerns
social norms of reciprocity, egalitarian motives and ideas of having one’s actions
reciprocated by the other.
The fourth model—market pricing—bases relations on “cost-benefit ratios and
rational calculations of efficiency or expected utility” (Fiske, 1992, pg. 692). This
relational model may be considered as extending on equality matching. The concern is
an exchange of equal value between parties, rather than turn-taking or relational balance.
The market-pricing approach to social relations supports an idea of “investing” in a
relationship with an expectation of equivalent return. Contributions to the mutual
resources of the relationship are given a value, and it is this value that is considered in
assessing equivalency. Western culture tends toward authority-ranking and
marketpricing models in the public sphere, and toward equality matching and communal
sharing in the private sphere.
Both the experimental gaming and social exchange (a.k.a. cognitive exchange)
approaches emphasize utilitarian (cf. Bentham, 1789/1996), rational-interest (cf. Smith,
1759/2000) and/or market pricing (cf. Fiske, 1992) perspectives regarding conflict
behaviors. The central aspects of these approaches are that conflict involves (1)
interdependent parties (2) in situations where there is a possibility of reward or cost for
each party (Rapoport, 1960). According to this perspective, conflict behaviors can be
described and predicted on the assumption that each party acts to maximize its own
benefits and minimize its costs. In interdependent situations, considerations beyond
immediate benefit often enter the decision process, such as those intended to maintain an
emotionally fulfilling relationship (cf. Deutsch, 1973). Essentially, both experimental
gaming and social exchange are rooted in microeconomic theories of human behavior,
with experimental gaming serving as an experimental operationalization of social
exchange theory (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001).
According to the assumption of rational self-interest, parties are viewed as being
in conflict when one party perceives the other as a cause of an unsatisfactory ratio of
cost to benefit. In other words, the other party is viewed as interfering with the motive
to maximize one’s own benefit. These rewards and costs can be thought of in terms of
resources of actual value, such as money, or of perceived value, such as esteem, love,
information, etc. The less interdependent the relationship between the parties in conflict,
the more likely they will be to pursue their own agenda without concern for the other’s
outcomes; with increasing interdependence, however, parties will attempt to reach
outcomes that meet the needs of both (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001).
The origins of an experimental gaming approach are often attributed to Von
Neumann and Morgenstern’s (1947) mathematical decision theory—which involves
estimating the probabilities of different decisions with respect to various cost-benefit
conditions. Later social scientists, such as Thibaut and Kelly (1959), developed the
condition of an interdependent opponent within decision theory mathematics. This
allowed researchers to utilize the mathematical techniques of decision theory in the
context of conflict research (Schellenberg, 1996). Four basic assumptions guide this
approach: (1) outcomes result from the choices and actions of both parties (i.e.,
interdependence), (2) outcomes can be represented in terms of number (i.e.,
quantification), (3) parties can anticipate each possible outcome relative to each possible
action (i.e., exhaustiveness), and (4) each party seeks to maximize its own interests
(Rapoport, 1960).
While quantification and exhaustiveness pose the most serious problems when
applying this approach in everyday life, the assumptions do allow researches to study
controlled conflict situations through laboratory experimentation. Schellenberg (1996)
has noted that many general principles of game theory can be recognized in everyday
life, particularly when parties interact strategically. As strategies guide conflict
behaviors, an understanding of what parties do and what the outcomes of their actions
may be is extraordinarily important both within and outside the laboratory context.
Kelly and Thibaut (1978) note a similar parallel in that many early conflict behaviors in
the differentiation phase may be interpreted as parties testing each other to discover the
parameters of the conflict situation and whether they should opt for cooperative or
competitive strategies. This is in accord with what was suggested in the demand-testing
and power-balancing phases addressed in stage theories of conflict (discussed by Morley
& Stevenson, 1977; Pondy, 1967; Rummel, 1976).
Three types of games are in common use: matrix games, negotiation games, and
coalition games. Matrix games are the simplest form. Negotiation games often involve
participants negotiating a legal case, the price of some item, or some similar scenario.
Coalition games involve participants forming groups to develop an advantage over some
opponent. Games are composed of a limited set of available options and various
mutually-determined consequences or pay-offs associated with the rational choices of
each player (Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001).
Six basic characteristics define games (Schellenberg, 1996). The first
consideration is how many parties are involved in the conflict—two-person, or dyadic,
games are the most simple; n-person games increase the number of players and the
complexity of mathematics involved in representing the possible outcome matrix for the
game.
A second consideration is the number of choices available to the parties. In the
simplest form of the game, the researcher is dealing with two parties who have two
choices—to cooperate with each other or not. The outcomes for this type of game are
represented in a 2x2 matrix and are referred to as a “2-by-2” game.
Third, is the nature of the utilities or resources in dispute. It is necessary for the
approach to work that resources hold the same, or very similar, value for each player.
Often, time or money is used as the resource in contention as these are assumed to have
equivalent meaning to players. Some researchers, such as Rapoport (1960), developed a
rank order method for assessing possible outcomes, rather than attaching a particular
value to the resource.
Fourth is the type of conflict-of-interest built into the game scenario. Zero-sum
games create an oppositional situation in which one party’s losses are exactly equivalent
to the other party’s gains, with losses and gains in a perfect negative correlation. In
games of pure-cooperation, each party’s outcomes are equivalent—which leads to no
opposition and no conflict. All other games are called mixed-motive because parties are
motivated to both cooperate and compete to maximize outcomes.
The fifth consideration concerns whether or not the game has a point of
equilibrium. Equilibrium is related to the degree of interdependence in the consequences
of the choices made by the parties playing the game—that is, the effects that each of
their choices will have on their mutual outcomes. The final consideration is the context
of the game. Contextual considerations include the completeness of the information
available to parties, whether or not they can communicate with each other before making
choices, and whether or not agreements between the parties can be enforced
(Schellenberg, 1996).
One famous example of an experimental game is the Prisoner’s Dilemma Game
(Luce & Riaffa, 1957; cf. Smith, 1987). In the Prisoner’s Dilemma, participants are
given a scenario in which they have been arrested for a crime and have been separated
from their accomplice. They are interrogated about the hypothetical crime and are given
two possible choices: (1) not to confess or (2) to confess. If one party confesses and the
other does not, then the party that does not confess gets a maximum prison sentence and
the confessing party goes free. If both parties do not confess, they both get minimum
sentences. If both parties confess, they both get medium length sentences. If a
participant decides based on his or her own interests, the tendency will be to confess—as
confession will yield either no sentence or a medium-length sentence. If a participant
decides based on their interdependent interests as accomplices, the tendency will be to
not confess as this will yield a minimal sentence for both participants, given that the
other participant also takes into consideration their mutual interests (Pruitt & Kimmel,
1977; Smith, 1987). A consistent finding in this scenario is that participants tend to fall
into a consistent pattern of responding—either cooperative or competitive based on the
first few moves of the game, as the reciprocity norm for the relationship becomes
established (Platt, 1973).
Braver and Rohrer (1978) found that within the experimental paradigm of the
Prisoner’s Dilemma Game, cooperation typically occurs less than 30% of the time, but
when strategies such as tit-for-tat (1-to-1 reciprocity) are utilized, cooperation can
increase to up to 50%. They also found that when individuals observe another individual
playing the PDG, they learn more effective responding at a quicker rate than when
directly involved in the game. This finding suggests that when a participant is not
directly involved in conflict there is less ego-involvement when the other party fails to
reciprocate and less concern about issues of face and reputation. Direct involvement in
the conflict situation leads to a narrowed focus for the actor and less effective
responding.
Another famous conflict simulation is the Trucking Game developed by Deutsch
and Krauss (1960) to study the effects of threat on bargaining between parties with
directly conflicting interests. In this game, each participant is put in charge of a trucking
company and participants play through a series of trials in which they choose between
two routes between a start and a finish point. The shortest route is only a single lane,
and participants must share this route to minimize the amount of time it takes to make
their way between the two points. If one participant’s truck makes it to this lane first and
the other truck also enters the lane, either one must yield to the other and then reverse
out of the lane. If the lane is cleared one must wait for the other to pass, or he or she can
block the lane and force the other to yield, which may result in a standoff. The other
option is to take an alternate route that takes more time to complete, and results in a
lower payoff.
Deutsch and Krauss (1960) added a complication to this scenario to test for the
effect of threat by installing a gate that can block the short route and may be operated by
one or both participants. This addition results in three conditions of threat: no threat,
unilateral threat, and bilateral threat. Deutsch and Krauss found that bilateral threat
conditions decreased payoffs for both players as well as increased the time it took for the
players to complete their trials. The unilateral threat condition was found to have a
negative effect on payoffs and time to complete task. Only in the no threat condition did
participants yield maximum profits. By utilizing this game structure, the researchers
were able to use an experimental game to operationalize one of the main aspects of
power in conflict relations—the ability to coerce an opponent using threat and to have
the ability to follow through on the threat.
Economic exchange and game theory models of self-other relationships in
situations of conflict are primarily based on calculations of utility or benefit. The social
circumstances from which these understandings come to us develop in the 16th, 17th, and
18th centuries and form the basis of rationalist and utilitarian philosophies. This model
of social relations in conflict is powerful for developing experimental analogs for social
conflict, but does not seem to allow us to address its human meaning.
Conflict and the Perspective of Human Experience
This section offers a significant shift from the perspective of looking at conflict
as the observer-scientist studies it in experimental situations to that of understanding the
human meaning of conflict for individuals. While at this point one may be tempted to
apply a utility model to Goffman’s (1959) understanding of face as a type of social
currency that can be gained, saved or lost, we should return for a moment to the earlier
discussion of face.
Face is our ability to claim a particular role vis-à-vis others within a particular
interaction, and have the other accept our claim. In that sense it is not a commodity, but
a claim to social meaning within a role relationship. Pollio (1982) notes the
etymological root for ‘person’ is ‘persona,’ a word that means ‘mask’ and that derives
from Greek theatre. The metaphors of face and persona speak to the socially intelligible
image we present to others when we enact roles together in public life. Together, we
maintain each other’s sense of identity, predictability, morality, reputation and so on,
with the understanding that others will do the same for us, i.e., reciprocate. What is at
stake here is how we create and maintain human meaning in an exchange of dialogue,
rather than how we exchange value, engaging in instrumental relations and calculating
our social behavior with an eye toward maximizing utility. As Levinas (1969) noted,
face does not and cannot exist for us as a commodity to be possessed and consumed, as
the concreteness of another’s face in the social world is the basis of our moral
conscience and our social meaning (Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Mead, 1934).
Whether what we maintain is a constructed reality or complicit illusion, the
expectation that it will be jointly maintained is an undeniable rule of social life. Recent
theorists seek an alternative to the rational actor or exchange-relation understanding of
social interaction. McNamee and Gergen (1999) argue that it is in face-to-face
interactions with others that we come to understand the social reality of conflict and
when we accept a shared responsibility for what comes of our interaction, we find a
social world we have together created and that we jointly can maintain or change. Often,
however, everyday experience proves an extraordinarily complicated venture.
Exchange, Reciprocity and Social Identity
Many conflicts emerge in situations when personal expectations go unfulfilled,
particularly when tied to esteem, identity or emotional concerns. Hawthorne (1989) has
referred to the experience of a violation of relational expectations as a breach, and
Rowe, Halling, Davies, Leifer, Powers, and van Bronkhurst (1989) as an injury. An
expectation that underlies much of social interaction is the belief that a person helps and
does not hurt those who have helped them. Gouldner (1960) argues that a reciprocity
norm is the unstated expectation whose violation or fulfillment is significant in
escalating or deescalating conflict (cf. Osgood, 1966).
A conflict may escalate when one party makes a conciliatory gesture and the
other does not respond in kind. By not responding to a good faith gesture, the party who
initially made gesture may feel maligned and hence justified in forcing reciprocity
(Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2001). Forced reciprocity, or compensation, includes
interpersonal themes of “getting even and/or balancing the scales,” “teaching the other a
lesson,” or “saving face and/or getting back one’s respect” and is an all too familiar
human experience (McCullough, Bellah, Kilpatrick, & Johnson, 2001). The violation is
one that breaks the pattern of reciprocity assumed to constitute good faith in social
relationships that serve as an existential ground stabilizing our personal and social
identities.
Hawthorne’s (1989) breach is defined as a dramatic and harmful change in the
quality of an interpersonal relationship. Hawthorne gives some examples: a polite social
relationship suddenly disrupted by a rude comment, a fiancée breaking an engagement, a
person expressing anger at God. In a phenomenological study of reparation—the act of
repairing broken relationships—the breach served as the ground that made meaningful
any attempts at repair. There are three themes define the breach: a change in self, other
or the relationship; attributions of responsibility; and feeling urgency to respond and
emotional distress. Each one will be discussed in turn.
In Hawthorne’s (1989) study, many participants reported that after a breach, they
became aware of a significant change having taken place in their understanding of self,
the other person, and/or their relationship. This theme of change specifies an experience
of time that splits events into a time ‘before’ the breach, when the relationship was one
of friends, lovers, etc., and ‘after’ the breach, when the self and other take on roles of
victim and injurer/perpetrator. Often this split in time defines a particular moment in
which irreparable harm was inflicted by an injurer/perpetrator on the narrator of the
account who takes on the perspective of victim. This split into two roles, and two
perspectives, indicates a break in time and an interpersonal break, a social distance or
barrier emerging subsequent to the breach. This theme speaks to relational intimacy
becoming a rift, and a relationship moving from one of connection to one of distance and
alienation.
A phenomenological study of forgiveness indicated that a social injury of this
type elicits a need to reestablish the self outside the context of the relationship that was
damaged (Rowe et al., 1989). An individual may be able to come to terms with the
injury but still feel a sense of resentment if the perpetrator/injurer has not apologized. In
this period ‘after’ the breach, many victims wish for reconciliation and believe that the
responsible party could one day be different thus making reconciliation possible. Many
report ruminating on the injury, feeling hurt and angry and wondering what the
implications of the injury are in their larger life context. Over time, this initial
interpretation concerning the injurer’s intent is questioned and draws in for the victim an
issue of his or her own culpability for the injury. Often the victim seeks to understand
the rationale behind injurer’s behavior before he or she is able to forgive the
transgression.
Hawthorne’s (1989) theme of change is further supported by Rowe et al. (1989) in
terms of the experience of a “disruption to the wholeness or integrity of one’s life” (pg.
239). Rowe et al. add that participants alter their imagined future in that what had been
anticipated within the relationship that has now been lost. A future disrupted by the
relational injury is felt to be an injury to the self. It is an injury of an existential sort and
the person’s future-orientation is dramatically altered after the breach. In accord with this
experience, the psychoanalyst Adler (1998) maintains that an individual’s experienced
sense of meaning and self-value comes out of his or her orientation toward an imagined
future. When a person’s imagined future is no longer tenable, he or she is forced to
reevaluate who and what they are, and where they are going—this can prove
extraordinarily distressing. As close relationships serve to establish a sense of coherence
and continuity for personal identity, a significant disruption in a close relationship—due
to a break-up or a death—may parallel a disruption in one’s sense of self and in one’s
anticipated future (McNamee & Gergen, 1999).
One notable aspect to these accounts is that they are often narrated from the
victim’s perspective (cf. Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1990; Xie, Swift, Cairns, &
Cairns, 2004; Zhang, 2004). This pattern of narration was noted across cultural contexts
and concerned situations in which the events made a distressing challenge to the self.
With a dramatic change in a relationship brought about by a violation of expectations,
trust and security both in the victim’s experience of self and in the relationship are
undermined. The perpetrator, however, may not even realize that a transgression has
occurred (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1990). Narrative perspective is highly
significant in understanding the meaning of different accounts of the same social event,
as the victim and perpetrator narrate in vastly different ways what are ostensibly the
same circumstances (Kellett & Dalton, 2001). Baumeister, Stillwell, and Wotman
(1990) conclude that “[v]ictims and perpetrators may be understanding things
differently, but they do not seem to acknowledge that they understand them differently”
(pg. 1000).
This difference in perspective may be understood in terms of social roles adopted
and transformed in situations that move from injury and breach, to amends-making and
forgiveness. When someone has injured us we expect that he or she will come to
understand it from our perspective. Without this understanding, how can he or she
honestly acknowledge the wrongdoing and make amends? The differences in narrative
structure that Baumeister, Stillwell, and Wotman (1990) describe may relate to social
scripts and the accompanying interpretations of events defining the roles of victim and
perpetrator. This interpretation of victim and perpetrator narratives seems to accord with
Goffman’s (1951) study of the challenge to self-understanding presented to the victim of
a confidence game.
Goffman (1951) found that when a person’s sense of self had been violated by
being victimized in a confidence game, the person suffered a distressing loss of
selfworth and felt at risk for losing positive social identity. The social role of victim
would normally offer a moral high-ground for the mark to adopt socially vis-à-vis the
perpetrator, except for some unusual characteristics of the confidence game. A
confidence game often makes its “victim” complicit in his or her own victimization.
Often this criminal-mark relationship calls for complicity in some violation of morality
or of an esteemed social principle. This leaves the victim in a threatening position of
others potentially seeing him or her as stupid (for being manipulated), greedy and/or
deserving of victimization. The threat to self presented in the aftermath of a confidence
game intensifies the potential for revenge-seeking by victims. In fact, revenge often
seems the only recourse available to the victim to maintain a sense of esteem.
Revenge presents a serious threat to the criminal; thus a common practice allows
the mark to regain face. An authority figure, or another person the victim respects,
allows the mark to reestablish a sense of social identity by playing down the mark’s
complicity in the confidence game. Goffman (1951) points out that the process of
“cooling a mark out” emerges in many areas of social life. Events such as calling-off an
engagement, informing a spouse of one’s intent to divorce, or asking a colleague for a
resignation require techniques of ‘cooling.’ Cooling, he claims, is a protective social
activity allowing an individual to adjust to events that have dramatically altered his or
her self-understanding and social identity.
In other situations, cultural beliefs and practices may contribute to the
dichotomization of social roles into victim and perpetrator subsequent to injury. In a
study of inter-generational conflict in the People’s Republic of China, Zhang (2004)
notes that the norm of filial piety is associated with an authoritarian moralism in which
young people are obliged to respect and obey elders, and elders are obligated to practice
“tough love.” The rejection of filial piety by the young and the elder’s obligation to
practice tough love leaves the elder in a position of being perceived as the instigator of
conflict as he or she feels expected to enter into a punishing role. Further, adoption of
the victim role may confer greater social power among the victim’s peers.
In Xie, Swift, Cairns and Cairns’s (2004) study of middle-school students’
narrative accounts of aggression, most accounts assign responsibility to another person
and tend to diminish the narrator’s culpability. Baumeister, Stillwell, and Wotman’s
(1990) also found that victim narratives tend to emphasize the long-term consequences
of the harm committed against them and that victims often explain that the perpetrator
did not care that his or her actions caused so much emotional pain. Perpetrator accounts
tended to isolate the transgressive event in time and to explain its causes in terms of
external influences, situational factors and to portray the victim as overreacting to a
minor provocation (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1990).
It is arguable that the social role of victim confers a sense of moral superiority.
Understanding one’s self as the victim, however, can intensify conflict and complicate
resolution by locating responsibility in the other party. We noted earlier Eidelson and
Eidelson’s (2003) contention that superiority beliefs may serve to establish a “sense of
specialness, deservingness, and entitlement” and that this has the effect of disrupting
meaningful interactions between disputants, as the other (the perpetrator) is disallowed a
voice (Eidelson & Eidelson, 2003, pg. 184). This type of belief can escalate conflicts
into “no negotiation, no compromise” situations (Payne, 1995). A belief in superiority
seems to accentuate perceived differences and to establish an interpersonal boundary
between the self (victim) and other (perpetrator) and this situation is made worse when
both parties perceive themselves the victim—which often seems the case.
Responding to the Shock of Violated Norms
The victim role introduces a paradoxical set of social and cognitive effects that
allow a destabilized self to find or develop a sense of stability after a breach. The role of
victim mixes a sense of moral righteousness and entitlement with a simultaneous sense
of social vulnerability and helplessness. In the criminal world, norms of reciprocity are
frequently violated when resources are obtained under the pretense of a relationship and
the criminal has no intent of reciprocating (Goffman, 1951). By being conned in the
relationship, “the mark is a person who has compromised himself, in his own eyes if not
in the eyes of others” (pg. 452).
The failure of the criminal/injurer/perpetrator to reciprocate, when this action is
expected, is a demeaning social experience. Not having lost a sense of anger and
righteousness, yet being denied the benefits of the victim role, the mark is left feeling
extraordinarily vulnerable to further social attacks and censure. Vulnerability centers on
a feeling of threat. In feeling threatened a person will tend to engage in more defensive
behaviors, even in response to a perceived threat that is not present or is of a lesser
degree than experienced (Eidelson & Eidelson, 2003). While a group holding this belief
can consolidate to protect itself against threats, an individual has no such recourse except
by appropriating the victim role. A person may also come to feel helpless in this
situation. As Eidelson and Eidelson (2003) note, a sense of helplessness often relates to
feelings of powerlessness and loss of control. For some, this may intensify an
experience of anger, especially since most social circumstances disallow forced
reciprocation (Thomas, 2003). In a grounded theory study of intractable conflict
situations, Horton-Deutsch and Horton (2003) report that the initial stages of a conflict
often carry an inchoate feeling that something is wrong; the individual feels “shunned,
frustrated, demoralized, and ‘put in their place’” and may express safety concerns, but is
not sure what to make of the relational situation (Horton-Deutsch & Horton, 2003, pg.
188). An individual will often try out various problem-solving strategies to ameliorate
the emerging conflict situation. Here, there is heavy reliance on previous experience
with conflicts and often a failure to recognize the unique aspects of the intractable
situation.
In an intractable conflict, however, no strategies bring about a reestablishment of
relational norms. The victim begins to question his or her own social competence and
ability to make sense of what is happening, i.e., his or her sense of efficacy is challenged
and he or she feels helpless, powerless and vulnerable. One participant describes: “She
was impossible. Nothing worked. It was like I was beating my head against a brick
wall.
I just couldn’t do anything to get through to this person” (Horton-Deutsch & Horton,
2003, pg. 190).
A violation of expected relational norms leads to a powerful social need to assign
responsibility for the transgression. Within Western culture, with its emphasis on
subjective agency, the interpersonal actions of individuals are perceived to originate in
the mind of the individual (McNamee & Gergen, 1999). Victim and perpetrator roles
allow for assignment of responsibility and hence specify the social actor and the social
act needed for reparation (Hawthorne, 1989). From the perspective of Hawthorne’s
(1989) participants, for example, a breached relationship necessarily entails the social
roles of injurer/perpetrator and victim. Participants sometimes describe a desire to
attribute responsibility for the breach to him or her self; more often this blame is leveled
at the other person (Hawthorne, 1989; Rowe et al., 1989).
It has been argued that individual rather than relational attributions of
responsibility are philosophically problematical from the social constructivist
perspective (e.g., McNamee & Gergen, 1999); however, it is an attribution that
nonetheless makes sense to participants in how they experience a breach. For most
participants in Hawthorne’s (1989/1997) study of reparation, the act of repairing a
relationship is made possible by the injurer/perpetrator accepting and acknowledging
responsibility for the breach. In other words, the perpetrator must acknowledge and
affirm the perspective of the victim in order to be redeemed and thereby repair the
breach.
In the Baumeister, Stillwell, and Wotman (1990) study, qualitative differences
between victim and perpetrator accounts related to the perceived comprehensibility of
the transgression and its effect on victims’ lives—both when written from the victim and
perpetrator’s perspectives. Accounts written from the victim perspective tended to
emphasize the immorality and incomprehensibility of the perpetrator’s transgression, and
that it took a long time before the they were able to fully express anger at the perpetrator
—with this anger often expressed with respect to multiple transgressions—and that the
event has had significant and lasting negative consequences. Perpetrators, however,
tended to portray the transgression as understandable given the situation—often out of
his or her control—and to deny any long-term consequences for the victim. The entire
transaction of meaning appears to center on the victim and the meaning of this
perspective.
It seems that in both perpetrator and victim accounts, narrators do make a claim
that the other has treated them unjustly and thus it seems that both victim and perpetrator
cast themselves as victims and perpetrators of sorts. They do this since they feel singled
out and are seeking to right what they perceive as wrong—whether the ‘wrong’ is an
injurious act or an ‘overreaction’ to something that really was not the perpetrator’s fault.
A correlate belief that emerges from experiencing one’s self to have been treated unjustly
by others is that of distrust (Eidelson & Eidelson, 2003). Distrust leads to an expectation
of further harm and may lead one to interpret others’ actions as being more hostile than
intended. When parties come to distrust one another it sets up a recursive lack of trust
that may make the conflict intractable.
Emotional Experiences in Conflict: Frustration and Anger
It has long been recognized that among the more salient phenomena of conflict
are experiences of frustration and anger. Frustration and anger, in a rationalistic culture,
are an indication of a loss of control over one’s self and one’s situation (Thomas, 2003).
Emotional responses to social conflict, including frustration, anger and aggression have
been considerably researched in psychology (cf. Fromm, 1973; and the 1941 special
issue of Psychological Review, 48, including papers by Hartman, Maslow and others).
The unusual character of anger in a conflict experience is captured in Lorenz’s (1966)
description, discussed by Fromm in The Anatomy of Human Destructiveness (1973):
A shiver runs down the back and … along the outside of both arms. One soars elated,
above all the ties of everyday life, one is ready to abandon all for the call of what, in the
moment of this specific emotion, seems to be a sacred duty. All obstacles in its path
become unimportant; the instinctive inhibitions against hurting or killing one’s fellows
lose, unfortunately, much of their power . . . . As a Ukrainian proverb says: “When the
banner is unfurled, all reason is in the trumpet” (Lorenz, 1966 as in Fromm, 1973, pg.
25).
When anger is taken to an extreme, individuals may be absorbed by the
immediate concerns of conflict, losing sight of ordinary life—an experience Lorenz
(1966) has called militant enthusiasm. When “all reason is in the trumpet,” the
destructive potential of social conflict is palpable. Individuals abandon the rules, beliefs,
and concerns structuring social life and maintaining civil relations. In breaking away
from modes of civil social interaction, conflict has the potential to be among the most
destructive forces in society (Deutsch, 1973). In individual lives as well, conflict may
serve as a major source of stress and upheaval (Frone, 2000).
Understanding the experience of anger is an important aspect of face-to-face
conflict. While anger between conflicting parties is often observable in terms of overtly
hostile words and actions, covert anger may also be present in ‘cold’ conflicts, reflecting
a build-up of long-term resentment between the disputants (Sandra Thomas, personal
communication, April 2006). Phenomenological studies of male and female experiences
of anger have been conducted by Thomas, Smucker, and Droppleman (1998) and
Thomas (2003). Comparing the findings of these studies, Thomas (2003) notes that men
often detach themselves from the emotional experience of anger and from the person,
object or situation that has elicited anger, and tend to discuss the experience in abstract
and generic terms. Women, however, often specify the person, object, or situation that
has made them angry and seek relationship-oriented ways to talk about and/or express
anger. Thomas believes that these differences are likely due to differences in the
socialization of men and women—men having been inculcated with a mechanistically-
oriented worldview and women, a relationally-oriented worldview. Thomas also notes
that men tend to report isolating themselves from others when angry, trying to work
through their feelings alone. For men, there is often a fear that anger will become
uncontrollable if they remain in the anger-eliciting situation and that this will lead to
physical aggression.
Unlike other problem-solving situations, seeking a resolution to intractable
conflict will never provide a sense of closure for the individual. Lack of closure leaves
the individual with a feeling of urgently needing to complete that which is incomplete
(cf. Dunker, 1945; Pollio, 1982). Adopting the stance of victim as a way of repairing
one’s social identity is a step toward resolving the conflict experience for the self,
although the person often feels a powerful need to resolve the conflict with the other.
One’s sense of social competence and efficacy hinges on being able to have some effect
in the situation. Hawthorne’s (1989) theme of urgency is primarily emotional, referring
to feelings of agitation and anger. Urgency serves to worsen the experience of breach by
introducing anger and hostility or a sense of sadness and loss that may compel actions to
make amends to lessen emotional pain. Frustration and anger tend to be among the most
disconcerting aspects of experiences of social conflict.
It seems that a sense of urgency, as reported in Hawthorne’s (1989) study, and its
relation to experiences of agitation and anger are perhaps different for men and women
(as in Thomas, 2003); however, the force of urgency to seek to make amends or come to
terms with the breach is clear in experiences of reparation. Coming to terms with the
breach is described in terms of retaliating against the injurer, maintaining distance from
the injurer, a.k.a. ‘retaining’, or setting about repairing the relationship. Retaliation, as
an impulsive and hostile act, tends to intensify the breach and further damage the
relationship. One participant reports a justification for retaliation: “I want to hurt you
‘cause I’m hurt” (see Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997, pg. 211). In retaliation, the
focus is on avenging oneself and there is little concern for the future consequences of
escalation.
Retaining is the act of keeping interpersonal distance from the injurer because the
situation is perceived as intractable or one may still feel hurt. In retaining, the passage
of time typically is reported to lessen emotional pain; however, a few participants
reported that not addressing the breach increased emotional pain and stress. The third
and final response concerns repairing the relationship. Often making apologies and
shifting focus to making amends in the relationship bring this about. Hawthorne (1989)
reports that repairing is never an impulsive action, like retaliating or retaining can be,
and occurs only after a significant ‘cooling off’ period.
In response to a violated expectation or breached relationship, one possible
response is that of retaliation and aggression. Since violated expectations challenge
one’s sense of self and one’s sense of the future, Goffman (1951) notes that the blow-off
has the effect of shocking the victim. A victim in shock may act impulsively and
aggressively to retaliate against the criminal who perpetrated the confidence game.
Goffman describes ‘cooling the mark out’ as a social process that allows the mark to
regain a sense of self, and thus lessen the threat of revenge. A cooler is a person usually
known to the mark and is often an authority figure. The cooler may allow the mark to
express his or her anger about the situation, to ‘blow his [or her] top.’ Often, the cooler
persuades the mark that the situation could have happened to anyone and that it does not
indicate anything negative about the mark. Cooling the mark out brings the victim from
an experience of shock to an active engagement in recreating his or her social identity.
Thus, ‘cooling’ lessens the threat of violence.
Often violence emerges because victims do not perceive an alternative means to
regain a sense of self or respect from others after a breach. Violence is a means of
establishing physical control over a threat. In some social groups, however, the ability to
handle one’s self well in a violent situation is a point of prestige, being tied to notions of
sexual stereotypes, social respect and deference. In these social groups, the expression
of violence is a tolerated if not accepted behavioral norm (Benson & Archer, 2002).
Another way that violated or breached relationships are responded to is by the
individual walking away from the relationship. In Horton-Deutsch and Horton (2003)
exit was the only viable strategy for individuals caught in an intractable conflict, and it
allowed them to reassert control over their lives in the absence of the conflict. Issues of
regaining power and control in situations of breach is important for diminishing anger
and other negative emotional experiences surrounding the conflict.
Regaining and/or Maintaining Power and Control
In Thomas’s (2003) phenomenological investigation of anger, asserting or
regaining power and control were significant themes for both men and women. For
women, the experience of anger is often connected to a feeling of being powerless to
bring about reciprocity in a relationship. For men, the experience surrounds a feeling of
having lost control in a situation that is ‘wrong’ or ‘unfair.’ When men feel controlled
both by the situation and their anger, they often report exiting to regain control. Thomas
(2003) discusses the theme of control in relation to a mechanistic worldview that
emphasizes being able to do something to “fix the situation.”
When a situation is not reparable, participants in Horton-Deutsch and Horton’s
(2003) study report exiting the situation to reassert control and regain emotional and
cognitive equilibrium, “freeing themselves of the burden” of the intractable situation
(Horton-Deutsch & Horton, 2003, pg. 190). Participants report feeling empowered by
choosing to exit and beginning to anticipate a new future for themselves: “It’s time to put
this behind me and move on” (pg. 191). Many participants in Horton-Deutsch and
Horton (2003) reported developing strategies for managing social stress, such as setting
boundaries and making self-protective rules: “I will never lie but never share more of
myself than is necessary” (pg. 191). In regaining cognitive and emotional control, they
no longer “buy into” what the other person thinks or says about them.
Acts of Forgiving and Letting Go
Reparation—the act of repairing relationships— is a central activity in resolving
social conflict. While Hawthorne (1989) focused on the experience of reparation, he
found that when interviewing participants many would detail the particular transgression
or offense that led to the need for reparation. One significant consequence of conflict is
that it can both damage our connection to others and make possible the renewal and
strengthening of formerly broken connections. Processes of reparation and forgiveness
allow conflicts to pass into new periods of relational harmony.
The philosopher Hannah Arendt (1958) has argued that making and accepting
apologies is a fundamental social activity for maintaining cohesion in social groups as it
helps to maintain a future-orientation in the group by erasing past transgressions. Others
have noted that forgiving, and having an ability to forgive, is beneficial to individual
well-being and thus is an important concern in social and health psychology (cf. Lawler,
Younger, Piferi, Jobe, Edmondson, & Jones, 2005).
Compared with Hawthorne’s study, the Rowe et al. (1989) study of the human
meaning of forgiveness tends to assume a priori a theme of breach in the question asked
of participants: “Can you tell us about the time during an important relationship when
something happened such that forgiving the other became an issue for you?” (Italics
mine). Rowe et al. describe forgiveness as: “a process that begins when one person
perceives oneself as harmed by another and ends in a psychological, if not face-to-face,
reconciliation with the one who was perceived as harmful” (pg. 239). This definition
highlights two key themes that emerged in Hawthorne’s study of reparation:
responsibility is present in perceiving oneself to be harmed by another, urgency is
suggested in the possibility of psychological and/or face-to-face reconciliation.
When the injurer/perpetrator’s behavior has been construed in such a way as to
seem reasonable, the individual is better able to “let go” of their hurt, although still
tending to experience pangs of anger and pain (Rowe et al., 1989). Participants reported
that the experience of forgiveness finally ‘came as a gift’ and appeared ‘like a
revelation,’ suddenly freeing them of the all-too-familiar hurt and anger they had been
harboring toward the injurer. A participant describes this culminating experience of
forgiveness:
I knew at last that home was where I was. The past was no longer menacing . . . the
future was no longer foreboding . . . . I was no longer adrift in a sea of chaos but at the
helm in a world that welcomed me. I felt joy (pg. 243).
Once forgiveness has come, anger and hurt no longer are directed at the
injurer/perpetrator. Instead, one’s personal pain is understood in the context of “pain
shared with other human beings” as one experiences a renewed connection to the world
of others, and a feeling that the injury has taken on a deeper, more profound, meaning in
the scheme of one’s life (Rowe et al., 1989, pg. 242). What seems so unusual about this
account of forgiveness is that it is not a conscious act, but something that emerges from
the situation of injury, violation or breach. It is primarily a private experience to have
forgiven someone, rather than a public acceptance of an apology and amends-making.
The Perpetrator’s Perspective and the Problem of Evil
Most available research on forgiveness, reparation, or interpersonal anger is
based on accounts narrated from the victim’s perspective. In Baumeister, Stillwell, and
Wotman (1990) accounts written from the perpetrator’s perspective were sought, but
these typically detailed minor transgressions when compared to those detailed in
accounts written from the victim’s perspective. Qualitative studies need to be conducted
concerning the perpetrator’s perspective in situations of transgression or conflict that are
based on non-clinical and non-incarcerated populations.
Some psychological research addresses the perspective of the perpetrator, but
often this concerns extreme violations of moral order, i.e., what would be considered in
some contexts as ‘evil.’ Psychologists have located evil in individuals, in the social
world, in behavior, in language—basically, nowhere and everywhere. One aspect of
human evil is clear, however: we become aware of it in harmful acts (Staub, 2004) that
demean, dehumanize, destroy, or kill innocent people (Zimbardo, 2004). Magnitude,
duration, and repetition of the act, and choice and responsibility on the part of
perpetrators and bystanders are definitional factors that seem open to debate. Waller
(2002) sees the perpetrator as having made a choice. Zimbardo (2004) and Staub (2004)
claim that the choice may not always be apparent or, from the perspective of the
perpetrator, may seem limited. Babic (2004) complicates the issue by pointing out that
many perpetrators actually have chosen to act in a way that seems morally good to them
and is justifiable within their particular ideological system. Each perspective on choice
or intent would beg the question of accountability.
In Baumeister, Stillwell, and Wotman (1990), perpetrators described situations in
which they angered someone. In these accounts, they acknowledge committing an act
that injured or breached a relationship but often attribute their actions to situational or
other external circumstances. This pattern of attribution is found in other, more extreme,
accounts of the perpetrator’s perspective, such as in the trial testimony of Nazi war
criminal Eichmann commented on by Arendt (1964). Eichmann viewed himself as
diligently “following orders” and, in an extraordinary rationalization, claimed he was
“helping” European Jews by overseeing the logistics of deportation to Palestine before
death camps began operating in Europe.
Arendt (1964) makes what was and still remains a controversial claim:
Eichmann’s humanity was lost in a system that seemed to indefinitely defer ordinary
moral accountability and humane responsibility. It was the Nazi government that he
believed was the locus of his actions. Arendt agreed: in some ways it was, in other
ways, it certainly was not. The case Arendt makes is that Eichmann is no different from
many other people in the highly mechanized and bureaucratic modern world—both
within and outside the Nazi state. Any hierarchical system can strip personal autonomy
and accountability. When one acquiesces to making oneself an instrument in the service
of an institution, and puts aside one’s own moral sense, one may become dehumanized
and separated from the effects of one’s actions (Todorov, 1996).
In the context of everyday life, then, this separation is what the perpetrator seems
to face—a blindness to the effects of his or her actions on others. If, as Ricoeur (1967)
has argued, the fundamental experience that connects human beings to the sacred is a
sense of our own fault, then any system that dispels that sense of fault diminishes moral
accountability and diminishes the meaning of all actions—good or bad, moral or
immoral. This loss can result in an orientation toward others much as we see in
Eichmann. The question then becomes: is there really a perpetrator’s perspective?
Take, for instance, the case of ideology and its contribution to acts of “evil.” To
believe strongly in an ideal to the point that one is willing to kill or die for it can lead to
extraordinary evil being committed by otherwise “normal” individuals. Huggins,
Haritos-Fatouros, and Zimbardo (2002) studied police torturers/interrogators in Brazil
who were assigned the task of extracting confessions from individuals believed to be
“enemies of the state.” Surprisingly, the torturers tended not to have sadistic
personalities, as one might expect, but instead were disciplined and socially perceptive
individuals.
The torturers were individuals who could extract a confession with little overt
violence because they understood their victim’s fears and weaknesses. The
characteristics that tended to make these individuals unique were their sense of pride in
their “profession,” a very strong national security ideology, and a clearly defined enemy
against which to fight (e.g., communists). The Brazilian torturers truly feel themselves
to be doing a job that is both necessary and heroic. As Arendt (1964) said of Eichmann,
the Nazi war criminal: “there were, and still are, so many like him . . . terribly and
terrifyingly normal” (174).
Zimbardo (2004) believes that such sanctioned violence is particularly relevant
to considerations of evil because it uses the attribution of ‘evil’ to dehumanize out-
groups and to alleviate moral culpability for acts of violence directed toward these
groups. Sanctioned violence is particularly insidious because it is instigated by the very
situations in which human beings find social and moral identity. Violence can be
sanctioned in overt ways, such as a politician making a declaration of war, and in covert
ways, such as the violence we find presented in cartoons, on the news, in sports, popular
fiction, cinema, and so on (Bargal, 2004).
A significant question to ask concerning sanctioned violence, and other acts that
breach relationships, concerns the ways in which an individual is able to short-circuit
normal moral concern and moral anxiety with regard to behaviors that “violate . . .
personal standards” (Rosenhan & Seligman, 1996). A first consideration in this regard is
that most people see themselves as good and will interpret their actions in order to fit
that presupposition, a phenomenon Tsang (2002) referred to as moral rationalization. In
moral rationalization, an individual will either selectively remember acceptable aspects
of their immoral behavior or will shift their moral frame of reference to make their
behavior justifiable. Baumeister and Vohs (2004) describe this common phenomenon:
“Ironically, many who have perpetrated what history has come to condemn as some of
the worst excesses regarded themselves as trying their best to do something good and
noble” (pg. 85).
An ethnographic study of pub fights in Northern England observed male-male
aggression in the context of Friday and Saturday “nights out” (Benson & Archer, 2002).
The researchers observed that younger men (under 21) were particularly likely to
threaten or act violently toward other men in order to “have a laff” (to be entertained)
and/or to cultivate “tough” or “hard” reputation among pub patrons. Informants often
described their reasons for fighting as a response to another male transgressing against
them, that is, “taking the piss” on their reputation or transgressing some significant
social norm.
Incidents considered transgressing a social norm are inappropriate glances at girlfriends,
“getting off with” a girlfriend or a woman the individual likes, spilling a drink (one’s
own or another’s), “giving someone the eye,” or “sizing up” an opponent by bumping
or pushing into them. Other reasons for violence concern men who are “asking for it”
because they are perceived to be “bloody puffs” or “fucking queers,” or they have
“questioned a woman’s honour.” Violence may be one way that an individual gains
social power in the environment of the pub; thus in many instances the justification for
violence is contrived.
One of the more interesting findings of the Benson and Archer (2002) study, and
is particularly relevant here, is that men will often give what seem to be virtuous or
heroic justifications for aggressive behavior such as “protecting women’s honour.” What
is ironic about this is that many female informants reported feeling irritated with men
who do not understand that she is capable of defending herself. While young males
often engage in physical violence because they believe that being “tough” will increase
their status among other males and will make them more desirable to females, the
investigators reported that only very young women (mid- to late-teens) found this
behavior appealing. A female participant reported that: “most women think men who
fight are pathetic brainless louts … lads fighting can scare women, because one day they
may receive a fist themselves” (pg. 18).
Alcohol consumption also serves to rationalize Benson and Archer’s (2003) male
informants’ aggressive behavior. An 18-year-old male:
On a Saturday night out in Halifax I stumbled around a nightclub after consuming a
large amount of alcohol and bumped into a stool which was occupied by another male
of similar age and build to me. Upon bumping into his stool I noticed that he stood up
straight with his shoulders thrust forward and his eyes wide open and fixed on mine. In
an immediate response I copied the opponent’s actions. He responded by asking,
“Watch the fuck where you’re going.” I quickly said “Fuck off!” We both then backed
off not taking our eyes off each other. The situation had been ended verbally and both
parties seemed reasonably satisfied (pg. 18).
When fights end, informants often report that they were too “pissed [drunk]” to
remember what had happened. Most fights are not an issue for the winner, except
sometimes, younger males who have lost will seek revenge outside of the pub setting.
Occasionally regret is expressed after a fight when a fighter feels that he was “out of
order” and wishes he had “given ‘em a bit more.” While actual physical violence tends
to be rare even in the pub setting, stories concerning fights tend to circulate and be retold
frequently. Others present for the retelling are often complicit in supporting the teller’s
version of events.
Grade schools are another social environment rife with conflict. In a narrative
study of aggression among middle school children, Xie, Swift, Cairns, and Cairns (2004)
asked students to write an account of a recent conflict that they participated in or had
witnessed. The most common form of aggression reported by Xie et al.’s participants
was social aggression, accounting for approximately 80% of the conflicts reported.
Social aggression—which utilizes tactics such as gossip and spreading rumors—allows a
perpetrator to maintain anonymity thus lowering the risk of retaliation. Students with
greater popularity tended to use far more social aggression than less popular students,
and tended to be better insulated from a social attack. This insulation is highlighted in
the following account:
Cara found a rumor was going around … When asked about the person who did it, Cara
replied: ‘They never did find out, … they said that Jenny said it, and Jenny said that
Diane said it … but then Jenny said that Amy said it, then Amy said that Angie said, and
Angie said that Amy said, and Amy said that Jenny said it, so we never did find out who
said it… (Xie et al., 2004, pg. 218).
Being insulated socially allows some individuals to instigate conflict, yet remain on the
periphery. Xie et al. quote one participant: “…people, they like to see a good fight and
you know, they just like to see a fight and they’ll say like, he talked about your mother
and all stuff like that …” (pg. 218). When a perpetrator is identifiable, conflicts tended
to escalate to direct verbal or physical aggression when the victim retaliated. Physical
aggression was noted as having the highest rate of response to provocation (48% of
cases).
What seems most interesting about the perpetrator’s perspective is that social
complicity often allows the perpetrator to operate. Agreeing to go along with the tall
tales of a fight, or refusing to ‘rat out’ a peer, are perfectly normal and often acceptable
social behaviors. It is in this way that social complicity also serves to make situations in
which one becomes aware of having the perpetrator’s perspective rare indeed. So often
relationships are breached in ways that tend to divorce the perpetrator from the
consequences of his or her actions. In Zhang’s narrative study of intergenerational
conflicts in the People’s Republic of China, cultural conditions create a situation in
which the young and old are brought into conflict in such a way that both young and old
can adopt easily the perspective of victim.
As in the construction of the victim and perpetrator’s perspectives, our direct
awareness of others in the social world and how they respond to us is one basis for
understanding ourselves (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Conflicts with others are a salient
aspect of our everyday awareness and often present significant challenges to the ways
we see ourselves and want others to see us. Conflict seems unavoidable. As the
psychoanalyst Horney (1937) put it: human experiences in the world of others consist of
movements toward others in harmonious co-existence, movements away from others in
independence, indifference and anonymity, and movements against others in opposition
and strife. Everyday social life is constituted in these constantly negotiated movements
of self in relation to others (Woehrle & Coy, 2000). While harmonious co-existence with
colleagues, friends and family or occasions of silent anonymity in the company of
strangers are significant aspects of how we live among others, moving against others, or
being moved against by others, produce salient social phenomena for understanding the
nature and possibilities of creation, destruction and recreation of meaning in the face-
toface social world (Coser, 1956). In conflict, we are all, at some time, cast in the role of
victim or perpetrator.
Concluding Remarks
The social roles we adopt in situations of face-to-face conflict have a particular
resonance with the sometimes-divisive and individualistic tradition of Western culture.
Since the 16th century, Western culture has developed around the idea of social life as an
interaction between what McNamee and Gergen (1999) call subjective agencies.
Subjective agency reflects the idea that the individual is solely responsible for initiating
actions in his or her world and this is the basic understanding that leads to blame,
culpability, and other negative attributions to the internal processes of other individuals
in situations of conflict. Another consequence of the belief in subjective agency is that
an individual is more likely to view others with whom he or she is in conflict as
intentionally interfering with his or her aims, a belief that has the power to frustrate the
individual and lead to violent actions to remove opposition.
Social life in this view becomes a conglomerate of independent beings each
pursuing disparate, incompatible and self-serving agendas—much like what we find
portrayed in Sartre’s (1945/1989) Hell. Subjective agency is the construct that
fundamentally underlies Spencer’s “survival of the fittest,” laissez faire economics, the
criminal justice system, and much of social scientific, political and religious discourse
and philosophy. These views often may be reflected in how we think and talk about our
experiences in the social world. According to McNamee and Gergen (1999) the idea of
subjective agency taken to its extreme is the centerpiece of the ‘me-first culture of
narcissism’ in which “public life has given way to privatized, claustrophobic, and
defensive modes of living” (pg. 9). Subjective agency, they believe, is what lies at the
core of ineffective (i.e., non-relational) ways of dealing with social conflict.
McNamee and Gergen (1999), however, see a way out: we may consciously
adopt an alternative view of human social life that is in accord with that articulated by
Buber (1924) and Merleau-Ponty (1962). If the locus of social action is seen in
relations, rather than between self-contained subjectivities, we have taken a significant
step toward exploring the possibilities of our shared roles in constructing a social world.
The basic idea they argue is that social relations are fundamentally interdependent (what
they call conjoint) and that no social action could mean anything without reference to a
shared symbolic system that renders actions within it intelligible. This understanding of
social life leads McNamee and Gergen to an understanding of the self as a nexus of past
and present relationships that, together with other selves, create future relationships that
recursively become part of the self. In other words, no matter what we believe about our
own subjective agency, we can never escape the socially-derived core of who and what
we are and of the social world we create together. As the authors sum up: “…every
conflict within a relationship bears the contribution of still other relations in which
interlocutors are (or have been) enmeshed” (pg. 14).
For the existentialists, phenomenologists and social constructivists discussed, the
human being has no option but to live life in relation to others; however, it is an open
matter as to whether our interactions in the social world draw us into living a more
authentic existence or impedes finding substantive meaning in life. Taken as a whole, it
seems that the processes and outcomes of conflict are a matter of how conflict is
experienced and enacted, the specific issues under dispute, and its emergent meaning for
individuals as they relate in dialogue with one another (Merleau-Ponty, 1962). As John
Dewey noted:
Conflict is the gadfly of thought. It stirs us to observation and memory. It instigates
invention. It shocks us out of sheeplike passivity, and sets us at noting and contriving. . .
. Conflict is a sine qua non of reflection and ingenuity (Dewey, 1930, pg. 300, qtd in
Coser, 1962, pg. 178).
In light of what Buber (1924/1987), Merleau-Ponty (1962), McNamee and Gergen
(1999), Dewey (1930) and others maintain, the analytic distinctions often made in the
literature between internal and social conflicts, etc. (e.g., Barki & Hardwick, 2001) may
not be useful when examining conflict from the perspective of the experiencing person
face-to-face in a dialogical situation of conflict. Existential and phenomenological
philosophy have little problem in failing to distinguish between the internal (subjective)
and external (objective) world as these are often inseparable in experience. In other
words, rationality and reflection allow us to create an objective world apart from
subjective agency in ongoing human experiencing. From this perspective, all forms of
conflict have an aspect of meaning inseparable from the ways they are enacted the
immediate face-to-face relation of the everyday social world.
CHAPTER III METHODOLOGY AND METHOD
There seems to be a single starting point for psychology…: the world as we find it,
naively and uncritically….The whole development of [scientific knowledge] must begin
with a naïve picture of the world. This origin is necessary because there is no other basis
from which science can arise.
Wolfgang Kohler, Gestalt Psychology, 1947/1992, pg. 3
Acts or events are all intrinsically complex, composed of interconnected activities with
continuously changing patterns. They are all like incidents in the plot of a novel or
drama. They are literally the incidents of a life.
Stephen Pepper, World Hypotheses, 1942/1970, pg. 233
To look at the symbolic dimensions of social action—art, religion, ideology, science, law,
morality, common sense—is not to turn away from the existential dilemmas of life for
some empyrean realm of de-emotionalized forms; it is to plunge into the midst of them.
The essential vocation of interpretive anthropology is not to answer our deepest
questions, but to make available to us answers that others, guarding other sheep in other
valleys, have given, and thus to include them in the consultable record of what man has
said.
Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures, 1973, pg. 30
Dialogical accounts of life experiences of face-to-face conflict produced during
open-ended interviews serve as the basis for this investigation. As Pepper (1942/1970)
notes, participant accounts of the incidents of a life are intrinsically complex and
interconnected; understanding these accounts requires an awareness of how similar
experiences are manifest in an interpreter’s life. This personal awareness serves as the
basis for anything that can be said scientifically about conflict phenomena (Kohler,
1947/1992). Psychological science has often viewed the life experiences of the
investigator in terms of an inherent tension between everyday experiences in social life
and reflected, expert understanding of the social world (Hunt, 2005). In Pepper’s and
Kohler’s views, however, expert understanding of the social world invariably derives
from the social world as we live it and necessarily informs the meaning of that lived
world.
In social psychology, investigators seem to follow concerns emerging both from
their everyday social experience and from problems emerging within the formal
knowledge of their discipline. There is no reason to place one type of understanding in a
position superior to another: each allows us to address different aspects of social life.
Thus, in order to understand the meaning of conflict experience, I have adopted an
attitude toward social psychology that locates basic data within the immediacy and flow
of meaning-making concerning everyday social experience. Because of its situated
nature, the basis for social psychological knowledge is always experientially present and
changing. Whatever we may say of the attitudes, beliefs and behaviors of others in
conflict, we also must say of our own attitudes, beliefs and behaviors as investigators
and participants in a cultural world. This means that knowing is always knowing from
some standpoint and that emerging knowledge serves recursively to change an
investigator’s interpretive stance throughout an investigation as he or she closes in on a
description of the phenomenon of interest (Gadamer, 1960). Thus, the act of knowing
about face-toface conflict, whether its source is immediate experience or rigorous
scientific analysis and inference, is always a situated act of knowing.
When researchers adhere to a natural science methodology, however, they tend to
downplay the ways in which acts of knowing are personal, socially-situated and fluid.
Natural science methodology emphasizes objectivity and epistemological distance
between the observer and the phenomenon observed. The result is to structure acts of
observation in such a way as to describe the laws and patterns that govern social life
apart from particular situations. The meaning of the social world, however, does not
seem to follow transcendent natural laws like those we find in the natural sciences
(Berger & Luckmann, 1966; Geertz, 1973; Shweder, 1991). The meaning of human
experience is always already contextual. Social research as practiced must always work
with incomplete and changing knowledge concerning an historical and social world that
is also in a persistent state of change; all social scientific knowledge of human
experience is contingent on, and only makes sense of itself within, the context of the
social world it seeks to understand.
Our experience of the social world is a phenomenon that is created and
maintained by the actions, beliefs and dialogues of individuals who, traditionally, share
physical proximity and language (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). This proximity entails
shared practices as well as a shared language that provides a way to justify, maintain and
create the goings-on of everyday life (Shweder, 1991). In other words, what we do,
what we think about what we do, and what we say about what we do defines the human
meaning of our ongoing presence in a shared social world (Geertz, 1973). Social
psychology, when it focuses on social experience, is a reflection in which the Western
social world has come to examine and understand itself. Thus, the results of this
investigation will tell us something about how a particular people at a particular time
make sense of conflict in their everyday lives.
Does this mean that a decontextualized scientific understanding of social conflict
is purposeless or nonsensical? The answer is certainly no. At the most general level, the
methodological perspectives and ends toward which social psychologists work are
diverse. This diversity is essential to address the social world in its present meaningful
possibilities. Social psychologists seek to ‘understand, identify, explain, explore,
describe, compare, predict, and/or analyze’ the phenomena of the social world as these
relate to individual psychological processes—that is, they seek to ‘arrange the
complexities’ of social reality as it emerges for us in the intersubjective situation of
being with other human beings (Mantzoukas, 2004). As objective quantitative scientists
(or rigorous qualitative researchers) we are analysts and creators of social meaning.
The investigative questions emerging from our experiences and the research that
flows from these questions have substantive effects in that they influence our own and
others’ personal and social lives. We create a meaningful social world as we seek to
understand, predict and/or describe our experiences of it. In developing a scientific
understanding of the social world, the picture that emerges through experimentation or
other forms of investigation exists as a possibility for what the social world could mean;
one possibility among many others (Van Manen, 1990). Thus, an investigator’s beliefs,
assumptions, life experiences, methodological choices and so on are significant in
shaping the findings of social psychological investigations. The social world exists both
in our naïve, immediate, uncritical experience and in our reflected, rational,
disciplinespecific understanding of it. Both perspectives are significant to a fuller, in-
depth understanding of social conflict.
Our everyday understanding of the social world derives from participation and
interaction with others in an ongoing dialogue as well as in a meaningful exchange of
knowledge, feelings or resources. Social psychology always must return to the domain
of concrete human interaction as a source of knowledge. The nature of the
psychological experience of social reality does not allow for personal or professional
understanding without involving oneself in everyday interaction: we are always already
participating in a shared world of attitudes, beliefs, meanings and actions that are our
social reality (Berger & Luckmann, 1966). Thus the method used here is dialogical; the
corpus of data on which the investigation is based consists of open-ended, depth
interviews with participants about personal life experiences of conflicts between
themselves and other people.
Two types of concerns, personal and professional, motivate my interest in face-
toface conflict. Conflict has permeated many aspects of my life and has often proven a
confusing and complicated experience. More often than not, conflict in close
relationships has brought about significant change in my understandings of others and
myself. For something so personally significant, I have never really felt that I do it
“well”—sometimes overreacting and other times underreacting or avoiding it altogether.
The second concern is professional: I believe that face-to-face conflict is of particular
relevance to the social sciences because it is the domain of social interactions through
which the status quo is called into question and possibilities for new meaning enter the
intersubjective reality of the social world (cf. McNamee & Gergen, 1999; Merleau-
Ponty, 1962; Simmel, 1908/1955). To understand the experience of face-to-face conflict
is to understand the meanings that emerge for individuals within situations of great
openness and possibility and/or of great destructiveness and constraint. Conflict can
serve as the basis for some of the most significant events of an individual’s life and of
social history.
Methodology: Epistemology and Ontology
Hawthorne (1989) distinguishes between method and methodology and views
this distinction as having relevance for any rigorous investigation of the social world.
Methods are particular procedures used in the creation and/or discovery of the findings
of an investigation. A careful description of method allows readers and other researchers
to understand how an investigator has reached his or her conclusions. This type of
description is a common practice within any scientific narrative.
Methodology provides the theoretical basis and justification for the methods an
investigator has chosen to use. It provides a context for understanding what ontological
and epistemological point-of-view an investigator has assumed when engaging in the
research process. In traditional psychological science, methodology is addressed only in
theoretical treatises on method. Ontological assumptions relate to a philosophical view
of the fundamental nature of what exists; it is an answer the question, ‘what is it?’ The
ontology assumed here concerns the human social world and our experience of it.
Epistemological assumptions relate to beliefs about how we arrive at knowledge about
existence and what counts as a valid understanding of it. Here, the epistemology focuses
on how human beings in part inherit and in part create the meaning of the social world as
they live it. I believe that the social sciences arrive at knowledge of the social world by
understanding the meanings that emerge for individuals in the context of their everyday
social experience and that investigators participate in both eliciting and creating this
meaning.
Post-Positivism and Approximate Truths
To understand what makes this approach different, we need to address some of
the familiar post-positivist methodology present in social psychological research.
According to Denzin and Lincoln (2000) post-positivism posits that social reality exists
as a “real” reality that can be apprehended as existing independently of the investigator.
It is a reality, however, that can only be known in a probabilistic and imperfect way. For
the post-positivist, there is a “truth” to be known when one assumes an objective
perspective toward the phenomena of the social world and arrives at approximations of
this “truth” by utilizing rigorous experimentation, hypothesis testing, and particularly the
principle of falsification of hypotheses (Druckman, 2005). In other words, a rigorous
application of scientific method can bring about true, but incomplete, understandings of
the causes, processes, and consequences of the social world (Maxwell & Delaney, 2000).
The principle of falsification of hypotheses is a central tenet within this
perspective. It implies one can have true knowledge that a hypothesis is incorrect—that
is, one can rule out certain possibilities for understanding—but one can only partially
know what is correct. A further implication is a productive scientific theory must be
formulated in terms of potentially falsifiable hypotheses (Maxwell & Delaney, 2000).
For the post-positivist, all knowledge is tentative and concerns a world that exists apart
from the observer/scientist. The intent of this methodology is to develop an increasingly
abstract understanding of the laws that govern causal relationships within social reality
and to correct our naïve understandings of the social world (Denzin & Lincoln, 2000).
As such, this methodology tends to assume a mechanistic metaphor for social reality
since experimental manipulation of a variable (or set of variables) is assumed to have
some effect on another variable(s) by way of explainable processes and
interrelationships (Pepper, 1942/1970).
Social Constructivism and Existentialism
Social constructivism and existentialism serve as the epistemological and
ontological bases for this investigation. While these philosophical perspectives utilize
somewhat different assumptions, both challenge and share claims made by the
postpositivist perspective. Primary among the assumptions that challenge post-
positivism is that the social world emerges from, and is created by, the everyday
interactions of social agents/actors of which the investigator is one (Berger &
Luckmann, 1966). The investigator is viewed as a contributor to a broader domain of
cultural and social meanings and is engaged in a transaction with concrete other persons
always already situated in a social world.
From these principles, one can conclude that human beings exist in social reality
as meaningful persons interacting in ways that make sense to them within the context of a
shared social world (Van Manen, 1990). This social world is for human experience every
bit as real and consequential as the natural world, except it represents a human
construction built of, and around, the basic conditions of human life. Social reality would
not exist were it not for the concrete reality of our own presence vis-à-vis others
(Levinas, 1969).
The ethos (what a people do) and worldview (what a people think about what they
do) of any social system is relative when compared to any other social system, yet it is
internally coherent and makes sense from the insider’s perspective (Geertz, 1973). In a
universal sense, a particular cultural and social world represents one possibility among
other possibilities for human social life. There is thus no absolute set of laws governing
social reality in the same way there is an absolute force of gravity in the natural world.
The cultural psychologist, Shweder (1991), argues that human social realities are
internally coherent constructions that allow individuals and social groups to make sense
of an existence that consists of a set of universal human concerns. Universalism without
the uniformity is Shweder’s aphorism when it comes to understanding the nature of
human social reality. He maintains social realities are relative constructions that emerge
as attempts to make sense of universal human concerns. In this sense, persons and
cultures ‘make each other up’ in that a person is given boundary, form and meaning
within his or her ongoing interactions with other human beings who share a similar set of
understandings concerning the purposes and meanings of life.
Examples of these central concerns are: What does it mean to die and what do we
do when people die? What happens after I (or you) die? When I live among others, I
have to put aside my needs for the needs of others; under what conditions is it
appropriate for me to serve my own self-interest at the expense of another? How do I go
about growing up, growing old? I need food, sleep and shelter; how do I go about
procuring these things? How do I go about engaging in sexual relationships with other
human beings and what do I do when children result? These are among many existential
concerns that define the basic conditions of human life when living among others. Our
social reality is a specific resolution to these concerns and we justify our resolutions by
way of shared beliefs and practices. It is all too easy to forget that cultures and social
realities are composed of historical beliefs and practices that have been inherited from
predecessors as well as created in the ongoing processes of dialogue and negotiation that
emerge in everyday interactions with others in response to existential concerns basic to
all human beings.
For this investigation, it is assumed that face-to-face conflict is a social process
that emerges out of the existential sense making of individuals in an ongoing relationship
with each other. When we find ourselves in situations in which our own and another’s
interests and goals do not coincide, conflict allows us to reach some conclusion that
produces change in the immediate relationship and in social reality more generally.
Conflict is a process by which we negotiate meanings and practices—in a sense
addressing alternate possibilities for living together and arriving at new practices and
beliefs that serve to change our social world.
Conflict is also structured by a preexisting social reality. Thus, the findings of
this investigation are to be understood as particular to the context of the 21st century
American cultural world. Even though three participants find their cultural roots in other
social realities—urban southern India, Portugal, and Polynesia—the research was
conducted within the American social world and within the linguistic and conceptual
system of American-English. In short, I assume that the social reality of face-to-face
conflict consists of a pre-existing set of beliefs and practices, and ongoing choices and
responses, enacted in a present social situation that is existentially significant and
phenomenologically real for us.
The epistemological assumptions that guide the methods utilized in this
investigation also represent a cultural and historical choice that the investigator, the
participants, and interpreters/readers, make with respect to the social reality of the
phenomenon of face-to-face conflict. How we come to know the experience of social
conflict emerges from the set of possibilities that perhaps define what the phenomenon
may consist of apart from any particular perspective we take toward it.
It is on this point that my ontology coincides with that of post-positivism. As
argued, face-to-face conflict is a fundamental existential phenomenon that emerges in
our social lives when we encounter others. Levinas (1969) maintains that the concrete
presence of another human being makes demands on us for concern, care, respect and
consideration, etc., and thus the presence of the other is fundamental condition of human
social life across social realities. However, particular beliefs and practices that obtain
across social realities may be vastly different and hence the meanings of social conflict
across social realities may be vastly different. What we are concerned with here is how
individuals within a particular social reality come to experience and make meaningful
their concrete life experiences of face-to-face conflict. These particular acts of
sensemaking represent a possible way to make sense of face-to-face conflict when it is
considered in a cross-cultural context.
Knowing is Knowing What is Possible
According to the ontological theory described above, basic existential issues
define the conditions of human life and motivate social groups to develop and maintain
meaningful understandings that provide structure and coherence to lived experience.
Berger and Luckmann (1966) have argued that what remains when we seek to go behind
this “zone of lucidity,” represented by social reality, “is a background of darkness” (pg.
44). There is no absolute explanation for anything we encounter in our own social world
and across worlds, only different ways of describing and making sense of the basic
conditions of human existence. Consider for a moment the spiral image below (Figure
3.1), drawn from Katz’s Psychological Atlas (1949).
How might an existential and social constructivist approach concretely translate
into the way we interpret and understand a phenomenon, such as the spiral in Figure 3.1?
Figure 3.1: Gestalt Spiral Image from Katz (1949)
A
From our first-person perspective, what we immediately perceive is a spiral form, with
lines that move from the periphery inward, meeting at a hazy point at the center of the
image. However, if we take a pointer and place it on the ‘A’ between two of the major
lines producing the figure and we trace the space-between-the-lines around the image,
we find that we end up where we had begun: at point ‘A’. Our initial percept—an
apparent spiral—would lead us to anticipate that the pointer would move toward the
center of spiral and away from point ‘A’. We are met, however, with evidence contrary
to our expectation.
The immediate experience we have of a spiral and the reflected experimental
knowledge we have of concentric circles seem to leave us with an epistemological
dilemma. For the post-positivist, the epistemological question is which of these
understandings represents true knowledge of Figure 3.1? Do we interpret the image as a
spiral—as we did given our initial impression of it—or do we interpret the image as a
creative use of Gestalt principles leading us to perceive the image one way (a spiral)
when in fact it is another (a set of semi-concentric circles). From the perspective of
critical rationality, the spiral image is an illusion and the set of concentric circles is the
true interpretation of the image.
From the perspective of constructivism, however, both understandings count as
valid knowledge of Figure 3.1, and represent possibilities for human understanding and
are significant in any description of how we come to make this phenomenon meaningful.
What is true is what we can agree on as observers of the phenomenon engaged in
dialogue about it. Thus, Figure 3.1 may be further understood as an example to make a
point about epistemology. The phenomenon, and more broadly the conditions of human
life, are polymorphic and thus provide us with many simultaneous possibilities for
understanding. It is from these possibilities that we select for ourselves and negotiate
with each other what we come to know as Figure 3.1 or any phenomenon of experience
(Pollio, 1982). It is for this reason that truth or falsehood is not the issue for
constructivist interpretations. Here, describing what is possible for our understanding
of the experience of face-to-face conflict, as it exists in social reality, is the purpose of
interpretation—regardless of issues concerning what might be termed the real reality of
social conflict.
Social realities present us with possibilities for experience and understanding.
Methodologically speaking, the greater the number of meaningful possibilities that we
describe when exploring a phenomenon of human experience, the greater the depth of
our description and understanding of it. From this perspective, the scientific veracity of
our experience of human social reality is not in question. The central concern is an
honest and faithful description of how we apprehend our experience of that reality and
come to reflect on and describe it. The social world is a reality-for-us that we selectively
construct from possibilities encountered in everyday interactions with other concrete
persons. Knowledge of the experience of face-to-face conflict is thus constituted here in
a thick description of what is possible for participants in these conflicts. It is not only an
elaboration of causal relationships and universal facts about conflict as an abstract social
scientific concept, but a description of the consistent features of conflicts as experienced
and described.
Existential-Hermeneutic Phenomenological Method As it is
located within the qualitative and linguistically oriented traditions of social sciences,
hermeneutic phenomenology may be viewed—alongside grounded theory, narrative
analysis, ethnography, and case studies—as an approach involving “[investigators’]
stories about [participants’] stories” (Bruner, 1986, pg. 10). The focus in this tradition
is on describing core meanings that emerge in participant descriptions of life
experiences with some phenomenon as it appeared to them. The etymological
derivation of phenomenology is from the Greek phainoemn (appearance) and logos
(reason/meaning). Phenomenology is a method that focuses on describing the lived
world as it appears to us, the world as it exists as a meaningful given for everyday
awareness (Gearing, 2004).
As Hein and Austin (2001) maintain, there is not a single method that can be
defined as phenomenological; instead the term designates a focus on the structure of
meanings articulated in experiential accounts of research participants. As grounded
theory seeks to derive an experience-near theory of some phenomenon; narrative
analysis, an account of the structure of the stories people tell about their life experiences;
ethnography, an account of some cultural practice or belief; or a case study, an in-depth
description of a particular event, person or experience; phenomenology focuses on the
consistencies of meaning that emerge across diverse situations in which individuals have
experienced some phenomenon (Creswell, 1998; Pollio, Graves, & Arfken, 2005). The
focus in phenomenology is on experience, not on the distribution of some effect in a
population. Phenomenology thus occupies an interpretive space between the generality
of nomothetic experimental methods and the particularity of case studies.
While two main forms of phenomenology coexist today—eidetic-transcendental
phenomenology and existential-hermeneutic phenomenology—the earliest form was
described as ‘intentional analysis’ by its developer, Edmund Husserl (1913/1931), and
tends to be more closely associated with the contemporary eidetic-transcendental
approach (Hein & Austin, 2001; Wertz, 2005). Its fundamental concept is that of
intentionality, which speaks to the fact that all contents of consciousness have some
meaning for us; that is, consciousness is always directed toward some thing that is
meaningful for the individual (James, 1890/1950; Hein & Austin, 2001). Husserl
(1913/1931; 1954/1970) sought to develop a method for doing philosophy that grounded
itself in the immediacy of lived experience and to describe the essential structures of the
meaning of phenomena as these meanings reveal themselves to human consciousness.
This early form of eidetic-transcendental phenomenology focused on the concreteness of
the objects of our experience and their correlate meanings in human experience (Van
Manen, 1990). It is a method that tends toward abstraction and finds relevance in the
structural forms of mathematics more than in the everyday flow of human existence.
In its most general form, as Van den Berg (1955) summarizes, “phenomenology
is a science of examples.” Its method is fundamentally comparative: a thematic
description develops as an investigator compares a variety of examples of some
phenomenon to uncover that which is consistent across the examples. These
consistencies are understood as central features defining what a phenomenon means for
human consciousness situated within a particular social reality. For Husserl
(1954/1970), all knowledge must be derived first from our experience of “the things
themselves” before we can move to theorizing and other scientific activities concerning
them.
Existential-hermeneutic phenomenology differs in a few fundamental ways. In
phenomenological philosophy, a distinction is often made between unreflected and
reflected consciousness. Unreflected consciousness is our immediate and “simple
presence to what [we are] doing” (Van Manen, 1990, pg. 38). Reflected consciousness
concerns the rational sense-making activities we engage in concerning our unreflected
experience as it becomes an object of consciousness. In seeking out spoken or written
expressions of unreflected experience, hermeneutic phenomenological research operates
at the level of reflected meanings that emerge in descriptions of what is initially
unreflected experience (Van Manen, 1990). As Hawthorne (1989) notes, hermeneutic
phenomenology may be defined as the study of the processes of coming reflectively to
understand the life world of our immediate experience; thus, hermeneutic
phenomenology tends to be interpretive in nature.
It is important to emphasize the central role of language and other
culturallyinherited understandings in how we make sense of the world of experience.
Another individual’s experience, as we can come to know it, is mediated by
intersubjective understandings (words, concepts, historical events, etc.) that are the basis
for any coherent dialogue to take place (Gadamer, 1960). So while linguistic
expressions of experience are in some senses second-order representations of direct,
unreflected experience, they are the only means we have to share another’s experience
(Thomas & Pollio, 2002).
Polkinghorne (1989), Thomas and Pollio (2002), and Halling (2002) all maintain
that phenomenology offers three primary benefits to psychology. First, it allows us to
understand what an experience is like as it is lived within the context of human lives.
For care-providers—clinicians, nurses, social workers, etc.—such knowledge is
indispensable for understanding and working with clients. Second, phenomenological
findings can help us to understand complex constructs and research findings from the
traditional disciplines as these are manifest in human experience. It allows us an
alternative way to make sense of often-abstract experimental results and to explore their
human meaning. Third, phenomenology affords insight into the particulars of human
experience that focus applied researchers and policymakers on the situated nature of real
world research problems as they emerge in the everyday life of study participants. As
Polkinghorne (2005) states: “Experience has vertical depth, and methods of data
gathering, such as short-answer questionnaires with Likert scales that only gather surface
information, are inadequate to capture the fullness and richness of experience” (pg. 138).
The depth of the phenomenological method exists as a complement to the breadth of
other methods of scientific study.
Thomas and Pollio (2002) have argued for the inclusion of phenomenology as a
method in the social sciences on the following grounds. Many quantitative studies,
while providing statistically significant results, only explain a small amount of variance
in terms of the highly abstracted variables under investigation. Many times an
operational definition of a phenomenon comes to substitute in subsequent studies for
the phenomenon under investigation, as it is meaningful in human experience. This
practice in psychological research can complicate the process of comparing results
across studies to the experience to which they originally refer. The whole process of
conducting and understanding quantitative research requires a high level of technical
sophistication and the complexity of results makes their application to everyday life
difficult.
Like any other investigative approach in the social sciences, phenomenology has
its shortcomings (Hawthorne, 1989; Pollio, Henley, & Thompson, 1997). First,
investigators must be careful to consider the ways in which their biases and
presuppositions influence data collection and interpretation. Second, there is no way to
test the accuracy of phenomenological findings except by comparing them to one’s own
life experiences and to additional experiential accounts. Third, the quality of
interpretation is limited by the skills of the reader of the interview texts and to the
quality of the present set of data. Fourth, there is no orthodox hermeneutic procedure, so
the researcher is often left to adapt methods to his or her own needs when examining and
interpreting results. Finally, there are problems with a participant seeking to provide for
an investigator what he or she believes the investigator wants to discover.
Phenomenological psychologists have attempted deal with these problems and to
develop an approach that may be applied in psychological research with sufficient rigor.
Pollio, Henley and Thompson (1997), Thomas and Pollio (2002) and Pollio, Graves and
Arfken (2005) all describe the general process of applied hermeneutic-phenomenological
research as developed at the University of Tennessee:
1. The researcher focuses the particular topic of interest and develops an open-
ended question designed not to bias the interview dialogue in any particular way
and to focus participants on life experiences.
2. An interviewer who is trained in open-ended interviewing methods interviews
the investigator before the actual study begins. This “bracketing interview”
elicits the investigator’s account of his or her own life experiences with the
phenomenon of interest and allows the investigator to respond to his or her own
research question. This interview is transcribed, read, and interpreted by an
interpretive group. The investigator is made aware of particular biases and
assumptions he or she brings to the research situation and how these biases and
assumptions may potentially interfere with the open-ended interviewing process.
3. Participants are interviewed in an open-ended dialogical situation where the
investigator seeks to gather a variety of rich, descriptive accounts of participants’
life experiences with a particular phenomenon. The interviewer seeks not to lead
participants to any particular description but to allow it to emerge from the
particular life experiences and perspectives of the participants.
4. Interview recordings are transcribed, in whole or part, by the investigator and
represent a first interpretive engagement with the dialogue produced in the
interviewing situation. Some investigators will clear these texts of extraneous
pauses, placeholders, and other paralinguistic communication considered
irrelevant to the research question.
5. Transcribed interviews are then read in an interpretive group of 10 to 15 readers
and tentative themes proposed to describe the phenomenon. Usually three to
four interviews from a particular investigation are read in the group context.
6. The investigator continues to interpret the remaining interviews independently
and seeks to develop a thematic structure. This structure and its supporting
evidence are then presented to an interpretive group and to study participants.
Concerns, disagreements and other problems are discussed and the proposed
thematic structure is modified in ways necessary to convey the structure of
meanings defining the phenomenon under investigation. The focus here is on
developing agreement between all who are familiar with the interview texts and
to develop a description that accounts for thematic possibilities in experiential
accounts provided by participants.
7. Once a thematic structure has been developed and sufficient agreement among
investigator, interpretive group and participants has been reached, the thematic
structure and its supporting evidence are presented to the research community at
large.
As Hawthorne (1989) noted, these procedures seek to maintain “fidelity” to the
phenomenon of interest while avoiding artificial methodological constraints and to
reveal the phenomenon to us in a way that is “plausible and illuminating” (Thomas &
Pollio, 2002, pg. 11). The focus is on eliciting from diverse accounts of situated
experiences a thick, rich description of the meaningful pattern by which the phenomenon
reveals itself (Gadamer, 1960; Geertz, 1973). The fidelity Hawthorne speaks about
concerns issues of agreement among participants, interpreters, and the investigator as to
the fit of the described experience with that of the text and of their own life experiences.
The use of an interpretive group assists the investigator in highlighting the biases and
assumptions he or she brings to the situation of interviewing and interpretation.
Evaluation of Phenomenological Studies
In the methodological literature, a debate has emerged concerning the evaluative
criteria by which to judge the rigor of qualitative research. Oftentimes, qualitative
studies are judged by standards developed to assess quantitative research. This approach
is fraught with problems as each approach has different motives and results. The
traditional means of evaluating quantitative research is in terms of the falsifiability of
hypotheses, reliability, validity, and generalizability. Phenomenological research is often
criticized because it does not subject a hypothesis to empirical testing and attempts to
progress without proposing any theory concerning the phenomenon of interest. From the
perspective of phenomenology, hypotheses derive from a priori theories and often serve
as biases that need to be put aside—or at least made explicit—as they may affect the
radically empirical perspective phenomenology requires.
Reliability in quantitative research refers to the likelihood of getting the same
results if an experiment were repeated with a different sample drawn from the same
population. In phenomenology, each case is “an additional example” of a phenomenon
and thus is incorporated into a developing thematic description. Therefore, the more
relevant concept for phenomenology is that of saturation. Saturation refers to the point
at which additional and diverse cases are assessed and are found to add no new insight to
the thematic description of a phenomenon.
Validity commonly refers to a correspondence between experimental findings
and the patterns one observes in the world (Maxwell & Delaney, 2000).
Phenomenological research stays as close to the phenomenon of interest as possible:
participants’ accounts of their own life experiences. The issue, then, for phenomenology
is to provide evidence for the thematic structure and to stay as close as possible to
phenomena as they reveal themselves in everyday human experience.
The final issue of generalizability concerns the distribution of some phenomenon
in a population. The intent in quantitative approaches is to develop law-like
understandings of the social world. As Thomas and Pollio (2002) have pointed out
phenomenological descriptions of experience function much like case generalizations in
law, ethics, or medicine and thus are tentative statements; “deciding the applicability of
findings is ultimately in the hands of the reader” (pg. 42).
Morrow (2005) and Josselson (2004) have argued for alternative criteria with
which to evaluate phenomenological, and more generally qualitative, research. They
feel that to evaluate qualitative research on the basis of extrinsic criteria—that is, criteria
drawn from a quantitative perspective—is methodologically flawed. The respective
approaches involved—qualitative and quantitative—utilize different epistemological and
ontological assumptions and thus require different criteria of evaluation. Morrow (2005)
proposes the following criteria for qualitative studies:
1. Disclosure: Does the author disclose his or her own personal biases, values, as
well as methodological assumptions that could potentially bias the research and
thus take the position of owning his or her perspective?
2. Situated Description: Is the group of participants adequately described and
situated in terms of a brief autobiographical statement and the particular events
they chose to discuss?
3. Examples: Are the findings grounded in examples that come directly from
accounts provided by participants?
4. Credibility: Was the credibility of the research checked by presentation to an
interpretive group or by returning to participants for evaluation of tentative
findings?
5. Coherence: Are relationships among themes and categories coherent? Does the
description of the phenomenon make sense to the reader(s)?
6. Fairness: Was the investigator fair in providing evidence from across the
experiential accounts of participants, rather than focusing on a few accounts for
evidence?
7. Dependability: Are the results dependable; i.e., was a systematic process
described and followed during the investigative process?
8. Triangulation and Saturation: Are the results triangulated; was the analysis based
on a sufficiently large number and diverse set of experiences to indicate that the
thematic possibilities are saturated?
The above listed criteria are not merely parallel criteria of evaluation but offer a clear
means of evaluating phenomenological (and other qualitative) research studies.
Methods Used in this Investigation
The particular focus of this investigation is to develop a thematic description of
the meanings that emerge in participant accounts of their life experiences of face-to-face,
or interpersonal, conflict. Since the focus is on describing experience as interpreted
from dialogue-based accounts of experience, the appropriate method is that of
hermeneutic phenomenology. To implement this approach the following steps were
used.
Question/Directive Statement Development
According to investigative procedures described by Pollio, Henley and
Thompson (1997), Thomas and Pollio (2002) and Pollio, Graves, & Arfken (2005) and
discussed above, the first step in a phenomenological study is to develop an interviewing
question relevant to the experience under investigation. The interviewing procedure
used in this study is open-ended and begins with a single question (or directive
statement) that meets the following criteria:
1. Clarity and Specificity: The question uses clear, everyday language to specify a
particular personal experience and to focus participants on providing an account
of their own life experience.
2. Parsimony: The question contains no extraneous information that could bias how
a participant responds.
3. Openness to Dialogue: The question allows for an open dialogue between the
participant and investigator, with the participant in the expert position of
determining the topics and meanings to be discussed.
The particular statement that began these interviews was: “Please describe a
situation (or situations) in which you experienced a conflict between yourself and
another person.” This question was discussed with various members of the University of
Tennessee Center for Applied Phenomenological Research and was deemed to fit the
criteria of clarity and specificity, parsimony and openness to dialogue. Technical terms,
such as ‘face-to-face,’ were excluded as these had the potential of biasing accounts to
specific one-time conflicts and of excluding on-going relational conflicts that consist of
multiple face-to-face episodes. The term ‘interpersonal’ conflict was excluded because
of the potential for mistaking this technical term for that of ‘intrapersonal’ conflict.
Very few participants asked what the investigator meant by the word ‘conflict;’
many did ask if it was okay to discuss conflicts that involved more individuals than
themselves and another person. This question was asked at the beginning of almost all
interviews, and participants all provided accounts that involved additional real or
imagined persons beyond the immediate dyad. It would seem that face-to-face conflict
tends to emerge within a network of situated relationships.
The Bracketing Interview and Dialogical Interviewing
The next stage in this type of study is to make explicit the presuppositions and
biases the investigator brings to the research situation. This is accomplished on the basis
of a bracketing interview in which the investigator is asked to discuss his or her own life
experiences with the phenomenon of interest. Bracketing and open-ended interviewing
are perhaps the defining features of data collection in a hermeneutic phenomenological
study.
For the approach being used here, I participated in a bracketing interview
concerning my own life experiences of conflict. A colleague trained in this particular
interviewing technique conducted this interview, which took place at my apartment.
Likely due to the preexisting friendship between the interviewer and myself, I was very
disclosing in this interview and he was also able to elicit for the record any background
information necessary to make sense of the events I discussed.
Theoretically, bracketing takes place in two parts: (1) a suspension of the natural
scientific attitude toward the phenomenon of interest together with a refocusing on the
immediacy of life experiences, and (2) an engagement in free imaginative variation to
explore all the possible situations in which the phenomenon has been experienced
(Wertz, 2005). The experiences recounted concerned various conflicts that had taken
place during a five-year romantic relationship the investigator had in his early to
midtwenties and the specific conflicts that ended the relationship. Also discussed were
conflicts between the investigator and various members of his family. A sample
paragraph of this interview follows. ‘I’ is the interviewer and ‘P’ is the participant. The
narrative picks up after the respondent has discussed issues of personal boundaries and
the invasiveness of a person toward whom he felt a great deal of anger. The respondent
has used the metaphor of a line to connote this boundary.
I: he really crossed a line with you.
P: he had, yeah, for sure he had crossed a line with me.
I: you couldn’t count on him to even know what that line is
P: yeah, because I don’t think the dude had a boundary; he had obviously broken any
sort of boundary that he should have had with her, and she was in a vulnerable kind of
state emotionally because of all this shit going on with her daughter and with her ex-
husband and all of this kind of thing, and so he basically took advantage of that and just
created more chaos for everybody in some sort of self gratifying ego kind of thing,
which that just really made me angry with him
I: you wanted him to understand your importance [R: yeah] by being there
P: I wanted him to acknowledge my importance by getting the fuck out [I: right] is
what I wanted
I: and you also wanted her to [R: to acknowledge my importance by getting him the
fuck out] right.
P: yeah [I: right] yeah [I: right].
By engaging in this interview before conducting the subsequent interviews that
compose the corpus of this investigation, I realized the potential emotional intensity that
could be elicited by recalling conflictual events and the potential significance these
events have for the participant. The bracketing interview made me more sensitive to
my participants’ perspectives and the feelings they may be having while being
interviewed. As a result, I tried to adopt a nonjudgmental attitude of personal and
professional openness to what participants talked about in their own interviews and to
allow them an open forum in which to express themselves in any way they felt
necessary to communicate the personal meaning of conflict experiences.
In the sense described above, the investigator’s personal experiences with
conflict, combined with the bracketing interview, did enter into the dialogue with study
participants. At times, participants would seek reassurance and the investigator would
on rare occasion disclose a personal fact to reassure the participant. Often this was done
after an interview was completed; in a couple instances, the investigator went off record
to respond to a question posed by participants. It was made clear, however, that the
purpose of the interview was to elicit the participant’s experience apart from whatever
the investigator may think or feel.
As Wertz (2005) has noted, bracketing is a matter of “abstaining from
incorporating natural scientific theories, explanations, hypotheses, and
conceptualizations of the subject matter into the research process” (pg. 168). Bracketing
procedures do not ask us to put aside empathy, concern, and a desire for open and
genuine dialogue with our research participants—the ultimate sign of respect and
empathy is to be as open as possible to the personal experiences and meanings
participants bring to the situation of dialogue. Once participants understood that I was
interested in obtaining a detailed account of their own life experiences of conflict,
occasional procedural “mistakes” tended to be self-correcting, with the participant either
affirming or negating my summary or interpretation. The following is an example from
the interview with A2 who discussed various recurring conflicts within her first marriage
of 22 years:
I: Do you feel okay talking about this?
P: Yeah, this is pretty much now an old story, he’s completely finished and I feel nothing
for him, so nothing is going to
I: So it doesn’t upset you to talk about it?
P: No, because I lived it and lived with it for 22 years [I: yeah] and so basically the last
8 years I was living with him only because of the children, but with him there is
absolutely nothing, so when I talk about it, nothing happens, it’s like …
The open-ended interviewing process itself is in many ways self-correcting of the biases
and assumptions the investigator may have allowed to slip into the dialogue. In the
above example, the investigator overstepped the boundaries of phenomenological
interviewing to suggest that the respondent might feel upset about the events described;
the respondent corrected that assumption.
The basic principle of open-ended or dialogical interviewing is to follow as
closely as possible the account being provided by research participants and to facilitate
them in providing a thick, rich, in-depth account of their experience (Thompson,
Locander, & Pollio, 1994). The typical approach is to ask an opening question that
allows the maximal variability in possible responses concerning the situations in which a
participant has experienced a particular phenomenon and then to ask follow-up questions
to focus the participant on the experience being discussed and on the particular meanings
that emerge in that concrete experience (Wertz, 2005). Occasionally a participant will
move to talking about experience on more abstract levels. These reflections are also
important as they capture social and cultural beliefs and practices (Thompson, Locander,
& Pollio, 1994); the primary emphasis of a phenomenological interview, however, is
always on participants’ accounts of concrete experiences (Thomas & Pollio, 2002).
One way to help focus participants on the experiential level is to ask questions
such as “what happened next?” or to repeat a salient word or words from the last few
sentences the participant has spoken. One should carefully use language that the
participant has first used in the interview and not introduce extraneous terms and
concepts into the dialogue. One way to accomplish this is to put oneself in the position
of needing the permission of the participant to discuss a concept, word, idea, or
statement. Once the participant mentions some word or idea, permission is granted to
follow-up on what he or she has said. This interviewing heuristic is particularly useful
when a participant seems to have reached a conclusion in his or her dialogue as we see
below when the participant Jo asks me, “…does that answer your question?” the
investigator picks up on an earlier discussion in which Jo had talked about being accused
of being manipulative while in a situation that she feels was contrived to entrap her for
an attack by three individuals (an ex-boyfriend, a best friend, and the ex-boyfriend’s
current girlfriend):
P: I never wanted to like take affection away from her or anything, I was just, you know
just hanging out with this guy I hadn’t seen in like forever, and she was all like insane
about it, and I don’t know, but yes, does that answer your question?
I: what about in terms of them seeing you as manipulative?
P: It feels like the pot calling the kettle black, like because they, like [my ex-boyfriend]
especially, [my ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend] is pretty manipulative in that she tells
people what she wants them to know, and [my ex-boyfriend] is manipulative in that he
is pretty good at figuring people out really fast, and then [my best friend] is
manipulative in that she can set up situations that she wants and so like the three of
them together and then me sitting there and they’re calling me manipulative, and I’m
just like “okay” that’s fine, I’m glad that you think that I have this power and stuff, but I
don’t feel like I do and I don’t feel like I’ve used it for sadistic means like they are, um,
but, it’s not like an honoring, it’s like an accusation [I: yeah] whereas they themselves
are the thing that they are accusing me of being, like currently, like as they are saying it,
it is just irony
I: but you didn’t point out the irony? [Jo had earlier mentioned that she had very little to
say during the conflict and let her accusers do the talking].
P: no, I, uh uh, no because they were really excited about what they had to say and I was
not so excited about what I had to say and so I just let them talk.
As I used a dialogical interviewing method, my personal experiences with
conflict are potentially significant to the outcome of this investigation. For this reason, I
needed to be careful not to introduce my own biases and assumptions into the dialogue;
however, I also needed to remain as open and present to the dialogue as possible and to
the accounts being provided. Open dialogue in a non-therapeutic relationship is a
transactional exchange, particularly if it concerns emotionally significant experiences
and this required some disclosure and empathic concern from me.
As Hein and Austin (2001) point out, there is no completely bracketed
investigator; bracketing is an ongoing and imperfect process. The best an investigator
can do is to disclose events in the research process that could be considered potential
breaches of protocol. It is necessary to bring one’s own experiences to bear when
seeking to understand another’s experience; one needs to remain persistently aware of
this fact and one’s own “effective history” (meanings and biases that derive from past
experiences) when conducting hermeneutic phenomenological research (Gadamer,
1960). Bringing an investigator to an awareness of his or her own biases and
prejudgments is the primary purpose of bracketing procedures in hermeneutic
phenomenology. Rather than putting these biases and prejudgments completely out of
consideration (as Husserl, 1954/1970, initially advocated), they may be used to make
sense of how one is coming to an understanding of the phenomenon of interest
(Hawthorne, 1989). The purpose of a dialogical interview is to create, together with a
participant, an account of human experience that is ‘complex in structure, extensive in
scope, and/or subtle in features’ and that includes information that otherwise would not
be disclosed in a written account (Wertz, 2005).
Selection of Participants
Within the context this investigation, the intent is not to make a generalized
statement concerning the distribution of some phenomenon in a population. Rather, the
phenomenological researcher selects a variety of accounts of situations in which
individuals have experienced the relevant phenomenon. The point to this approach is to
maximize the variety and variability of the accounts and then to seek patterns in that
variability. As Polkinghorne (2005) notes, selection is often a matter of deciding what
exemplars of a phenomenon contribute furthering our understanding, i.e.,
phenomenological investigators seek ‘information-rich cases’:
Selection of sources of qualitative data is analogous to the selection of sentences in
a study of grammar. If the question is about the essential aspects or properties of a
sentence, one initially selects a variety of sentences (pg. 140).
In seeking out a variety of exemplars, selection continues until the investigator feels
that additional cases do not seem to contribute additional insight into the meaning of a
phenomenon (Creswell, 1998).
With these objectives in mind, Thomas and Pollio (2002) enumerate the
following criteria for selecting participants for a phenomenological study:
1. The participant must have had the experience.
2. The participant must be willing and able to describe the experience.
3. The confidentiality of the participant must be protected.
In open-ended interviewing studies within the phenomenological tradition, the
typical practice is to interview 8-12 participants to achieve sufficient variability in the
experiential accounts provided. Sometimes investigations include as few as 3
participants or as many as 20 (cf. Thompson, Locander, & Pollio, 1994). If an
investigator is using written accounts rather than open-ended, depth interviews, the
number of participants can be as high as 100. It is important to remember that the point
behind participant selection is to maximize variation in experiential accounts and to
reach thematic saturation; not to generalize from a sample to a population. Thus, the
number of participants in phenomenological studies tends to be smaller than in many
quantitative/experimental studies.
Description of Participants
Eleven individuals participated in this investigation. Participants tended to come
from middle-class backgrounds, to be female and of sufficiently diverse sexual
orientations, ethnic identifications, political beliefs, etc., to provide a variety of accounts
of face-to-face conflict. Before each interview, participants read a disclosure and
participant’s rights statement concerning the research project and were asked a few
demographic questions; they also were asked to pick a pseudonym for themselves. The
following is a brief biographical description of each of the participants:
1. A2 is a female aged 41-45 who graduated with a Bachelor’s degree in chemistry
from a large university in India. She is currently an employee of the University,
but was introduced to the investigator by a family member. She has had a first
marriage, which lasted 22 years, and is recently divorced. She was interviewed
at her home.
2. Aqua Lad is a male aged 22-25 who graduated from college with an
interdisciplinary Bachelor’s degree. He is a political activist for gay rights,
nuclear non-proliferation and death penalty cases, and is currently residing in a
large city in California. He openly identifies as a gay man and gives public
presentations about political activism/political issues at universities and in other
settings. He grew up in a medium-sized city in the Southeastern United States.
He has never been married. He was interviewed at his home.
3. Christen is a female aged 18-21. She is currently a student at the University and
has declared a psychology major. She grew up in a small city on the periphery of
a mid-sized city in the Southeastern United States. She was recruited from a
psychology class at the University and given extra credit for participation. She
has never been married. She was interviewed at the Center for Applied
Phenomenological Research.
4. Holly is a female aged 18-21. She is currently an undergraduate student and is
considering architecture/interior design as a major. Her previous educational
experience was at a small private school in the Southeastern United States. She
has an avocational interest in acting/drama. She was recruited from a
psychology class and was given extra credit for participating. She has never
been married.
She was interviewed at the University Center at the University.
5. Jeff is a male aged 18-21. He is currently an undergraduate student at the
University and is undecided on a major. His earliest education was in small
private schools; his high school education was in a large public school
environment in a mid-sized city in the Southeastern United States. He has an
avocational interest in popular culture, politics and philosophy. He was recruited
from a psychology class at the University and was given extra credit for
participation. He has never been married. He was interviewed at the Center for
Applied Phenomenological Research.
6. Jo is a female aged 18-21 who was recruited through a colleague of the
investigator. She attended high school in the Southeastern United States and is
currently a student at the University. She has an avocational interest in religious
philosophy and spirituality and is considering psychology as a major. She has
never been married. She was interviewed at the Center for Applied
Phenomenological Research.
7. Ma’a is a female aged 26-30. She is currently a student at the University,
majoring in social work. She self-identifies as a lesbian and has had one
longterm (5+ year) relationship, which recently broke up. She has avocational
interests in spirituality and mysticism. Her cultural background is
PolynesianAmerican and she grew up in a large midwestern city in the United
States. She has never been married. She was interviewed at a local park.
8. Malachi Murmur is a male aged 26-30. He is a graduate student in the social
sciences. He grew up in a small city on the periphery of a mid-sized
Southeastern city and was educated in public schools. He has never been
married. He was interviewed at his home.
9. Missy is a female aged 18-21. She is currently a student at the University and
has declared a psychology major and is planning to enter the counseling
profession to work with children. She grew up and attended school in a mid-
sized Southeastern city. She was recruited from psychology class at the
University and was given extra credit for participation. She has never been
married. She was interviewed at the Center for Applied Phenomenological
Research.
10. Orlando is a female aged 26-30. She is currently a graduate student in business
and was initially introduced to the investigator through a colleague. She is a
native of a large city in Portugal and plans to return home after completing her
graduate education. She has never been married. She was interviewed in a
private area of a local restaurant.
11. Sanford is a male aged 26-30 who is currently pursuing a degree in psychology
and criminal justice. He is interested in a career in law enforcement and plans to
return home—a large city in the Midwestern United States—upon graduation.
He has never been married. He was interviewed at the Center for Applied
Phenomenological Research.
Each description is intended to give a context for the accounts provided by the
participants in the next chapter. Each participant has experienced face-to-face conflict
within the unique circumstances of his or her life as well as within the cultural context of
the contemporary United States, except for two: Orlando and A2. Orlando recounted
conflicts that occurred with family members and other individuals in her hometown in
Portugal and A2 recounted conflicts that occurred within the context of a marriage that
took place in India. At the time of the interview, both participants had been in the United
States for an extended period and both interviews were conducted in English, even
though the participants’ native languages are Portuguese and Hindi, respectively.
Occasional Britishisms were present in their speech, reflecting early training in British
English, although these phrases and words did not lead to interpretive problems.
Demographic information for the participants is summarized in Table 3.1 on the
following page.
Initial Interpretive Procedures: Data Handling & Transcription
Open-ended interviews lasting from 30 minutes to 3.5 hours were conducted in a
variety of settings conducive to the dialogical approach used in this investigation, i.e.,
private, comfortable environments. The average interview length was 60 to 90 minutes.
The interviews were recorded using a SONY digital recorder (ICD SX-25), which comes
with a proprietary transcription software. Recorded interviews were downloaded to the
investigator’s password protected laptop computer and were backed up on a password
protected USB memory stick and an external hard drive. The interviewer’s bracketing
interview and three other interviews were transcribed at different points in the research
process to be read by the Interpretive Group at the Center for Applied Phenomenological
Research at the University of Tennessee. During transcription, unnecessary placeholders
and non-significant pauses were deleted from the transcripts. The transcribed dialogue
was punctuated with ellipses to indicate pauses. Breaks in the transcribed text were
made at points at which a change in speaker occurred.
Interviews that were not read by the Interpretive Group were interpreted by the
investigator in light of the contributions and conclusions of group readers. These
interviews were notated and analyzed in a different way than transcripts prepared for
group reading. To prepare these data for thematizing, each interview was listened to
multiple times (3 to 4 times on average) by the investigator to refamiliarize him with the
interview. Using SONY software, sound files were divided according to meaningful
segments of dialogue. Careful notes were taken concerning the content of these
Table 3.1: Demographic Characteristics of the Participants
Demographic
Characteristics
Number of Participants
(N = 11)
Gender
Male
4
Female 7
Age
18-21
4
22-25 1
26-30 5
31-35 0
36-40 0
41-45 1
Education
Post-Graduate
3
College Completed 1
Some College 7
Occupation/
Occupational
Interest
Higher Education, Administrative
1
Architecture / Interior Design 1
Counseling / Social Work 2
Law Enforcement 1
Organizational Consulting 1
Political Activism 1
Psychology-Related Career 3
Undecided 1
segments; these consist of a brief notation indicating the time signature of a particular
piece of dialogue and a summary of content and any thematic notes the investigator felt
should be included. These procedures were used to prepare auditory files for
transcription and interpretation. Each interview required approximately 6 to 8 hours
from the initial interview to preparation of the sound file for interpretation and
transcription. The following is an excerpt from the investigator’s data notes taken on his
interview with Ma’a:
Time marker, note on dialogue content (note on impressions)
5:37, inner conflict ends in interpersonal conflict (internal/external)
5:57, starting a new relationship (situation/threatening)
6:29, hard to put self out there (vulnerability/self)
6:39, scary to put self out there (scary/vulnerability)
6:50, protecting myself from what? (self-protection/threat)
6:57, wounds heal (play down threat)
7:11, not like turmoil for the rest of my life (play down threat)
7:43, pattern; I put myself out there, then run (pattern/frustration with self)
Using data notes and the SONY software, I was able at any time to return to any
point in the recorded dialogue to assess surrounding dialogue for contextual meaning
and to transcribe relevant portions of text for final interpretation. This procedure kept
me as close to the original recorded dialogue as possible without losing context, voice
inflection, pauses, and other paralinguistic communication in the initial assessment and
interpretation of the interview dialogue. This procedure has only recently become
possible due to technological developments in digital recording and transcription
software.
An advantage to this procedure is that it saves time; as initial interpretation is
ongoingly taking place during the development of data notes. Furthermore, it keeps the
investigator closer to the original situation of dialogue as initially recorded. This is a
combination of data preparation procedures utilized in Dapkus (1985), who extensively
focused on thematization of auditory recordings in her interpretative process, and
Hawthorne’s (1989) procedure of data clearing, which consists of removing from a
transcribed text any information unrelated to the theme being articulated within the text.
This approach is also similar to that used in the coding procedures of many grounded
theory investigations (Creswell, 1998).
The Theoretical Basis for the Interpretive Process
Within any hermeneutic phenomenological study, how conclusions were derived
is of significance in checking the credibility and coherence of the results. Two types of
procedures were used; first, interpretive groups at the University of Tennessee Center for
Applied Phenomenological Research and at the Nursing College assisted in
groupinterpretation of transcribed interview texts. Second, the investigator interpreted
interview dialogues with systematic analysis of auditory recordings. While hermeneutic
procedures have typically had as their central problem the interpretation of literary texts,
the social sciences have extended the notion of text to include audio and/or visual
recordings, field notes, transcripts, etc., as well as traditional literature. The process of
coming to an understanding is similar across different forms of media. Perhaps the most
central fact in any act of interpretation is the ongoing interaction between oneself and the
text one is seeking to understanding.
When one begins to read, one understands only a fragment of a text and so one’s
immediate understanding is rooted in large part in one’s preexisting understandings
(Gadamer, 1960). As reading and interpreting progress, however, the text becomes a
greater and greater force in the dialogue—as one comes to understand the part(s) in
terms of an emerging whole—and this movement between part and whole results in an
understanding at the point where the possibilities for meaning in a text meet with the
possibilities for understanding on the part of the interpreter. The process of
interpretation is circular: a constant movement between understanding a part of a text
and understanding its meaning within the emerging whole of the text (Thompson,
Locander, & Pollio, 1994). There is not a single best way to understand a text; instead,
there are possibilities for meaning that resonate differently with readers at different
points in their own lives and across different historical periods. When a text is read and
discussed by an interpretive group intersubjective agreement among the readers emerges
concerning a viable understanding of the text.
What does it mean to understand a text? Two major hermeneutic theorists in the
20th-century, Gadamer (1960) and Derrida (1967), posed different, yet at times similar,
answers to this question. The work most commonly associated with Gadamer is Truth
and Method (1960) and with Derrida, Of Grammatology (1967). Each of the works
presents the author’s central statement of his theory of interpretation. The fundamental
question these authors address is how does an interpreter come to an understanding of a
text, conversation, artwork, etc., and what does he or she do when he or she does not
understand. The question is an old one, first found in problems of coming to understand
and render interpretations of Biblical texts or legal texts written centuries, if not
millennia, before their interpreter’s reading.
Thomas and Pollio (2002) describe the process of coming to an understanding of
a text by first making a distinction between acts of interpretation and acts of inference.
Interpretation, they note, is a process of going between one’s own life experiences and
those recounted in the text. The etymological roots of ‘inter’ (between) and ‘pruet’ (to
go) highlight this meaning: ‘to go between.’ On the other hand, the root of ‘in’ (in) and
‘fere’ (to carry or bring) indicate that inference requires us to introduce a theory,
hypothesis, or some other external sense-making heuristic to our acts of understanding.
It is a similar distinction to that made first by the philosopher Ricoeur (1970) and
recounted by Josselson (2004) between a hermeneutic approach that seeks to restore to a
text its immediate meaning and a hermeneutic approach of demystification that seeks out
a secret or hidden meaning in a text. A deconstructive or psychoanalytic approach—
such as that articulated by Derrida or Freud—is one of demystification. The interpretive
approach advocated by Gadamer (1960)—of great relevance here—is a hermeneutics of
restoration; that is, it is a problem of bringing meaning to the manifest content of a text
and describing the structure of that presently revealed meaning (Thomas & Pollio,
2002). Gadamer (1960) is of primary importance in 20th century philosophy of
science for presenting a reasonable challenge to the idea that knowledge of Truth could
be
brought about through an exacting application of scientific method. He argued that even
scientific understanding requires interpretation; thus, we find ourselves always already a
part of the equation of understanding, no matter how rigorously objective and
methoddriven we try to be. The fundamental assumptions grounding Gadamer’s
analysis are as follows (cf. Gadamer, 1960; Moran, 2000):
1. We encounter and live a world in and through language. By this, he means that
the language we speak and its cultural history give us a perspective, or a
“horizon,” that limits (and structures) what (and how) we can understand.
2. Some perspective is necessary for any act of understanding.
3. Meaning is present when two or more perspectives come together in a
transaction or dialogue; that is, when horizons meet.
4. Truth emerges as a cumulative meaning within any dialogical event. In other
words, truth is a result of accumulating possibilities for understanding.
5. Truth requires finitude: when something can no longer be encountered in
dialogue, it no longer exists for us as a relevant locus of understanding.
Gadamer argued that no text or event has a for-all-time (true) meaning that is
knowable by a human being. Understanding for him relies on biases, presuppositions
and prejudgments. Thus, Gadamer took issue with Husserl’s (1954/1970) strict
bracketing procedure, as this procedure asks an interpreter to put aside one’s perspective
to assume a transcendental perspective—a perspective Gadamer believes to be
impossible. We always and already have a situated worldview that comes out of our
cultural history and life experiences. He called this our “historically-effected
consciousness” and saw it as an essential aspect to any act of understanding and
knowing. While not always immediately present to awareness, Western consciousness
derives from particular languages as well as historical, religious and philosophical
beliefs. All of these and many more aspects and events of the social and historical
worlds serve as the ground or context within which we make sense of what we encounter
in our lives. The point for Gadamer was to be as aware and as disclosing of these
historical contexts as possible when engaged in interpreting.
Interpretive Procedures Used in this Investigation
The corpus of data interpreted consist of two forms. The first form is a
transcribed interview text and the second, annotated notes written to accompany
partitioned digital interview recordings. For reasons of confidentiality, transcribed
interviews were the form of data interpreted by the Interpretive Group at the Center for
Applied Phenomenological Research and in the Nursing College at the University of
Tennessee. These groups were made up of approximately 10 to 15 University faculty,
graduate students and other members of the professional community. All readers were
asked to sign a confidentiality statement for each of the transcripts read by the group.
During group readings, one member is assigned to read aloud the part of the investigator
and another, the part of the participant. Transcripts are read line by line and the reading
is stopped at various times by group members who wished to comment on a particular
portion of the text, propose a theme, etc. This process of reading aloud and stopping to
discuss at various points divides a text into units that are meaningful for the group. Each
of these units is thematized in the process and as reading progresses themes that come up
repeatedly are noted and discussed.
The primary advantage to group interpretation is that it involves a diversity of
perspectives and styles of reading from the group members. It is one aspect of the
phenomenological method that ensures the rigor of the investigative process. In group
reading, a section of text may elicit three or four different interpretations, but often there
is a great deal of commonality among interpretations. This commonality indicates the
presence of a theme or a particular pattern in the text that readers have noticed. At times
when there is little agreement, group discussion will ensue, or agreement will be reached
to hold the possible interpretations in abeyance until further evidence can be brought to
bear as the reading continues. The group functions in a democratic fashion with a leader
who facilitates discussion and who moves the group along if they become mired in
discussing a topic not directly relevant to the topic or text at hand. A single rule obtains
for interpretations posed to the group: the interpreter must show where in the text he or
she is deriving an interpretation. This rule serves to keep interpretive group members
focused on the text and on evaluating the evidence—usually a section of text—for the
theme or meaningful pattern being proposed. When reading as a group, readers
recognize each other’s presuppositions and prejudgments when these interact with
evidence-based interpretation.
Within the context of group readings, a few interesting phenomena were noted
by the investigator and the group. First, the group tended to view participant stories in
an initially unfavorable light—as if participants were narrating accounts in such a way as
to make themselves out to be the “good guy” and the other, those with whom they were
in conflict, the “bad guys.” As reading progressed, the group tended to side more and
more with the participants’ accounts and to view the participant in a more favorable
light. While it is presently unclear what this type of interpretive reaction may indicate
about how interpreters go about understanding accounts of conflict, it was a notable
phenomenon. Second, one of the accounts concerned an event that had been in the local
news a number of years back and with which some of the group members were familiar.
The sections of the interview with this participant that were recognizable as related to
this event and that might potentially identify the participant were excluded from analysis
in order to protect the confidentiality of all persons involved. As Josselson (2004)
warns: the ethics of disclosure of the evidence on which conclusions are based in a
qualitative study does not supersede a participant’s right to privacy, especially in small
communities in which the participant may be identified and suffer negative
consequences. After my bracketing interview was read in the interpretive group,
three other transcripts were read and annotated by group members. The remaining
interviews were interpreted by the investigator. After all interviews had been interpreted
individually, the investigator compared preliminary themes across interviews to assess
consistent meanings that emerged in participant accounts. Once a consistent set of
thematic patterns had been derived from interview transcripts, investigator notes, and
digital recordings of the interviews, exemplary segments of text were chosen to provide
examples of each theme. This thematic structure and its supporting evidence were
presented to an interpretive group meeting in the Nursing College—who were not
present for the initial readings at the Center for Applied Phenomenological Research.
The proposed thematic structure and its supporting evidence were discussed and various
proposals and suggestions made as to which quotations best support themes and what to
name the themes.
After the investigator took into account the input of the interpretive group, the
proposed thematic structure and evidence were then presented to participants in the
study to elicit their input. The four participants the researcher was able to solicit to
discuss the thematic structure provided supportive commentary and helpful suggestions.
These suggestions were taken into account in naming and modifying the investigator’s
initial thematic descriptions.
Thematic Analysis
One central feature of phenomenological research is that the results are organized
and presented with respect to a structure of interrelated themes derived from research
interviews. Van Manen (1990) describes themes in terms of an interpreter’s experience
“of focus, of meaning, of point” within the unfolding narrative of the participants’
accounts (pg. 87). Themes serve as a form of simplifying the complexities of the text,
connecting together events in meaningful ways for human consciousness; they are “like
knots in the webs of our experience” (Van Manen, 1990, pg. 90). A theme allows the
investigator to convey what is essential to make an experience what it is for the
experiencer, and the particular structure of themes present in an experience is what
distinguishes that experience from other types of experiences. In other words, themes
are consistent elements of a narrative that emerge from variation present in the ways in
which a participant describes some experience of a phenomenon; they are ‘structural
invariants’ (Ihde, 1983). For instance, one participant may experience face-to-face
conflict with drivers on a mall road and another with an ex-husband during a divorce;
what both accounts have in common (that which is invariant across accounts) is a
thematic structure that gives meaningful definition to the human experience of face-to-
face conflict. As Thomas and Pollio (2002) put it: themes are “experiential patterns
exhibited in diverse situations” (pg. 37). Themes emerge from three sources: the
participants’ meanings, the investigator’s meanings, and the intersubjective meanings
shared by participants, the investigator, and the various interpreters of the experiential
accounts (Hein & Austin, 2001).
While the actual process of reading and interpreting always has some element of
ambiguity, Wertz (2005), Hein and Austin (2001), and Hawthorne (1989) all sought to
provide a general description of what is involved in deriving a thematic structure from
experiential narratives. The following enumerates a combination of their approaches:
1. Immersion: Read entire transcript or listen to entire interview multiple times to
gain a sense of the whole.
2. Situated Structural Description: Demarcate shifts in meaning within the text.
3. Situated Reflection: Reflect on each unit of meaning to derive insights from its
original context.
4. General Structural Description: Shift focus to reading across texts for what they
have in common.
5. General Thematic Description: Synthesize and distill the general description
using the words of participants to convey the essential meaning that defines each
theme.
6. Thematic Interconnections: Look at interconnections among themes and describe
salient relationships.
7. Analysis of the Ground: Interpret the various accounts for what is implied as an
essential condition for the experiences recounted to have taken place. This
meaning serves as the context that makes possible the experience of some
phenomenon. Often, the ground reflect deeper cultural meanings “conveyed
through the language of participants” (Thompson, Locander, & Pollio, 1994, pg.
432).
8. Checking Structure Against Original Interview Recordings: Once the description
has been developed, the themes and their supporting evidence is checked against
the original interview record.
Evaluating the Evidence
Perhaps the most fundamental requirement of hermeneutic phenomenology is
that each theme is evidenced by the words of participants themselves. This is
accomplished when the investigator provides quoted text in which the theme being
discussed is present and which provides illustration and nuance to the meaning of the
theme. This returns the reader to the source texts from which all conclusions are derived
and reasserts the primacy of description: “A good phenomenological description is
collected by lived experience and recollected by lived experience—is validated by lived
experience and it validates lived experience” (Van Manen, 1990, pg. 27). The point of
providing direct quotation is to allow the reader an opportunity to form “insights that
bring [him or her] in more direct contact with the world” as it was lived and then
retrospectively described by participants (Van Manen, 1990, pg. 9). Polkinghorne
(2005) reminds us that the textual data we provide as evidence in a hermeneutic
phenomenological study are a second-order representation of lived experience, not the
experience itself. It is indirect evidence. It is a description based on a set of particular
events as lived within the contexts of particular lives as these are recounted and given
linguistic form in dialogue with the investigator (Mantzoukas, 2004).
CHAPTER IV HERMENEUTIC ANALYSIS OF EXPERIENTIAL
ACCOUNTS
The two sections of the present chapter distill the accounts of life experiences of
face-to-face conflict into a general structure of themes. In the first section, the situations
in which participants became aware of face-to-face conflict are described. The reader is
referred to a first-stage situational and thematic analyses for each interviewee given in
Appendices A and B. These appendices describe the preliminary themes derived from
each participant’s account and provide supporting evidence in the idiomatic language of
the participant. Included in Appendix C is a sample interview with participant A2. These
appendices have been included to present the nuance and detail of face-to-face conflict
as described by each participant. They are intended to convey the diversity of
participant accounts, each participant’s unique voice, and the themes noted in each
interview.
The second major section of this chapter represents a further analysis of themes
and provides a general description of the meaning of face-to-face conflict experiences.
It is hoped that this approach to presenting results will clarify precisely what decisions
were made in interpreting interview dialogues and what was involved in the part-to-
whole interpretive process leading to the final thematic description. The data also make
available enough information to allow the reader to explore alternate interpretations and
descriptions of face-to-face conflict.
Situations of Face-to-Face Conflict
Appendix A provides a summary of the conflict situations discussed by each
participant. This appendix also includes a brief demographic description of the
participant and the person(s) involved in the conflict. Please note that in the appendix
the persons listed as involved in the conflict(s) are not necessarily primary disputants.
The primary disputant(s) is specified under the ‘Situations Discussed’ in Appendix A and
is summarized in Table 4.1 on the following page.
Table 4.1: Frequency of Primary Disputants in Participant Accounts*
Primary Disputant Frequency
Spouses / Love-Interests 11
(Best) Friends 10
(Step) Parents 10
Acquaintances (work, school, etc.) 6
Strangers 6
Family of Primary Disputant 3
Friends of Primary Disputant 3
Authority Figures (Non-Familial) 2
Cultural Figures 1
Roommates 1
*Multiparty conflicts were prevalent in the corpus; therefore, the number of primary disputants
is greater than the number of situations of conflict summarized in Table 4.2.
The most frequent primary disputants were also the most intimate relationships
described by participants: spouses and love-interests, friends and best friends, as well as
parents and step-parents. Acquaintances and strangers—i.e., less intimate relational
partners—follow. The remaining disputants vary in level of intimacy with participants;
interpersonal distance, however, does seem relevant to participant accounts of face-
toface conflict.
Table 4.2 portrays general categories of situations for the experience of face-
toface conflict. These situations are listed by frequency and are a summary of the more
specific situations described in Appendix A. The most frequently cited situation
concerned having one’s self put at risk by another. In this type of situation, participants
situations concerned financial, interpersonal as well as health and safety issues. They
Table 4.2: Categories of Primary Situations of Face-to-Face Conflict
Type of Situation Example Frequency
of Events
Being Put at Risk without Consent
Friend not disclosing driving under the
influence (Missy)
9
Differences of Opinion or Belief
Disagreements with audience during lecture
over personal political views (Aqua Lad)
7
Family Politics
Conflicts with father’s wife, with father as
intermediary (Orlando)
7
Love or Dating Problems
Troubles deciding whether to commit to
relationship (Ma’a)
7
Physical or Emotional Violence Fist-fights with high school bully (Jeff)
3
Power or Authority Disputes
Actors not acknowledging participant’s
expectations in role of director (Holly)
3
Unfair Blame
High school friend blaming participant for
friend’s father’s job loss (Christin)
3
Breaking Promises
Husband disclosing confidential
information to participant’s boss (A2)
2
Overreactions to Harmless Actions
Roommate angry about participant missing a
class (Christin)
2
Interpersonal Distance in Friendship
Friends pulling away after high school
(Missy)
1
Joking Gets Out of Hand
Practical joke results in violence
(Jeff)
1
Other takes credit for one’s own work
Organizing philanthropic activity; colleague
takes credit for work (Holly)
1
also report not being given a choice or giving consent to the risky situation. The second
most frequently cited situation—differences of belief or opinion—usually concerns a rift
between disputants that emerges from an ideological tension often linked to a challenge
to identity, self-esteem, personal morality, etc. The third most frequent situation
concerns politics within the participant’s family, e.g., family members not living up to
role expectations and/or the formation of alignments against the participant within the
participant’s family. Other situations include love or dating problems, physical or
emotional violence, power or authority disputes, unfair blame, broken promises,
overreactions to harmless actions, interpersonal distance in friendships, joking getting
out of hand, and having another take credit for one’s own work.
Table 4.2 also presents an example of the situation and its frequency of
occurrence in the corpus. The table presents the diversity of situations on which the
following thematic analysis was conducted. It shows sufficient diversity in the corpus to
support the description of the general thematic structure, although many of the situations
described tend to be those experienced more frequently by younger participants (under
30 years old), as indicated by other phenomenological studies of conflict-related
phenomena (Sandra Thomas, personal communication, November 2, 2006).
General Thematic Structure of Face-to-Face Conflict
Hermeneutic analysis of these accounts of conflict produces a structure that
consists of three moments—the Betrayal, the Fight, and the Aftermath—all of which
emerge against the ground of a Preexisting Relationship. The Preexisting Relationship
may range from anonymous public relationships—such as a political debate in an online
forum, being cut off in traffic, or being treated rudely by a food service worker—to the
most intimate of relationships: those between parents and children, best friends, spouses,
lovers, etc. The concept of ground derives from the Gestalt concept of figure/ground;
the figure being what a person is aware of at some time and the ground, the setting or
context in which that awareness emerges (Pollio, 1982). The figure/ground relationship
is fundamental to awareness and highlights the contextual nature of human experience.
As used in this context, the concept of moment denotes a center of present
awareness. In this sense, it may be thought of as a focus that situates the themes of
faceto-face conflict within the ground of a Preexisting Relationship. This term derives
from the Latin ‘movere’ indicating movement in space or time, and is intended to
capture the reciprocal temporal movement of awareness participants exhibit when
describing their conflict experiences. The conflict accounts offered do not follow a
linear temporal structure, and thus it is inappropriate to apply strict conceptions of
narrative, stage or phase to these accounts. Since phenomenological accounts emerge in
media res, it is up to the interpreter(s) to make sense of the ‘before and after’ of the
experiences described (Thomas and Pollio, 2002). The concept of moment allows the
investigator to describe this temporal aspect of face-to-face conflict experiences as
described by participants.
Interpretive group and individual hermeneutic analyses of the corpus indicate that
experiences of face-to-face conflict emerge in terms of three general moments that
emerge against a ground of a Preexisting Relationship. The Preexisting Relationship
consists of a set of interrelated meanings that structured relational experiences before the
conflict episode, when the relationship was in a general state of stability. The meanings
associated with this ground consist of (1) an emphasis on similarities between the self
and other together with a tolerance for differences, (2) a feeling of having invested time
and effort to develop and maintain the relationship, (3) a feeling of safety and trust, (4)
an assumed ethos of loyalty, honesty, fairness, equality, reciprocity, sincerity and
integrity, and/or (5) the fulfillment of various role expectations that derive from the
general cultural and personal understandings of parent-child, friend-friend, boyfriend-
girlfriend, coworker, stranger-stranger, etc., the participant brings to his or her present
relationships.
The first moment of the conflict experience consists of a betrayal, violation, or
disruption of the preexisting relationship and/or of the participant’s expectations about
that relationship. This moment has been designated as Betrayal. In the moment of
Betrayal, participants often focus on six aspects: (1) the issue or problem they view as
having changed the preexisting, and otherwise stable, relationship, (2) this issue is
described in terms of its severity or seriousness for oneself and/or for the relationship,
(3) its unfairness or contradiction of idealistic criteria such as being rational, moral,
straightforward, honest, etc., in social relationships, (4) feelings of surprise or shock, (5)
being hurt and losing trust, and/or (6) a decision to do, or not to do, something about it.
The second moment concerns the immediate conflict episode and has been
designated as Fight. Within the Fight, participants report being aware of (1) power and
control over the flow of the interaction (strategy, manipulation, tactics) and the
implications of the outcome (winning or losing) for one’s sense of self (efficacy,
strength, will-power, etc.), (2) blaming and being blamed by the other, (3) feeling
frustrated and confused and being unable to understand or to act in the situation, (4)
feeling fear and anger toward the other and/or the situation, and (5) feeling disconnected
and different from the other in terms of identity, personality, and/or perspective.
The third moment of the conflict experience is termed Aftermath. The themes
focal in this moment concern (1) a final assignment of fault or blame (accountability and
responsibility), (2) hopes and regrets, (3) recognition of learning and change in oneself,
the other, or the relationship and/or (4) deciding on the relationship, that is, (a) whether
to return to the same situation without resolving the fundamental betrayal, (b) leaving
the relationship, or (c) starting a new relationship with the same person.
The ground and each of the moments have relevant sets of themes representing
the shifting focus of the content of the conflict experience. On the following pages,
Figure 4.1 portrays the thematic structure of the face-to-face conflict in terms of
semipermeable circles that represent the three moments of the event. Inside these circles
each of the relevant themes are listed. The circles representing moments are semi-
permeable and overlap to indicate the movement participants make between these
different foci and that the various moments do not exist in isolation, but blend with one
another in the total experience. Moments are not linear but recursively overlap when
described in participant accounts.
Figure 4.1: Ground, Moments and Themes for the Experience
of Face-to-Face Conflict
The Ground: The Preexisting Relationship
The preexisting relationship is the ground or context from which experiences of
Betrayal, Fight, and Aftermath emerge. While Betrayal is more centrally relevant to the
experience of conflict, it cannot be understood except in terms of the preexisting
relationship that has been betrayed. This relationship is one that, while not necessarily
stable or secure, was often predictable, fair, and sincere. Participants had built up
assumptions about the stability of patterns of interaction within the relationship and
derived expectations from more general cultural knowledge of how relationships are
enacted.
These understandings shape participant experiences of a relationship with other
people and lead to feelings about oneself as loyal to one’s relational partner and the
relationship. Within the preexisting relationship, participants have built on an assumed
level of loyalty, trust, safety and commitment between themselves and their relational
partner(s). Sometimes the effort that went into initiating and maintaining the
relationship is described with the common cultural metaphors of committing to, or
personally investing in, the relationship although some participants noted that this
metaphor in fact cheapens the value of relationships:
I hate speaking of relationships in terms of investments because it makes it sound like a
business. . . .We were building to that commitment. (Ma’a)
Often cultural understandings concern role relationships that govern interactions
between relational partners. Cultural assumptions about role relationships become
particularly relevant when one is in relation to strangers or in a socially sanctioned
relationship such as marriage. Very often participants seemed to assume that the
investigator also understood this cultural template. Statements such as ‘my so-called
friends,’ or ‘it’s not how a marriage should be’ indicate that participants’ assumed an
understanding of their assessments and beliefs concerning role expectations and general
cultural norms of loyalty, reciprocity and so on. This ground is often implicit in this
corpus of accounts, although it was frequently suggested in the following ways:
You can try to show people that people are basically the same, no matter what the
appearances are, or disabilities, or anything like that. I’m not so different from the
homeless guy I walked by on the street this morning; I’m not so different from the
professor giving a lecture to 500 kids right now; I’m not so different from the guy on
academic probation right now because he parties too much; I’m not so different from
people fighting in wars on either side. (Jeff)
In my way of coming to terms with myself is to be as truthful and honest with myself
and with other people around me. But at the same time, there are things we need to
hide. (Sanford)
A2, who married early, views herself as a newly wed to have been naïve in her beliefs
about marriage:
It never occurred to me that a husband and wife could cheat and do [bad things] to each
other. I was completely naïve in that way and even now I think it shouldn’t happen at
all. Then, slowly, I started understanding that this is happening and…I just took it like
he was sick, and so it didn’t hurt me like it used to in the beginning. I just began to feel
that something coming out of his mouth had no value….I just thought marriage is
something you couldn’t just break and maybe it would be better in time, when the
children came, so then he was trying to threaten me that if things were not done [his
way], I could leave and stay gone. (A2)
In many accounts, role expectations were expressed by indicating their opposite:
[My father] doesn’t have it in his genes: parenting qualities. So we didn’t start off on
the right foot—I mean my brother and I and everyone else. He has probably the
emotional intelligence of a 12-year-old. He will have impulses; he will fall in love
easily, but he won’t nurture, he won’t keep his own; he won’t be a father; so we had
problems from a very early part of my life. (Orlando)
I would love to not give a shit what anyone thought of me; I’d love it, but I have to [give
a shit]. Everything that I am tells me that I have an obligation to the people who I come
into contact with everyday. Even if they don’t see that they have an obligation to me.
What if everyone went about thinking that they didn’t have to be moral? (Jeff)
The point at which these expectations, beliefs and behaviors become most clear is when
the relationship is betrayed or is called into question; otherwise, they serve as an implicit
context.
The First Moment: Betrayal
Betrayal is the moment at which the conflict experience begins and the
preexisting relationship or some aspect of that relationship is broken, violated, or
changed. The label for this moment, while sounding dramatic and severe, does not
always indicate an extreme violation of the relationship, e.g., teasing among friends that
briefly becomes hurtful. Betrayal, however, does represent a more general change in the
preexisting relationship with the perception that this change has become bothersome for
the participant. When participants describe the moment of betrayal, they often do so in
terms of six thematic meanings: (1) the issue(s) or problem(s), (2) the seriousness of the
issue, (3) unfairness or wrongness, (4) shock or surprise, (5) feeling hurt by the other and
losing trust, and/or (6) deciding to do, or not do, something about the betrayal. A
constructed general statement from the first-person perspective concerning the moment
of betrayal is: When I feel betrayed I am aware that some issue, action or event has
negatively affected our relationship. This issue, action or event came up unexpectedly
and was shocking to me. It is wrong and unfair and I feel hurt by it. I feel that my trust
in you and in our relationship has been called into question and this may have more or
less serious consequences for the future of our relationship. I feel a need to do
something about it and have to decide whether or not to act. If I act, or do not act, we
could end up in a bigger mess than we had to begin with.
Betrayal, Theme I: The Issue or Problem
The first aspect of betrayal is what initiated the conflict. Many participants refer
to this as the ‘issue’ or ‘issues’ they have with their relational partners. Often social
norms and beliefs are implied in these descriptions of the problem or act that initiated
the conflict:
I used to have my best friends and they never called me all summer. (Holly)
I don’t consider C. my best friend anymore because she didn’t seem sympathetic when
we talked or even cared. (Missy)
She continued to do things that she knew got to me to make me lash out and yell at her
or whatever. (Christin)
The implied issue in Holly’s quote is that friends should stay in touch with each
other and her’s did not. For her, this belief makes the conflict salient since it served to
betray her understanding of the preexisting relationship and the rules that govern that
relationship. A similar situation holds for Missy since best friends should be
sympathetic and care for each other. For Christin the issue is the antagonistic intent of
her relational partner in doing things to make her angry. The theme of issue often
centers on an explanation or belief about the causes of the conflict and the specifics of
the betrayal. Thus, this theme may be thought of as a grievance the participant has with
his or her relational partner:
She said the things she said were out of anger and I said if you were my friend you’d
care how I felt. I felt very angered and betrayed I guess. I was kind of proud of myself
that I stood up for myself against three people at the same time….I think I felt betrayed
because I felt like they were holding it against me that I was friends with this girl and
they started pulling away and saying stuff about me behind my back and you know I’d
find out about it and I’m not a very happy person when I find out that stuff and they
knew it was bothering me and it was like they didn’t care and we were friends for so
long and shared so many memories and it seemed like they didn’t care. (Missy)
There was that ‘since I gave up so much, there’s no way this can end,’ so fighting
toothand-nail, I latched on.… It was like ‘if you can’t commit to me, then why are you
committing to this friendship over here and if you can’t commit here why are you going
to commit over there?’ (Ma’a)
It was a very emotional thing to have this person that I used to be best friends with, this
guy that I used to love and this girl that I hate, all three decide that I was the most
terrible being ever. (Jo)
It was a small private school where everyone knows everyone else’s business … most of
us had gone Kindergarten through high school, so everyone knew everyone really well.
I just remember being like ‘wow, this is so weird; why is she upset with me, you know
when she said it was okay and then she wasn’t okay’ and that’s why I asked her at the
beginning that if she wasn’t okay then I wouldn’t have wanted to ruin our friendship
like that, but I did. (Holly)
Betrayal, Theme II: Seriousness
The second theme is that of seriousness which tends to focus on the degree of
change, or the significance of the rift, that has emerged in the relationship. Participants
also report assessing the potential severity of the consequences of the issues surrounding
the betrayal and specify some issues as small and others as serious, large, or major:
I’ve had some serious conflict issues and I’ve had little ones…. Small issues are issues
that you can get over and we’ll probably be in the conflict for maybe a day and bigger
ones issues are where you don’t think that, a lot of times you don’t get passed the big
issues…. Big issues are either ongoing or they end your relationship. (Christin)
Jeff describes this theme in a somewhat different way:
Just when you begin to lose your mind, when you forget who you are—that’s when it
stops being a challenge and becomes a fight for survival. I’d rather like to avoid that.
(Jeff)
One of the best descriptions of how one may understand the seriousness of the issue(s) is
given by Aqua Lad:
She’s doing everything in her power not to understand me and even to as far as to hurt
me. It is difficult in a powerful kind of way any time anyone tries to treat you that way,
but when it’s your mother that is a really tricky sort of thing. So that is what when that
moment of ‘you’re absolutely right, I’m sorry’ came in, it was like I have borne up
under months of being berated and devalued and made fun of and hurt because of what I
believe in and what I am doing and at one moment, an unexpected moment…it just
happened so suddenly, it was like…this vague but very much present doubt inside of me
that maybe everybody else is right and I am wrong about this, and I guess when you are
being very public about an unpopular opinion, that sense of doubt and fear you might
really be wrong becomes stronger and stronger and more powerful inside of you. And
so at that moment when my mother, my guardian, my teacher conceded to me and put
that voice inside of me to rest for a short period of time, it was about a lot more to me
than my relationship with my mother, it was about everything that I believe and think
and do.
(Aqua Lad)
For Aqua Lad and for Christin, big or serious issues have the potential to alter
radically the nature of a relationship. For Jeff, serious issues can upset one’s feelings
about oneself and the relationship when it becomes a ‘fight for survival.’ At times, one
can get past big issues as in Aqua Lad’s case; other times, the issues are insurmountable
and represent an impasse.
Serious issues, such as those pertaining to life or death, elicit strong emotional
expressions. This emotion may be represented by changes in the register of the language
participants use to discuss the issue(s) they have with the other. Malachi Murmur
provides an interesting example:
I got the feeling that this person might try to go, but it was too late for them to be going
— rationally—and they went. And so I had to slam on my brakes and hit the horn as I
avoided colliding with her, but of course if I didn’t slam on my brakes it would have
been a t-bone and I probably would have killed the bitch. (Malachi Murmur)
Malachi Murmur begins his account referring to the other driver as ‘them,’ a ‘person’
and ‘her’ but as he relays the possible severity of the event—that it could have resulted
in the other driver’s death if they had ‘t-boned’—he changes register from ordinary
language to refer to the other driver as ‘the bitch.’
For Jo, the seriousness of the event concerns the possibility that she could have
been severely injured in a dispute that became violent:
The whole situation although it seems like it stretched on for hours took probably 30 to
45 minutes. The fight was probably no longer than about 3 or 4 minutes, but it seemed
like very long time and there was furniture and stuff and things to be bashed against and
walls. It was a fight; it was the most traumatic I’ve experienced as far as personal
conflicts are concerned. (Jo)
Betrayal, Theme III: Unfairness and Wrongness
The third theme concerns the unfairness or wrongness of the issue(s). Norms of
fairness often concern respectful treatment and relate to loyalty, reciprocity, and mutual
care. It can also be seen in terms of the variety of shoulds and should nots that become
salient to the participant in evaluating issue(s) that surround the betrayal.
In discussing her issues with committing to relationships, Ma’a notes that her
tendency to run when a relationship moves too quickly:
I’m trying not to put it [the new relationship] on hold because I realize that it is not fair.
(Ma’a)
Other participants note:
I don’t think it is very fair and she was like ‘this is the way it’s going to be,’ end of
discussion….This is the first time we’ve actually worked together, so I didn’t really
know. She seemed really excited that I was helping her at first and then she kind of, I
don’t know if she wanted the credit, she didn’t think that if I did something wrong
would she be blamed for it…. As long as it’s done correctly it doesn’t matter whose
name is on it; but it does bother me that she’d copy word-for-word what I said in my
email, add her name to it, or when I asked her to bring the supplies and she not on top of
it. If she wanted to take over the job I think she would have brought the supplies,
instead of me going out my way and buy supplies myself…it’s not very fair. (Holly)
I realize that when I meet a girl, and I don’t always consciously think about it, but when
I have that mechanism in me that expects her to screw me over, it’s obviously not fair to
her….I may already be putting her in the hole so to speak and being very unfair to who
she is and what she can offer. (Sanford)
For Malachi Murmur, this awareness of fairness and unfairness is implied as in the
statement ‘and then it was like I did something wrong’ in the following quotation:
This wasn’t something I thought happened in the real world. I thought we were going to
get shot if we stopped and tried to talk to the guy, so there was no way I was stopping.
So I took off and then it was like I did something wrong. (Malachi Murmur)
Betrayal, Theme IV: Shock and Surprise
The fourth theme is the shock or surprise accompanying the participant’s initial
awareness of the issue. Shock or surprise often results from the formerly predictable
interactions becoming ‘unpredictable,’ ‘slippery’ or ‘volatile.’ Malachi Murmur
describes:
There is a bit of slipperiness to the interaction because you have discovered you’re
on different, in this different place and it becomes really unpredictable as to what is
expected. (Malachi Murmur)
Other participants describe volatility and suddenness:
On my birthday he called me to say ‘get your stuff out of my apartment.’ It was painful,
but considering my relationship to him—always more a buddy than a father—my
attachment to him is volatile to say the least. So it was painful, but I had to learn to
cope. (Orlando)
And all of a sudden, I was being attacked and she had me on the ground. (Jo)
For Holly, the theme of shock ties in with the theme of the seriousness: how being
suddenly snubbed by her best friends made her feel devalued as a person and friend:
My two best friends—I thought we were going to be best friends forever—stopped
calling me after graduation. It was huge…. It was really shocking: I felt like I was more
a convenience for them, ‘oh, she’s a friend at school, but once we leave, we’re never
going to talk to her again.’ (Holly)
Ma’a reports being surprised when finding out about her ex-girlfriend’s new
relationship:
She left me for a woman who came from an alcoholic home, drugs everywhere…I
would never, I mean the mother is crack head, the daughter prides herself on…being
able to take more of these pills than anyone. I would never have thought that she would
go for something like that….That was a surprise. (Ma’a)
Sanford notes:
When she [his adoptive mother] left my father, it was very unexpected for me. They
were never the type of couple who fought…but basically, she left, and it caught me
completely off guard. Any negative feelings I had towards her were solidified that
much more. (Sanford)
Betrayal, Theme V: Feeling Hurt and Losing Trust
The fifth theme concerns participants’ feelings of being hurt by the betrayal and
their feelings of having lost trust in the other and/or in the relationship. Ma’a frames
this hurt in terms of the ways she invested in her relationship and the loss she suffered
as a result:
I told her that I don’t want to invest in this relationship; I just want to be in this
relationship. We had many discussions about how couples invest…and it ended up
being an investment; well, the feeling of loss is tied in with investment. (Ma’a)
Sanford describes the experience of his adoptive mother leaving his adoptive father and
the abandonment issues this event brought up for him:
She doesn’t understand how a mother leaving, period, can cause a person strife. She
doesn’t understand that fully because she figures, oh, she has to go about her life…it’s
selfish, but we’re all selfish…she doesn’t get it and there’s a good chance she never
will. (Sanford)
Orlando notes how her chaotic relationship with her father and violent relationship with
an ex-girlfriend left her with a lack of trust:
It was why I shifted completely from stable relationships to ‘friends with benefits’—the
issues of trust, control, self-doubt about connecting and I would think a lot of times,
‘what if I am like [my father]; what if I can be with someone for just a little while and
then I get tired or start seeing flaws; what if I am what I don’t want to be? (Orlando)
After the betrayal one is left feeling a sense of being hurt by, and of losing a sense of
trust in, the other and the relationship.
Betrayal, Theme VI: Deciding Whether to Act
When participants describe betrayal, they become aware of deciding whether or
not to do something about it. When they chose to act, the potential for the first moment
of the fight is present. Participants note that they try to be calm and reflective in
deciding to act in order not to create more conflict than necessary. This is perhaps the
most personally difficult decision as openly acknowledging the betrayal creates the
possibility of starting a fight when there may not have been one in the absence of action.
Under such circumstances, blame can be attributed to one’s self for the conflict, even if
the betrayal is perceived as the fault of the other. The choice not to act, however, does
not guarantee peace. If the choice is not to act, the issue(s) may remain un-addressed. If
the other party expects a response, a ‘cold’ conflict may emerge and ‘avoidance’ may be
viewed as a form of passive aggression. Malachi Murmur, Jo, Christin and Holly
provide some of the clearest examples:
They will look kind of startled, but they won’t look at who they could have potentially
collided with. I don’t know if I have done that, but I’ve certainly notice other people
doing it. The only thing I can imagine is that they don’t want to acknowledge it.
(Malachi Murmur)
I said ‘I don’t think I have anything to say to you because it’s not going to matter
anyway’ and she had a bottle of liquor in her hand and she slung it on me. (Jo)
I think it is immature in the first place for her to ignore, so I am going to be immature.
In situations with her she wasn’t being mature in the way she was treating me, so I
didn’t think I needed to be mature with her. (Christin)
It’s frustrating: How am I supposed to know what she is thinking if she doesn’t tell me?
(Holly)
Jeff describes his reluctance to enter into relational conflict and the personal conflict this
brings about for him:
It creates a really big inner conflict and I’m not the kind of person to just walk up
to someone and speak to them about it unless I’m drinking beer or I’m really
angry or whatever. (Jeff)
Other participants discussed how they will ‘put things on the table’ rather than ‘let
things simmer,’ no longer allowing the issue(s) to create havoc for their relationship and
their emotional well-being:
I guess that’s the way girls act, but I’m more like ‘tell me yes or no’ and be really
forward and straight. (Holly)
I’m a person who likes to say it to their face and not like ‘I didn’t say that’ when I really
did say something. I’ll admit that I said something if I did. (Missy)
The decision to act is summarized well by Sanford, with the addition of much
qualification for what he means by ‘coming on strong’:
With some things, I have to come on strong right away, and that’s the only thing she
understands. I hate to be that way, but it’s the only way to stop it in its tracks is just
immediate aggression, forceful, and I’m not talking about being cruel or calling names,
but just saying ‘hey, I’m not going to put up with this. I’m dealing with this; this is my
thing—give me some space, butt out, leave me alone.’ (Sanford)
Holly describes her role as a director for a high school play calling for her to ‘put her
foot down’ and fire some actors who refused to acknowledge her authority:
I didn’t feel bad, I had given the expectations that I had set and to tell you the truth, it
needed to be done, because sometimes an example needs to be set for others to follow
and I hated that it had to be like that. I wished people would have listened to me the
first time, but I definitely, the visual example kind of led the pack for the rest of the
people. (Holly)
A2, who felt she had for 22-years tried to make her marriage work, finally reached a
point in which she felt compelled to file for divorce:
Conflicts just went on the same way, they didn’t decrease, but the same things just
expanded, and started growing more and more and more to the point where I was just, I
couldn’t take it any more…. I couldn’t take the craziness. (A2)
On the following page, Figure 4.2 depicts the thematic structure for the moment of
betrayal in the experience of face-to-face conflict. It depicts the six themes connected by
lines, which emphasize the interrelationships among themes. Themes are not
orthogonal, but instead are points-of-emphasis in participant accounts that are
contextualized by the ground and the other related themes.
Figure 4.2: Structure of Themes for the Moment of Betrayal in
the Experience of Face-to-Face Conflict
The Second Moment: The Fight
The experience of the second moment in face-to-face conflict—the Fight—
emerges in the context of the betrayal of a preexisting relationship. The themes
associated with the moment of the fight are: (1) control, power, and strength, (2)
GROUND: THE PREEXISTING RELATIONSHIP
The Issue(s) or
Problem(s)
Deciding
Whether
to Act
Seriousness of
the Issue(s)
Shock and
Surprise
Unfairness and
Wrongness
Feeling Hurt and
Losing Trust
ambiguity as to who is to blame combined with an awareness of being blamed, (3)
frustration, confusion and lack of understanding, (4) fear and anger, and/or (5) a sense of
disconnection and difference between one’s self and the other in terms of identity,
personality or perspective.
From the first person perspective a constructed statement describing this moment
of face-to-face conflict may be expressed as follows: When I fight with you, I am aware
of feeling that our relationship has been betrayed by something that either you or I did. I
feel a lack of control in the situation and I feel myself to be powerless. I also feel a need
to reassert my personal power and winning or losing becomes a strong concern for me. I
feel as if you are blaming me for things for which I am not responsible, or only partially
responsible. I don’t understand why you are engaging me in this way and I don’t know
what to do. I feel fearful and angry about the situation, as it seems as if you, or the
relationship, have become threatening. You, who are supposedly my friend, spouse,
parent, etc., seem so different and unfamiliar to me.
The Fight, Theme I: Control, Power, and Strength
The first theme associated with the moment of present conflict concerns a sense
of the situation being out-of-control and/or of being disempowered by the actions and
manipulations of the other. As Aqua Lad notes: “It’s natural to want to feel like what
we’re doing is effective. That we are having some impact on the world around us.” This
theme focuses on one’s effectiveness being undermined by the other or the situation.
Feeling powerless presents a challenge that tends to create a desire to reclaim one’s
personal power and/or control over the situation. Malachi Murmur describes his feelings
of powerlessness with drivers on the west side of a certain city in the U.S.:
Unless I completely altered my course and/or destination and decided to spend the
time following this person I couldn’t even yell at them from behind or make angry
gestures. They’re just gone. I feel powerless. (Malachi Murmur)
Participants often express the need to regain a sense of control or to reconcile
themselves to a relationship that seems to have gone out of control. At times,
participants note that the other may have forced the situation out of control to gain
power:
Her control is very much out of control. The way she controls her reality is very much
an out-of-control way. I am a much more controlled personality. I like order. Very
important to have structure, some form of structure for me. (Sanford)
Orlando describes a very salient power dynamic while she was having dinner with her
father after she had not seen him for three years:
He cannot emotionally touch me because I have a very thick crust when it comes to
him….I had to confront him with a number of situations in which he had failed his
children as a parent and he kept denying that failure, he kept denying situations: missing
birthdays, being physically aggressive at times, and he tried to deny it….This is not how
you deal with me….I was at a point that I would put up with any situation but that. I
would walk ten miles if that was required just to not give him the impression that he had
me, that he had some power over me. (Orlando)
She also expressed a similar sentiment concerning power dynamics in love relationships:
Even when people love each other a lot, there is always that sadistic dependency desire
where you want the other person to suffer if you leave or something goes wrong. It is
about power, it is about self-esteem, it is about ego and that is something I don’t give
people because I don’t have that to give. I don’t fall if someone leaves, I don’t beg and
most of all, I get up and move on with my life. (Orlando)
Participants also point to strategies, manipulations, and tactics used by the other
to gain power and force compliance. A2 describes a manipulative ‘guilt-tripping’ pattern
between herself and her ex-husband:
He still wanted his way like usual…and he would find different ways to humiliate me or
try to make me feel guilty about something that was never there….He was always trying
to put a guilt trip on me. (A2)
At times, an awareness of power emerges in issues of winning or losing. Jo
describes a particularly extreme situation in which she was lured to a friend’s home only
to be physically attacked by that friend, an ex-boyfriend and the ex-boyfriend’s current
girlfriend. During the confrontation, which turned violent, Jo was accused of being
manipulative and of having influenced these individual’s lives in negative ways. She
notes:
The three of them were telling me how I influenced their lives and screwed everything
up for them. I found it interesting that they would give me that sort of credit, they
would give me that sort of power over them that I really didn’t want. (Jo)
In light of being attacked by three people, she notes the irony of being portrayed as the
powerful one in the situation, viewing it as a situation specifically created to win, and
exercise power over her:
I think they just wanted to fuck with me as much as possible. I think they had a plan of
attack and they were out to win and they did. (Jo)
A less severe example of the connection between one’s sense of power, efficacy
and the desire to win is found in Christin’s account:
Ignoring is uncomfortable, but I am a very strong-willed person so I’m not going to be
the first one to talk and I view that as not necessarily the best way to handle things, but
if she is going to come in and start ignoring me first, then I am going to ignore her
longer that she ignores me because I feel like I’ve won. (Christin)
Ma’a describes her situation from the perspective of someone feeling out of
control and trying to gain and maintain control within an intimate relationship:
Because she couldn’t commit, I would get more controlling and that continued
through…. I felt like there was a wall and I’m persistent and don’t like to fail and to get
in that relationship I gave up a lot….Since I gave up so much, there is no way this can
end…so fighting tooth-and-nail, I latched on and the more I latched on and tried to
control. (Ma’a)
She also notes the effect of relinquishing power had on her feelings about herself:
I’ve been conditioned over the past five years, even though I feel nurturing is good,
anytime I would show my nurturing side, it was always like a weakness. I was weaker
because I was emotional, but she liked it. It was twisted. It is hard now for me to say
these things about myself that I feel are virtuous, great and beautiful. I’m really trying
to find that again. (Ma’a)
Participants note repeatedly that their sense of personal power is related to their ability to
control, at least to some extent, events of the fight. For some the issue is winning, for
others not giving in to the other’s attempt to overpower them. Still, for others, the theme
emerges in an overwhelming feeling of powerlessness and in an inability to act.
The Fight, Theme II: Blaming and Being Blamed
The second theme concerns who is at fault. Participants often expressed a feeling
of being blamed for things they did not do, or felt that the other was not accepting
responsibility for the situation. The reciprocal leveling of blame between self and other
serves to make the interaction feel like a personal attack. For participant A2, her
exhusband often accused and blamed her for events she felt were not connected to
reality.
She often was unable to respond to these accusations:
There was nothing to explain or to argue with him about. He was trying to attack and I
had no words because there was no connection to anything….He was telling me that I
am having affairs with so many people, even if I just talked to somebody, to him it
meant I was having an affair with the guy, or it is a lady, it was like I was talking about
him, if it’s a man, I’m having an affair. (A2)
Ma’a also describes her experience of being blamed for problems in a long-term
relationship:
I took the brunt of responsibility for it, which was conditioned over time because if you
hear that you’re the problem for five years straight and you’re working on yourself.
Every time a conflict would arise and she’d point the finger at me, I would take that
opportunity to look at myself. (Ma’a)
Not only can being blamed and accepting blame present a challenge, it can also
be used to justify retribution. Orlando openly acknowledges her fault in one conflict
between herself and her father, but notes that he directly threatened her for refusing to
attend his wedding to ‘The Witch’:
I was the catalyzer of this whole situation. He said ‘every action has a consequence and
you’ll pay for your actions.’ (Orlando)
Thus, being in the position to blame the other for the conflict seems to put one in a
position of perceived power and may be used to justify actions escalating the conflict or
harming the other person with impunity. This aspect of blame became all too real for Jo
when she was physically attacked, and for Aqua Lad in a dispute with his mother and
sister:
It was just a bunch of crazy nonsense and it was ‘all my fault.’ I was the one that told
about it, so it was all my fault. That was one of the things they brought up saying that I
destroyed their lives….They were all talking about this stuff that had happened before
and they brought it all together and wanted to talk about it all at once and come to this
conclusion that I was a terrible person and I needed to be punished. (Jo)
She told me that I was a disappointment, comparing me to my sister, talking with my
sister behind my back and sort of encouraging in my sister a sense of judgment against
what I was doing. She was calling me names, she was comparing me to my alcoholic
and abusive father. She was finding some really powerful buttons that she knew she
could push with me in some very hurtful ways. So it had been a very devaluing
experience. (Aqua Lad)
Some participants describe their experience of being at fault or sharing fault with others
with whom they are in conflict:
They just pulled away….There were a couple who were like ‘what were you doing,
what were you thinking dating him?’ and I was like ‘it was okay I thought, I definitely
asked’ and they’re like ‘of course she’s going to say yes; she didn’t want to hurt you, but
she actually didn’t think you were going to.’ (Holly)
We were probably both in the wrong, but she made me feel like it was all my fault what
I know it was everyone’s fault, including myself. No ownership to what she’s done.
(Missy)
The Fight, Theme III: Frustration and Confusion
The third theme is one of feeling confused and frustrated by the fact that
the participant did not understand what was happening or why the relationship
took the direction it did:
They had stuff that was true, but it wasn’t from the perspective that I had, so it didn’t
seem right at all. And they were saying stuff about how I was as a person and the way
my mind works and it didn’t make any sense to me because they were wrong. (Jo)
A lot of times I get really, really frustrated by my lack of ability to do something about
the situation, such a retribution or punishment of some sort, just anything to get the
person to be aware that what they did was completely fucking idiotic and dangerous.
(Malachi Murmur)
This feeling of frustration and confusion emerges when attempting to discover
the reason for the other’s behavior. A2 describes her experience of trying to connect with
the other person to better understand why there were problems with communication in
the relationship:
I was sad and asking why our relationship should be like that. If he really wants
something, why can’t we talk straight, with everything on the table and say whether this
is right or wrong and without all this other stuff. So when he was calm … I tried to
bring it up and explain to him: why can’t we just talk? (A2)
Jo describes trying to figure out where the three people who attacked her were coming
from:
It makes me wonder about what the point of it is…I was like ‘why, why? What was
the purpose for that?’ and they must have gotten something out of it. They must have
enjoyed it or something. (Jo)
Christin relays her sense of frustration:
It was a very, very frustrating situation because I wanted to handle it in a mature way,
but she continued to do things that she probably knew got to me. (Christin)
To deal with his frustration and confusion, Sanford reconciled himself to feeling
‘bemused befuddlement’ in his relationship with his mother:
I guess I’m trying find that happy median, where I like that craziness and independence
without all the I make all the decisions all the time bullshit with complete lack of
selfawareness. It is definitely a trip … it’s bemused befuddlement…. If I can continue
my status quo without getting completely knocked off course with her craziness. She’s
a great woman; she’s just fucking nuts. (Sanford)
At another place, he describes a deeper frustration in this relationship:
It seems that she tries to open up what appears on the surface to be a dialogue about an
issue, where in truth, she’s made up her mind and that’s that. I guess the question is
why she opens up the dialogue when in fact the decision has been made by her and
that’s not going to change, because she’s the boss. So it’s frustrating for me and for my
father and step-father trying to talk stuff out and be logical, give our point of view on
the issue and it seems all for naught. Why are you even asking us if nothing is going to
come from it?….It’s pointless. We don’t understand it completely. I don’t think she
understands it. It’s pretty fucked up. (Sanford)
The Fight, Theme IV: Fear and Anger
The fourth theme associated with the fight concerns a feeling of fear of the other
or of what might happen in an out-of-control situation. There is also some anger about
the initial betrayal and subsequent events, such as being blamed. A2 articulates this
theme in the two following statements about the end of her 22-year marriage:
I was scared of him and I’m scared of this guy in accepting what he is saying, but what
he didn’t understand was why I am accepting….he would raise his voice and try to
make me feel guilty as if I am pretending and trying to act like a saint. (A2)
It was very, very scary. I went to the police. I went to a counselor. One of the police,
the counselor, or the priest, the second priest that I saw told my relative who knew the
priest…. My cousin is a very nice person and that is why the priest could speak to him
in confidence, he told him… ‘we are usually here to save marriages, but in this case [her
husband] is very, very devious, has a very devious mind, so please ask your cousin to
leave him as soon as possible. He is going to destroy her.’ (A2)
The theme of fear and anger becomes apparent in the anticipated threat the other poses to
the self or to other people the participant cares about:
She continued to do things that she knew got to me to make me lash out and yell at her
or whatever. I never felt like I could do that because of the position it would put my
dad in because she would probably go home and tell her dad everything and her dad
would come in and talk to my dad about it. I never wanted my dad to have any issue—
I never wanted that to affect him. (Christin)
Orlando describes her father’s irate personality and her adolescent behavior that modeled
his own:
He is a very irate individual. As an adolescent I started being very much the same way
— slamming doors and other—and once my mother told me, and she was very calm
about it, you know you are starting to look like your father. At that point I stopped
doing the slamming doors and I started being much more aware of my social behavior,
of my emotions. (Orlando)
Malachi Murmur describes an experience of anger with a driver who ran a stop sign and
then taunted him:
The guy sort of slowed down, but then released and went right across the intersection
right as I was starting to move from my stop sign. I guess I probably got angry and
yelled something that to him that was inaudible, probably called him a ‘stupid fuck’ or
something like that and he turned toward me as he crossed the intersection he looked to
his left, right at me and did this big open-mouthed head-bobbing kind of laugh like
‘ahhh ha ha ha’ look what I’m doin’ like a little redneck fucking child with a rat tail. I
think that emanated from a sense of embarrassment on his part and he then tried to
cover it up by having this big, blatant ‘hahaha—I meant to do that, look how funny I
am’ reaction. I dunno: avoidance. (Malachi Murmur)
Other participants describe the feeling of anger emerging when the other refuses to
accept responsibility for their part in the conflict:
They were denying it and that made me really mad. We were in a restaurant and it
wasn’t pretty….I just wanted to tell her to shut up; it was very annoying (Missy)
Participants also discussed maintaining a sense of control over themselves in
order to lessen the effects of anger and fear on their conflict interactions. Ma’a describes
her typical manner of responding when conflict becomes ‘heated’:
I had no reaction, I wasn’t fast. Intelligent, yes, but definitely slow on the conflict. The
issue will be brought up, and I can focus on it until it gets heated. Then I’ll let the other
person wail and I’ll say nothing for quite a long time. Maybe after a day or two, I’ll
bring it back up because I’ve thought about it, had time to process … I like to be sturdy
and stable when I talk about things. (Ma’a)
The Fight, Theme V: Disconnection and Difference
The fifth theme concerns an awareness of disconnection (or difference) between
the self and the other in terms of identity, personality, and/or perspective in the situation.
Participants refer to things seeming ‘out of perspective’ or ‘being on different
wavelengths’ with one another. Missy describes disconnection in the terms: “This one
girl: me and her don’t see eye-to-eye.” This theme also relates to an evaluation of the
rightness or wrongness of one’s own and the other’s perspective regarding the conflict.
At times, there is even an understanding that the conflict may be about two entirely
different issues—the respective issues framed by each disputant’s perspective—and thus
continue because of a disconnection between self and other. Some seek to explain
disconnection and difference in terms of intelligence, sex, or some other personal
characteristic of the individual(s) with whom they are in conflict. Christin describes the
differences between her life circumstances and those of her ex-best friend:
There were a lot of issues with her; I mean her dad didn’t have a job and my dad did
have a job and I had a lot of friends and she didn’t have a lot of friends and I don’t want
to say jealousy but then I kinda do. I don’t view myself as one of those people that
everybody
is jealous of me, but I think that probably was the root of things. I had a lot of things in
place in my life and she did not. (Christin)
Jo describes difference in terms of the perspectives she and her attackers had on the
issues of the conflict:
I remember pretty accurately what happened. And what they said about me, a lot was
not true, but there were some of them that were true, but they were mixed in with so
many things that weren’t true that it made it all seem out of perspective. Which I guess
it was, it was very much out of my perspective because it was theirs. (Jo)
Differences in belief and opinion are viewed as potential causes of increasing conflict,
and, as Jeff notes, particularly in cases of intolerance and racism:
I don’t know if it’s due to ignorance or irrationality, you can’t talk to people like that. It
would be wonderful if we could all talk away our problems. It’s not that simple; people
have opinions because they believe them. (Jeff)
Malachi Murmur ironically derives a sense of pleasure from the fact that he recognizes
contradictions in the beliefs and behavior of those whom he views as having beliefs
antithetical to his own:
It is humorous to me that so many Christians are so adamant ‘our culture is filthy and all
these horrible bad influences’ …and ‘we need to clean it up’ and yet they are running
around driving recklessly and cutting people off in traffic and flipping people off and
cursing at them and bombing nations. It doesn’t seem all that Christ-ee to
me….Nonviolence, love, peace, good-driving, they seem to have lost the point
somewhere along the line. It is pleasurable to see it verified because a lot of what they
are spewing is going against me and/or my beliefs. So to see them behave so
hypocritically provides me with a satisfaction because it invalidates all their spewing.
(Malachi Murmur)
In another place, Malachi describes a deep sense of frustration with the
differences he sees between himself and others:
I don’t think I derive pleasure from the fact that most don’t get it because I really
don’t want people to be as stupid as they are, but they really are stupid. People are
stupid for the most part [laughter]. (Malachi Murmur)
He uses the metaphor of being on different wavelengths:
It has to do with the fact that we are on different wavelengths with that interaction
where the problems arise because they are not where I am and they don’t have the same
understanding and sort of ground to work from. It’s a normal state for me: I guess it
feels like there’s some sort of message was missed somewhere and there’s something
missing that is causing us to—it is sort of like gear slippage—it’s like the teeth aren’t
catching where they are supposed to and something is off. (Malachi Murmur)
Sanford describes his experience of being different or disconnected from others
because of issues surrounding his sense of abandonment:
It turns one into having a disconnected, aloof, and stoic type personality because if you
came into being by being given up, I guess you expect that from every relationship.
(Sanford)
He also describes the personal differences he sees between himself and his adoptive
mother:
We are two very different people. Personalitywise—how we operate, how we do things.
(Sanford)
Missy views differences in terms of the ways that men and women engage in conflict:
Men are more aggressive in making their point verbally, something with their pride, I
don’t know, girls are more emotional and want to like, I guess guys talk with their head
and girls with their heart. (Missy)
Aqua Lad describes a fundamental difference between himself and those he views as his
political opponents:
They are more concerned with defending the people they love at all costs no matter
what, but don’t seem to be so concerned about making sure that justice and fairness are
promoted. They are more concerned about right or wrong—my country right or wrong,
my family right or wrong. (Aqua Lad)
Figure 4.3 describes the thematic structure for the moment of the fight in the experience
of face-to-face conflict. As with Figure 4.2, the lines between themes in Figure 4.3 are
meant to emphasize the interrelatedness of the meanings associated with this particular
moment of face-to-face conflict.
The Third Moment: Aftermath
The third moment in the experience of face-to-face conflict is the Aftermath. The
aftermath tends toward a reflective accounting of the events of the betrayal and the fight.
This moment emerges in terms of four themes: (1) accountability and responsibility,
Figure 4.3: Structure of Themes for the Moment of the Fight
in the Experience of Face-to-Face Conflict
(2) hope for the future or regret about things done or said (or not done or said), (3) an
awareness of change having (or not having) taken place and (4) deciding what to do with
the relationship: (a) begin a new relationship with the same person, (b) leave the present
relationship, or (c) maintain the relationship unchanged.
GROUND: THE PREEXISTING RELATIONSHIP
Control, Power
and Strength
Blaming and
Being Blamed
Fear and Anger
Frustration and
Confusion
Disconnection
and Difference
A first-person statement of the themes defining the aftermath is as follows: After
the fight I am aware of needing to make a decision about what to do about the
relationship and about the changes this conflict has introduced into the relationship.
Sometimes I am the one to blame for what happened, sometimes you are to blame, and
sometimes we both are to blame. Sometimes I think about things I could have done or
said, or feel bad about things I did or said. Often, I feel I learned something and have
changed because of what I learned, and I recognize that you have, or have not, done the
same.
Aftermath, Theme I: Accountability and Responsibility
After the conflict has ended or at least quieted down, some participants describe
an experience of realizing who was at fault in the situation. Often a final verdict is made
in the absence of the relationship or after the relationship has been put on hold and each
person’s accountability and responsibility assessed.
A2 reflects on her experiences of conflict and renders a final verdict concerning
his fault and lack of accountability within their relationship:
At the time, I wasn’t aware that the fault was his…. There was no responsibility in his
head (A2)
Jo describes her experience of reluctantly taking on responsibility and of the effects this
had:
I must have done something, I must have done something to make them feel that way.
But I don’t think I did all the things that they said that I did. (Jo)
It seems that Jo has accepted some aspects of her accusers’ blame no matter how much
she resisted it within the fight.
While Jo takes on some of the accusations made against her, Jeff tends to render
a verdict that puts the blame on the woman who stood him up:
Maybe I have a tendency to overplan certain things, but this was not one of them. This
was just ‘hey, I’ll just meet you here at this certain time; will that work? If it doesn’t
give me a call. See you in a week or two I guess.’ It’s a few hours past the time that I’m
supposed to have heard something and so I give her a call—no answer—and 45 minutes
later I get a call back and well, I’ll just say other plans were made off the cuff, which
wouldn’t have bothered me so much if it hadn’t been an hour late. Even if I had been
told 15 or 20 minutes before, it would not have turned out to be quite as significant as it
was. The impression that I and probably anyone else with a pulse would get, it leaves
one with the impression that that you’re sort of unimportant. (Jeff)
When conflict took place with strangers, blame and fault may become generalized:
I’m already going over the speed limit and what I’ll do is hit the brakes and slow down
to the speed limit and just stay there as long as they are behind me or as long as they are
tailgating. And I used to do it with trucks too, but since I was rammed by one, I
wouldn’t put it passed some other trucker to do the same thing. (Malachi Murmur)
Ma’a describes a relational pattern that many of her friends and intimate partners have
found frustrating in her and that has initiated many conflicts in her life:
It’s a pattern for me…from the time I was thirteen with my first major relationship
where I got close with someone and then I run away….Next lifetime, my biggest
conflict better not be trust…because this one sucks. (Ma’a)
Perhaps the best example of a final verdict concerning blame and fault comes from
Ma’a’s description of assessing her tendency to accept the blame her ex-girlfriend often
leveled at her during their five-year relationship:
[When she would complain about me] I would take that opportunity to look at myself
and see what aspects of my self needed to be worked on. I loved it. The other side of
that is that overtime you begin to think you have a lot of problems and in fact, when we
broke up, everything that she complained about me: it was her … it was her. Her.
Amazing. (Ma’a)
Holly describes the end of a friendship that indicates a sense of mutual responsibility for
miscommunications and misunderstandings:
Me and him, who had been friends forever, lost that friendship because of
miscommunication and misunderstandings and he was really torn because he thought he
was going to lose her and me. (Holly)
Missy attributes blame to a friend who would give her and other friends a ride in her car
without disclosing that she was driving under the influence:
She drove drunk all the time and would not tell us. I would have drove, I wouldn’t
care…it was just lack of responsibility. It irritated me because that is a big thing. She
wouldn’t tell us. (Missy)
Aftermath, Theme II: Hope and Regret
After the fight has ended, participants express hope and regret concerning the
relationship. Hopes pertain to a wish to improve the relationship or to continue it.
Regrets concern feeling guilty about what one may have done or said. Regrets, however,
can also specify things that one wishes had been done or said, e.g., a biting remark, etc.
This theme could also be labeled ‘having second thoughts’ and/or ‘imagining other
outcomes.’ Jo regrets not having time to prepare for the attack to which she was
subjected:
I really didn’t know what to say. If I had had some time to prepare or some warning, I
probably could have come up with some clever things to say. (Jo)
At another point in her account, she entertains the possibility that her ex-boyfriend could
have gotten involved in the physical attack:
I’m grateful that he didn’t decide to do anything like that. People could have gotten
really injured, but no one really did. (Jo)
Malachi Murmur describes his hopes for interactions with other drivers on the
Interstate:
I am trying to educate the populace. I don’t want them to celebrate stupidity. (Malachi
Murmur)
Sanford reflects on hopes for his future relationships, in which he would like to break a
long-standing relational pattern that has caused him trouble:
I had a good upbringing … but nonetheless I see it affecting how I go about my
relationships with my peers and it bothers me because I don’t want to manifest that
again. In many circumstances, you can’t help but do it. It just kind of happens and it’s
about realizing when those things are happening and trying to do something about it.
(Sanford)
Aqua Lad also describes the exercise of reflective self-control concerning his
experiences of anger, being glad that he did not respond with anger to a posting on an
online listserv:
I felt when I was typing that in that is was a very self-righteous thing that I was typing
that even though I believed that her line of argument was full of perversion and lies and
uncompassionate and un-Christian sorts of statements, and even though I sincerely
meant that, my hope and my prayer was that, you know, that this woman who was
clearly a very smart person that that knowledge would abound, would really increase in
its sense of compassion and love, but I felt when I was typing it that it was a very
patronizing and very self-righteous thing to be saying and I didn’t want to come across
that way, that is not the sort of person I want to be at all and it was certainly not the
person I wanted to be in that situation and so I ended up deleting that passage and
coming up with another sort of farewell statement. (Aqua Lad)
Aftermath, Theme III: Learning and Change
The theme that is perhaps most salient in the aftermath is how participants feel
they have been changed by the conflict and what realizations they have come to about
themselves, others and the relationship. It seems that to have learned something from
conflict has a redemptive value for the individual: ‘it was a bad situation and perhaps I
wasn’t an angel, but I did learned something that will benefit me in the future.’ In
sharing knowledge of what was learned, it felt that valuable information about life—
wisdom (as Jeff called it) culled from experience—was being conveyed. At other times,
it felt like participants were seeking such information from the investigator.
The theme of learning and change figured very prominently in Jeff’s account.
The following statements derive from his account:
Conflict is a change agent in any situation and when conflict is undesirable, its because
of an unwillingness to change or a problem with change; we’re uncomfortable. People
like to stick to what they know, people are stolid and cumbersome when placed in a new
environment or new situation. (Jeff)
It is like when everything else in my life is constantly changing, being bumped forward
or backward by a couple hours…running, running all the time, it was nice to be able to
place my faith in something that I was reasonably certain was going to happen. And,
yet, it was another lesson, I guess [to be stood up]. (Jeff)
I learned the hard way in elementary and middle school that while you may be on a roll,
while you may be mister funny or whatever, if you keep talking chances that people will
like you just continually go downhill from that point and so does your sense of humor.
People tire of it. I guess I tend to be a little clumsy, I’m not really sure how, it just
seems that…in some conversations, you just can’t win, you ever have that? (Jeff)
Sanford and Ma’a note the power of conflict to change who they are:
I’ve changed with all my interpersonal relationships…. I feel I’ve changed a lot. It’s
ongoing; it’s still happening….I try to grow and try to learn….I try to figure all this crap
out. If you stop questioning and pondering things, then what good are you? (Sanford)
It allowed me to get to know myself so much better. That somebody who could
facilitate that much change in me could not [change] that I could see. There were things
that she said she enjoyed and that she was learning in the relationship what it felt like to
be loved. To have calm and peace and just be able to relax. (Ma’a)
It seems that Ma’a learned from the conflicts in the relationship whereas her partner,
who tended to live in a state of conflict, learned from periods of calm.
Jo also notes radical change in herself since the issues with her three attackers
first arose in high school:
I remember what it was like to have all these things that mattered—like someone is
talking to someone else and that matters—but it doesn’t matter anymore because that is
not the world I am in anymore. I’m trying to move on, to find a place for myself in
society and do all the things adults are supposed to do. I don’t feel like it makes any
sense or has any purpose….I don’t need all that drama. It seems so immature and so, I
don’t know, imaginative. (Jo)
Learning and change are not always described as positive experiences:
That was a decisive conflict. It left me, I was suspicious enough before that and after
that I became not only suspicious of other people, but also insecure about my own
capacity to relate to others. (Orlando)
It made me sad because I didn’t mean to do anything. If I had known I never would
have, I would have completely chosen a different path. Maybe it’s better that it
happened like this so then if that’s the way they were, somewhere down the road I
wouldn’t want to be with them. I guess that’s a positive aspect . . . Better to find out
now then later and have tried to build something that was flawed. Friends! (Holly)
For Aqua Lad, learning and change in conflict brought maturity and reflective
selfawareness of one’s inner conflicts:
A sense of separating what I am feeling or wanting for my own personal gain and being
able to separate that off, what I feel or want from what I actually believe and what I
think is true, good, or right. I think that is definitely a skill that I have had to acquire
and I imagine it is a skill that everyone has to acquire: how to distinguish between being
selfish and being defensive of what you believe in and what you really want, in a more
selfless kind of way, to make happen in the world. (Aqua Lad)
Aftermath, Theme IV: Deciding on the Relationship
The aftermath writes the conflict into one’s personal history. Some participants
were interviewed while in the midst of the conflicts they discussed, for others the
conflicts either were recently passed or were many years passed. Two aspects seem
present when participants consider the future of a relationship. The first of these
concerns the process of making a decision about the future, the second concerns how
participants acted on that decision.
In becoming aware of, and reflectively exploring, possible futures for the present
relationship, participants discussed how they debated with themselves as what to do, the
issues that contributed to the decision they made, and the consequences of the conflict
for the relationship. As Jeff notes:
I just don’t know what to do, because again you know I try not to sit around and mill
about and bitch about it and go into a state of inertia; I try to change things; I try to get
my opinions out in one way or another. (Jeff)
For others, issues of trust and commitment factor into their decision:
Trust has to be regained for me. Proving yourself to me makes it better, instead of just
not doing anything about it; so why am I going to waste my time? (Missy)
After I gave a lot of thought to it I figured maybe I was just a convenience friend, they
were like ‘oh, since she’s here, let’s hang out.’ (Holly)
A2 stuck with her husband for many years trying to help him become a better husband
and better human being, until she concluded that ultimately she would be unable to do
so:
So instead of getting mad at him, I was trying to study his weaknesses and trying to see
how he could be helped or what could be done. I never thought he was really mean or a
deviate or anything like that because I just didn’t know what all that was. (A2)
Malachi Murmur discusses how his usual manner of dealing with conflict in public
venues will not work in intimate relationships:
A lot of times I have difficulty in managing conflict or even having conflict with people
I know. Maybe because my usual way of dealing with it won’t work because I want to
continue to know these people and be friends with these people or something because
they are family. (Malachi Murmur)
For Aqua Lad the decision was based on assessing the sincerity of the other:
I knew that if I invoked that story there was absolutely nothing that she would have to
say. I knew that she might find some way to dance out of it, but it would have been a
dishonest and insincere way that she would have done it. But I knew that if she was
going to be sincere in this argument, once I told that story she had absolutely nothing to
counter me. (Aqua Lad)
The question of whether to remain in a relationship or to let-it-go was still lingering for
some and the way they fixed the meaning of the conflict in the aftermath seemed to
contribute to the answer given. Table 4.3 provides a summary of what I learned was
happening at the time the interviews were conducted. Seventeen conflicts resulted in a
termination of the relationship, such as a divorce or break-up. Eleven were either
completely or partially resolved and the participant remained in the relationship. Eight
of the conflicts discussed remained unresolved at the time of the interview. There was
not sufficient information to determine the status of two of the conflicts, with one being
a potential situation that has not yet led to overt conflict.
For participants who opted to end the conflict relationship, the finality of that
decision was quite clear. Those who remained in relationship, however, noted some
desire to change the ongoing patterns of the relationship. For many the fundamental
metaphor of the continuing relationship was one of recognizing their own or the other’s
relational pattern (or cycle) and of accepting or resisting it:
It’s a pattern for me…from the time I was thirteen with my first major
friendship/relationship where I got close with someone and then I run away. (Ma’a)
Maybe I did pick a girl that does that [acts chaotically] and that is just continuing the
cycle. (Sanford)
Christin recognizes different patterns in different relationships; with her best friend, she
notes:
Table 4.3: Status of Conflict Relationship Discussed at Time of Interview
Participant Conflict Relationship Resolution
A2
Marriage
Divorced (Ended)
Aqua Lad
Online debate
Ended
Dispute with audience members for political
speech
Unresolved
Mother and sister Mutual Understanding/Partial
Resolution
Father Came to terms with Conflict
Jail inspector Mutual Respect/Final Resolution
Unknown
Christin
Roommate
Unresolved
High school friends One Resolved; One Ended
Holly
Colleague
Unresolved
Friend Relationship Ended
Ex-Boyfriend Relationship Ended
Friends from high school Relationship Ended
Actors in play Resolved
Jeff
Parents
Resolved
Colleagues at school Resolved
A female friend/love interest Unresolved
High school bully Relationship Ended
Paris Hilton and other cultural figures Irresolvable
Jo
Ex-boyfriend
Relationship Ended
Best friend Relationship Ended
Ex-boyfriend’s current girlfriend Relationship Ended
Ma’a
Ex-girlfriend
Relationship Ended
Ex’s family Relationship Ended
Current girlfriend Unknown
Table 4.3: Continued
Participant Conflict Relationship Resolution
Malachi Murmur
Cut-off in traffic/hit by trucker/tailgaters
Unresolved; insurance company was
sued by truck-driver
Worker at Subway Interaction Ended
Best Friend Resolved
Friends Resolved
Aunt Resolved
Mother Resolved
The Driving Professor Unknown
Missy
Friends from high school
Relationship Ended
Friend’s boyfriend Partially Resolved
Orlando
Father
Unresolved
Step-mother Relationship Ended
Ex-girlfriend Relationship Ended
Sanford
Mother
Unresolved
Ex-girlfriends Relationships Ended
I felt like she and I were not spending as much time together, but the second I felt that
way she and I sat down and had a talk about it and it was really like a mature situation
and nobody was mad about anything. It was just how I feel about things and I just
wanted you to know about it and that’s the way I handle things with some other people.
(Christin)
The choice for the future then becomes (1) to remain in the pattern, (2) to change
the relational pattern, or (3) to exit the pattern and end the relationship. If the
relationship is perceived to have already ended, some participants walk away, others
seek revenge. In this sense, the experience of face-to-face conflict modifies the meaning
of the first ground: the preexisting relationship.
For some participants, such as Sanford and A2, the larger conflict is ongoing and
is made up of many smaller, related incidents and this factored into the participant’s
decision to remain or to leave:
We always butted heads throughout my life, but I think where it really became
something that affected me in my adult life was when she left my father and she just, it
was very unexpected for me. They were never the type of couple who fought or was
very, I mean she was always very verbal and loud but they didn’t get in a lot of fights in
regard to that matter. I think my father just kind of put up with it because there was no
way he was going to win, and eventually she left. That basically, that caught me
completely off guard and it kind of, I think the negative feelings that I had towards her
were probably solidified that much more and for many years, I’d say a good 8 to 10
years, I didn’t really talk to her much. There was a level of civility, I always tried to be
civil, holidays and many other times, but I didn’t go out of my way to make contact or
be a part of her life because of all that anger I felt. I guess its something that being, it’s
been worked out over time. In its current state it’s something that’s being worked out
on a daily basis. (Sanford)
For Sanford, the plan is to stay with the relationship with his mother. However, A2
describes her decision for many years to stick with her marriage before finally leaving:
Once it was a pattern, when I would accept it and do what he asked, it was not out of
real sympathy. It was just because I was trying to work a marriage. (A2)
Jo gives an example of ‘letting the conflict go’ and of leaving the relationship:
I could just let it go and let it be their problem and I didn’t have to deal with it anymore.
That is pretty much how I decided how I felt about the situation was it was all their
problem; I didn’t need to deal with that. I could just ignore them and they would go
away hopefully. (Jo)
Orlando describes an uncomfortable acceptance of the problems in her relationship with
her father:
He has always been a hypocrite to me before I realized the emotional intelligence factor,
that he is prepubescent in many ways. We had a lot of conflicts about how he never
respected my mother and her role in his kids lives, that she raised us, that she was
mother and father and even with me he would not be a father, he would always be a
buddy. We had arguments until I almost stopped asking for it and I accepted it.
(Orlando)
In a rare instance within this corpus, Jeff describes taking revenge on his antagonist:
The guy had no reason for it at all, he just started a fight and my parents really had pity
on me. A month later—I really am not proud of this—I had been going to the gym
every day. What does everyone do after they get their ass kicked? They go to the gym. I
put on some weight and I found this guy and I took it a little too far. I really hurt this
guy. It was actually to my shame that I was proud of it. I went home that day and my
parents were ashamed of me when they found out I had started a fight with someone.
(Jeff)
Missy describes how she has changed her relationship with a friend to that of an
acquaintance, but has maintained a relationship with this person nonetheless:
I am civil and I call her my friend for the two other girls because I don’t want to start a
confrontation. I will get along with her, but I won’t share any secrets or do things that
friend’s do. (Missy)
Figure 4.4 on the following page depicts the thematic structure of the aftermath in the
experience of face-to-face conflict.
Figure 4.4: Structure of Themes for the Moment of the Aftermath in the
Experience of Face-to-Face Conflict
CHAPTER V DISCUSSION
In this investigation, a hermeneutic phenomenological approach was used to
explore the thematic meaning of face-to-face conflict as articulated in participant
GROUND: THE PREEXISTING RELATIONSHIP
Accountability
and
Responsibility
Learning
and
Change
Hope and
Regret
Deciding on
the Relationship
accounts. The total corpus of accounts consisted of approximately 17 hours of in-depth,
dialogical interviews with 11 participants asked to describe ‘a situation (or situations) in
which they experienced a conflict between themselves and another person(s).’ For these
participants, situations of face-to-face conflict define events that contribute to the
complexity and unpredictability of everyday social experience. Within this context, the
structure of the face-to-face conflict centers around three moments that emerge against
the ground of a preexisting relationship: betrayal, fight, and aftermath. Within each
moment—or area of intentional focus—interrelated sets of themes serve to structure its
meaning. Six themes describe the moment of Betrayal. These are: (1) the issue(s)
calling into question the preexisting relationship, (2) an awareness of severity or
seriousness of the issue(s) for one’s personal and social identity and/or the relationship,
(3) concerns about the unfairness or wrongness of what has happened, (4) a feeling of
shock and surprise, (5) feeling hurt and losing trust in the other and/or the relationship,
and/or (6) the process of deciding whether to act in response what has happened.
The experience of the second moment—Fight—consists of five themes: (1)
control, power and strength, (2) blaming and being blamed, (3) frustration and confusion
in recognizing an inability to understand what is happening, (4) a feeling and fear and
anger toward the other person(s) and/or the situation, and/or (5) a feeling of being
disconnected and different from the other in terms of identity, personality, or perspective.
The experience of the third moment—Aftermath—consists of four themes: (1)
accountability and responsibility concerns a final verdict regarding who is culpable for
the conflict, (2) an expression of hope and regret concerns future and past actions and
events, (3) learning and change concerns a recognition of difference brought about by
the betrayal and fight for one’s self and/or the other person(s), and/or (4) deciding on the
relationship concerns (a) whether to stick with the relationship, (b) leave the relationship
or (c) change the relationship.
The following first-person statement describes the meaning of the face-to-face
conflict experience as it emerged across participant accounts. While each account is
unique, themes that were consistent across the accounts serve as the basis for this
statement:
I become aware of being in conflict with you when I feel that some act and/or
event has betrayed, undermined, damaged, or interfered with our preexisting relationship.
This issue, action or event came up unexpectedly and was shocking to me. It was wrong
and unfair and I feel hurt by you and/or the situation. I feel that my trust in you and in
our relationship has been called into question and this loss of trust may have
consequences for the future of our relationship. I feel a need to do something about it and
have to decide whether or not to act. If I act, or do not act, we could end up in a fight—a
more serious situation than we had to begin with.
If we end up in a fight, I feel threatened by a lack of control in the situation and
this makes me feel powerless. I feel a need to reassert my personal power—my strength—
and winning or losing becomes a very significant concern for me. I feel like you are
blaming me for things I did not do or that I am only partially responsible for doing. I do
not understand why you are treating me like this—you seem so irrational and confusing—
and I do not know what to do. I feel fearful and angry about the situation, as it seems like
you, or the relationship, have become threatening to me. You, who are my former friend,
spouse, parent, etc., seem so unfamiliar and different to me and I no longer feel connected
to you.
After our fight ended, I am aware of needing to make a decision about what to do.
Sometimes I acknowledge that I am the one to blame for what happened, sometimes you
are to blame, and sometimes we are both to blame. Sometimes I think about what I could
have done or said, or I feel bad about what I did or said. Often, I feel as if I learned
something about myself, about you and/or our relationship and have changed because of
what I learned, and I hope or recognize that you have, or have not, done the same. At this
point, we can either remain in our relationship, as it is, and let this particular conflict
simmer for a while, end the relationship, or start a new and different sort of relationship
(perhaps putting the conflict behind us).
Participants in this investigation displayed demographic variability in
educational, socioeconomic, age and other relevant variables. There was, however, a
bias toward female participants in the group, and if generalizing to a population were the
intent, this bias might call into question the representativeness of the sample. The intent
here, however, was to gather a diversity of exemplars of conflict experiences until
saturation, or repetition of themes across the corpus, occurred. This criterion was
satisfied at nine accounts; two additional accounts were collected to extend thematic
saturation. Experiences described ranged from being heckled by audience members
while delivering a lecture, being cut-off in traffic, and other conflicts with best friends,
spouses and parents that concern issues such as being put at risk without consenting to it,
arguing over a difference of opinion or belief with another as well as negotiating family
politics and love or dating problems.
During dialogical interviews that produced the present corpus, participants often
recalled life experiences of social conflict that included multiple episodes and tended to
involve more people than the two-person dyad often assumed in the face-to-face
situation. These additional parties were observers to the conflict episode, innocent
bystanders affected by the conflict, or directly involved as disputants. The situations
described turned out to be far more diverse than initially anticipated. The statement
opening the interviews—‘describe a situation (or situations) in which you experienced a
conflict between yourself and another person’—elicited accounts that involved
individuals ranging from strangers in public venues (on the road or online), political
figures and celebrities in the media, to accounts of conflict with family, friends, and
acquaintances.
A few participants developed accounts that reached rather high levels of
abstraction and discussed conflict at the level of culture, religious belief, and political
attitudes as instantiated in the immediacy of face-to-face interactions. The latter part of
the investigator’s bracketing interview also indicates a personal leaning in this direction
(excerpts included in Appendix A). Other accounts remained concretely focused on the
meaning of conflict within personal life experience, such as Sanford’s feelings of
abandonment and concern about being adopted affecting the conflict he has with his
mother and with female love interests. A2 (whose interview is included as Appendix D)
tends toward the concrete in her description of an ongoing 22-year conflict she had with
her ex-husband and how this conflict played out in her immediate social network of
family, friends and other significant community members (particularly a parish priest).
Two general patterns of exposition were noted in the way participants talked
about their experiences. Some participants described situations of conflict with strangers
as well as with people directly known to them. Others tended to focus on conflicts that
only involved persons known to them, such as close friends, intimates, and parents. One
group of participants tended to be more abstract in exposition, provided more
philosophical explanations, and sought to justify their own and others’ behaviors. Others
tended to be very concrete and specific in describing their episodes and often focused on
how the conflict played out within their personal social network. Such descriptions
tended to involve detailed descriptions of social connectedness and what these
relationships meant in terms of the conflict being discussed. This latter group also
tended to provide accounts of conflict that had been resolved or had reached a stopping-
point, whereas the group that discuss conflict on a more abstracted level talked about
long-term, ongoing conflicts they experience in both public and private life.
Participants also seemed to differ in terms of their interpersonal styles and
general linguistic patterns. Some participants seemed somewhat reserved and calm
whereas others were animated and energetic. Linguistically, the idiom and voice of
some participants seemed to remain within a single register whereas others moved
between two registers, one being a reserved, calm and evenly paced and the other, an
emotionally intense, louder and faster voice. The latter of these registers included more
stops, starts, and occasional obscenity. Relational style and register tended to go
together for most participants: reserved participants tended to stay within a single
register whereas more energetic participants tended to move between registers. There
was no clear relationship between participants’ styles of exposition, interpersonal styles
and linguistic patterns and the seriousness of the experiences they discussed.
Recursive Temporal Patterns in Face-to-Face Conflict Accounts
Within the extant literature, various conceptions of the stages and phases of conflict
have been discussed (cf. Cheldelin, Druckman, & Fast, 2003; Morley & Stevenson,
1977; Pondy, 1967; Rummel, 1976). Narrative conceptions of conflict have been
studied and applied as intervention strategies by researchers such as Baumeister,
Stillwell, and Wotman (1990) and Kellett and Dalton (2001). My interviews did not
indicate that accounts of conflict unfold in a linear pattern, but rather are recursive in
structure. The third person, scientific description of conflict indicates its linearity,
however, when participants reflect on their own conflict experiences, their accounts
tend not to be linear.
Thus, in Chapter IV, the concept of a moment was used to describe the temporal
structure of face-to-face conflict in participant accounts. The reason for introducing this
term is to suggest an alternative description of time to that of linear stages, phases, or
narratives. The Latin ‘movere’—the etymological root of ‘moment’—indicates
movement in space and time. The technical/scientific term, ‘moment,’ captures a similar
idea by indicating a range of possible values (such as the standard deviation in statistics)
for determining measures of a phenomenon to be treated as equivalent within some
margin of error. It is for these reasons that this term was chosen as an alternative to
stage or phase. A clearly defined linear structure can be derived from the conflict
experience on the basis of after-the-fact analysis although this seems a second-order
derivation by the researcher.
The scientific descriptions of temporal patterns in episodes of conflict often rely
on reified concepts of stages and phases. For instance, Cheldelin, Druckman, & Fast
(2003) describe conflict in terms of processes of disruption, differentiation and then
integration, revealing a three-stage temporal model of conflict. These stages do seem to
correspond to the moments of betrayal (disruption), fight (differentiation), and aftermath
(integration), although their description tends to emphasize third-person reflections over
first-person meanings. Morley and Stevenson (1977), Pondy (1967), and Rummel
(1976) also emphasize themes that are reflective in nature. Within phase models of
conflict, the conflict is viewed as progressing through stages in an orderly way. The
outside observer of conflict interactions can ascertain the phase or stage of the conflict,
but being in the position of observer rather than a dialogical partner, may not be aware of
the personal meanings the events have for each of the disputants and that each aspect of
meaning is being recursively informed by each other meaning.
While various interpersonal dynamics are highlighted in these accounts—such as
those surrounding participants seeking a ‘balance of power’—these dynamics are often
viewed in terms of parties testing each other’s willingness to make concessions and/or to
follow through on threats made. What these researchers miss is the significance of
personal and social identity that is being put on the line; when this aspect of conflict is
addressed, it is often treated as a complicating factor, stalling the progress of the conflict
toward resolution as the interaction escalates in volleys of attack and counterattack.
Aspects of the phenomenon that are most relevant to the scientific, stage-theory
perspective are observable actions and responses, and what and how resources are being
exchanged. From this perspective, a hostile and entrenched conflict moves to a situation
of integrative problem solving and resolution, with issues of personal control and
judgment shifted to a rational focus on mutually satisfactory solutions (Cheldelin,
Druckman, & Fast, 2003).
This understanding of conflict does not fit the structure of the present set of
conflict accounts. When participants discussed their experiences there were many stops
and starts in the flow of the account (see Appendix C). Situations discussed blended into
each other, were sometimes dropped in the middle of one only to be picked up again in
the middle of another. This aspect of the way accounts were narrated does not indicate
incoherence or a lack of intelligence on the part of the investigator or participants. More
likely it indicates the embedded nature of the conflict experience within participants’
lives and the depth of the personal meanings associated with it. Conflict experiences do
not exist in isolation but serve to inform each other and to inform experiences across
other relational situations.
The meaning of a present conflictual event sometimes may only make sense
when taking into account another, perhaps long-passed, event. This is the basis for all
interpretive processes (Gadamer, 1960). Due to the open-ended interviewing technique
used to collect the corpus of accounts, participants determined the flow of dialogue.
They were first ‘experts’ concerning their own experience; thus, with no axe to grind, the
interviewer was open to participant accounts and, as with much dialogue in everyday
life, these accounts took on a nonlinear temporal structure.
Moments, then, are best thought of as points of personal focus within an
experience of face-to-face conflict. When participants discussed betrayal, they discussed
an interrelated set of themes associated with it; the same is true for fight and aftermath.
For instance, a participant may begin his or her account by discussing the fight, and then
move to discussing the betrayal and the aftermath. The order is not as important as the
structure of meanings within the situations and moments discussed. Across accounts,
many variations in narrative pattern emerged. Particular themes, however, consistently
emerged in association with these moments.
This temporal structure is in accord with that described by Merleau-Ponty
(1962), who argues that human experience is not lived in a linear way. Instead, a present
moment in human experience may exist for us as a psychological past when we
remember something, or as a psychological future when we anticipate what may be.
Psychological time is recursive and does not follow the linear pattern of ordinary clock
time (Dapkus, 1985). Thus, it is reasonable that participant accounts did not follow the
linear structure of clock time, yet were coherent and communicable. The experience as
recounted is informed by all that has intervened between the original experience and the
present moment of dialogue. The meaning of the events recounted, often having great
personal significance, are ongoingly transformed and reinterpreted by participants.
Participants discussed the ways in which their past and present understanding has been
changed by having experienced a conflict and that memories of the event often yielded
insights even for years after the fact. Jeff discusses this aspect of conflict when he
recounts his present shame over having exacted a violent revenge against a high school
bully and his present vow never to handle conflicts in that way again.
The Ground of the Preexisting Relationship
A preexisting relationship is the ground, or context, in which moments of conflict
emerge. The meaning of this relationship for participants is based on cultural
conceptualizations of role relationships and role expectations (e.g., parent-child,
husbandwife, best-friends, etc.) as well as on beliefs about the specific relationship that
have accumulated over time. For participants, predictability and stability define the
ideal state of a preexisting relationship. Betrayal, violation and/or breach of a
preexisting relationship often concern problems that specify a sudden absence of
characteristics that had made the relationship coherent and safe. Often in close personal
relationship participants recounted, certain allowances were made for the other. In
situations with strangers much higher expectations for maintenance of social roles—in
terms of politeness, for instance—were articulated. It seems that in close personal
relationships, participants describe a blending of role expectations with the realities of
the relationship. In relations between people unknown to each other, role expectations
are all we have to make sense of each other’s behavior.
When discussing a preexisting relationship that is ‘close,’ participants often
emphasized similarities between themselves and the other as well as a tolerance for
differences. Differences that become potential sources of conflict were often tolerated
and at other times acknowledged as endearing, albeit frustrating, qualities. Consider
Sanford’s statement about his ongoing conflict with his mother: “She’s a great woman;
She’s just fucking nuts” (Sanford). His statement indicates that he accepts, at times, a
fundamental difference between himself and his mother; yet, he also reports that her
‘nuttiness’ creates turmoil as he prefers ‘control and stability.’
In close relationships, participants described investing time, effort, and emotion
toward developing and maintaining the relationship. In fulfilling relational expectations
such as loyalty, honesty, fairness, equality, reciprocity and so on, participants come to
share a sense of safety and trust. Gouldner (1960) proposed that the basis for
relationships is the belief that ‘one helps and does not hurt those who help us.’ It seems
that a similar attitude was adopted by participants in reflecting on issues of the betrayal
and how these issues were antithetical to the relationship. Fiske (1992) also suggests
that fairness, sharing, and distribution of significant resources according to implict, but
agreed upon, rules are the basis for social relations. Goffman (1951) and Levinas (1969)
discuss how people, who are present to each other, demand of each other interactions
that maintain identity, moral treatment and respect, etc., and this complicit maintenance
is the basis for predictability in a preexisting relationship.
Hawthorne (1989) has noted that a need for reparation emerges when a relational
expectation goes unfulfilled. Many such expectations concern feelings of esteem,
identity or other substantive emotional concerns. With the breach of a relationship
(Hawthorne, 1989) or a relational injury (Rowe, Halling, Davies, Leifer, Powers, and
van Bronkhurst, 1989) reciprocity norms have been violated. Thus, conflict may begin
with a betrayal of some expectation that brings about a breach in the preexisting
relationship and, with this betrayal or breach, a sense of injury. The betrayal breaks the
relational pattern by undermining an expectation in a fundamental way. In this situation,
personal and social identity is called into question as the participant recognizes what
aspect of the preexisting relationship has been undermined by the other’s, or his or her
own, actions.
The breach in Hawthorne’s (1989) study was often reported to be dramatic and
harmful—but not always. It is the same with betrayals in the present investigation:
many were perceived to be serious by participants; some, however, were not. What is
most fundamental to these understandings of breach and betrayal is that they imply a
recognized difference between a before and after that brings to the participant’s
awareness some characteristic of the preexisting relationship absent after the betrayal.
These characteristics are described in terms of fairness, sincerity, equality, loyalty,
fidelity, respect, and so on.
From the scientific, existential and social constructivist understandings of
conflict, the basis for this phenomenon is found in the interdependence of relationships.
Deutsch (1973) specifies negative interdependence as a fundamental cause of conflict.
In negative interdependence, parties become mutually opposed as one party’s actions
interfere with the ability of the other party to achieve his or her goals. From this
perspective, parties act within a situation of limited resources and influence each other’s
ability to obtain a ‘reasonable’ portion of resources.
Social constructivists add to this the problem of social meaning and identity; that
is, the mutual claims being made with respect to the significance of the relationship and
their roles within it. A resource is not valuable in itself, but because it is constructed as
something to be desired and sought after within a social world. A resource is something
to be shared in a fair and equitable way. McNamee and Gergen (1999) argue that, within
Western culture, there is often an emphasis on viewing social actors as independent
entities motivated by self-interest to maximize their share of finite and valued resources.
What is being disputed, however, indicates what is important to the parties as
individuals. Individuals demand of each other a fair share—and equitable treatment—
in their interdependent pursuits.
While individuals may be aware of the social roles played in their relationships,
the mutuality of these roles may be overlooked until it has been undermined as one fails
to live up to it. With that shift in behavior, the expectations we hold (or held) for the
other’s behavior become salient to us. As Levinas (1969) argued, the existential fact of
being present to an other elicits and makes real for us issues of morality, care and
concern and calls on us to fulfill our responsibilities to the other. The preexisting
relationship is the situation in which these responsibilities are being fulfilled and
relational partners freely encounter each other. Nowell and Pollio (1991) elaborate on
the human experience of other people in terms of the maintenance of role relationships:
Even if the aim were not to manipulate the other, but simply to get along, the cumulative
effect of self-presentation would be to promote distance between people. Under these
conditions of modern life, it is not surprising to find that much of contemporary social
psychology concerns such topics as forming impressions or attributing reasons for the
actions of others. These interests suggest that we experience others as events to
understand rather than as people to be experienced. There is a peculiar distance
involved when the meaning of the other, either to himself or to us, requires a reflective
rather than perceptual act. Although it may be too strong to say that the drama of
communal life requires distance, deception, discretion, and deliberation, it does not
seem wrong to say that we frequently experience the other as an event to be understood
rather than one to be encountered (pg. 130).
The shift in perspective when role relationships are called into question is the moment in
which both the ground of the preexisting relationship (and its significance) and the
moment of betrayal become salient for participants. In Nowell and Pollio’s terms the
perceptual act of encountering the other becomes the reflective act of making sense of
the role relationships present in the preexisting relationship and how these roles—
presentations of self—have been undermined.
The Moment of Betrayal
The first moment of conflict emerges in an awareness that relational expectations
have gone unfulfilled and have undermined participants’ sense of identity, self-esteem as
well as feelings of security and confidence in the preexisting relationship. Many
researchers and theorists consider the violation of expectations in a relationship as a
significant issue in conflict, even perhaps the fundamental cause for it and its escalation
(Gouldner, 1960; Hawthorne, 1989). Hawthorne, for example, points out that in the
experience of reparation, a ‘breach’ dramatically changes an individual’s sense of self,
other, and the relationship. It consists of an awareness of injustice and unfairness within
the relationship and elicits a sense of urgency to do something about the breach. Rowe
et al. (1989) note a similar phenomenon concerning injury in the phenomenology of
forgiveness. What is clear is that the preexisting relationship stabilized the participants’
sense of who they are before the emergence of conflict and gives thematic coherence to
their description of the experience of the betrayal.
The experience of breach relates to the themes of shock and surprise, as well as
to those of unfairness and wrongness. A sudden and shocking change in the behavior of
the other has the effect of undermining a participants’ confidence in what once had
seemed a secure and stable relationship. This change can be traumatic if it is perceived
to be an unfair action unexpectedly committed by the other, who comes to be described
as a ‘socalled’ friend, lover, spouse, etc. The designation of ‘so-called’ indicates a
falseness perceived in the actions of the other. Hawthorne also notes an experience of
urgency surrounding the breach, an aspect that seems related to themes of seriousness
and deciding whether to act. The breach, like the moment of betrayal, leads to a sense of
resentment that yields experiences of feeling hurt by and of losing trust in the other.
The reasons participants give for feeling betrayed tend to range in seriousness from
minor disagreements to dangerous instances of physical violence. Seriousness is a
reflective theme concerning the magnitude of the grievance or issue(s). It, along with
the theme of unfairness or wrongness, represents a shift in roles from those of the
preexisting relationship to those of ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator.’ The more serious the
issue(s) or problem(s) are believed to be, the more serious the events are perceived to be
in changing the preexisting relationship and thus disrupting “the wholeness or integrity
of [a person’s] life” (Rowe et al., 1989, pg. 239).
Seriousness may also be conceived of as an “anticipatory” theme; one in which a
projected future is called into question. The greater the perceived change for one’s sense
of self and for the relationship in the moment of betrayal, the greater the perceived
disruption to one’s life and the greater the seriousness attributed to the issue(s). As Adler
(1998) notes, an individual develops an imagined future for themselves—a “guiding
fiction”—and when this vision is called into question, it may bring about sense of
confusion, fear and insecurity. The participant Christin notes a parallel idea: “small
issues are issues you can get over … a lot of times, you don’t get past big issues.” The
specification of the issue(s) and the seriousness of the issue(s) are primarily reflective
themes, as the participant is giving reasons for the conflict and assessing the magnitude
of change he or she has anticipated for themselves and the relationship.
The theme of unfairness and wrongness primarily concerns injustice done by the
other and thus relates to the emerging roles of victim and perpetrator. It also represents
the moment in which the participant specifies that the other has wronged him or her by
some standard external to the relationship (e.g., social norms, moral prescriptions, etc.).
In those rare situations in which participants portrayed themselves in the role of
perpetrator, the issue(s) were often surrounding some miscommunication or
misperception. This may be seen in Holly’s falling out with a good friend because she
dated her friend’s ex-boyfriend under the impression that her friend had given her
permission to do so. This is consistent with Baumeister, Stillwell, and Wotman’s (1990)
findings concerning the narrative patterns of victim and perpetrator accounts. When
participants narrated from the perspective of victim, extreme (i.e., serious) violations of
moral standards were recounted, such as the betrayals enacted by A2’s ex-husband or the
dangerously violent actions of Jo’s ex-best friend, ex-boyfriend, and ex-boyfriend’s
current girlfriend.
Regardless of the perspective taken when discussing the moment of betrayal,
participants described an experience of shock and surprise at the betrayal. Some
describe it as ‘unexpected’ and ‘sudden’ from the standpoint of the preexisting
relationship. As Ma’a notes: “I would have never thought….That was a surprise.”
Shock and surprise emerge as what was a predictable pattern of interaction has become
unpredictable and volatile. Goffman’s (1951) analysis of the confidence game describes
a similar experience for the ‘mark’ or victim when he or she has been led to expect one
thing from the relationship and when the con disappears, they are suddenly left feeling
vulnerable and open to social censure. Goffman describes this feeling as primarily
concerning the fact that the mark has suddenly had his or her self-definition—as a
socially savvy person—undermined by the confidence game, a situation in which usual
assumptions about the nature of social life are exploited by the criminal to obtain a
valued resource from the mark.
Participants report feeling hurt by the betrayal and losing trust in the other and in
the relationship because of it. This hurt and loss of trust may come about as the
participant feels that his or her victimization by the other in the moment of the betrayal
was in some senses complicit (Goffman, 1951). In believing in the preexisting
relationship and having placed a great deal of existential significance in the relationship,
betrayal represents a radical questioning of the relationship and the trust the person had
in it. As Ma’a notes: “the feeling of loss is tied in with investment.” Orlando describes
a feeling of “self-doubt” and issues of “trust” and “control” in relation to this theme.
Hurt and lost trust may elicit for the participant the feelings of urgency to do something
about the betrayal, as Hawthorne (1989) described subsequent to the breach.
In deciding whether to act in the moment of betrayal, the participant has to weigh
many complicated possibilities, and this decision brings to the fore both cognitive and
emotional concerns in imagining possible futures for the interactions of the fight and the
relationship. Goffman (1951) describes the threat of revenge present after the
confidence-game has been perpetrated and the ‘cooling’ processes that come into play to
help a victim re-stabilize his or her sense of self and faith in the social world. ‘Cooling’
has the effect of lessening the threat the mark presents when deciding to seek revenge.
‘Cooling’ is a social process in which the mark is persuaded not to act on the betrayal
presented by the confidence game. In the present corpus, the decision to act inevitably
brings about some discussion of the moment of the fight; the decision not to act,
however, did not always quell conflict. Instead, it often led to ‘cold’ conflicts that
seemed to eventually escalate to a fight, especially if the other recognized that they had
betrayed the participant and had expected a response (cf. Thomas, 2006).
From the perspective of the human relations school, conflict-handling strategies
pertain directly to this decision whether to act (cf. Blake & Mouton, 1964; Thomas,
1976). The decision, according to these researchers, is based on a concern for self
(assertiveness) and a concern for the other (cooperativeness). In light of the present
corpus, a decision to act leading to a fight relates to a high concern for self and a low
concern for the other (a forcing/dominating strategy), or low concern for self and low
concern for the other (an avoidance strategy). Participants describe conflict behavior in
terms such as ‘coming on strongly’ or ‘putting things on the table’ typically believed to
be more ‘mature’ ways to handle conflict, whereas ‘ignoring someone’ or ‘holding out’ is
viewed as less mature. Strongly asserting one’s self in response to the betrayal as well as
acknowledging the betrayal by purposefully not giving a response (which the other
expects) seems to correspond with the emergence of the fight.
The Moment of the Fight
The moment of the fight, while not focused on destroying an opponent as in
Rapoport’s (1960) definition, is a moment of feeling a need to assert one’s self and of
being denied the possibility of doing so. Thus, issues of manipulation and strategy
come into play, revealing the fight as the height of an instrumental I-it relation between
disputants (Buber, 1924/1987). For this reason, one may think of the betrayal and
particularly the fight in terms of the seemingly irresolvable scenario described in
Sartre’s No Exit (1945). The individual is locked in a defensive and destructive relation
with the other, and is given little option but to attempt to assert his or her self within
this relation. As May (1972) explains, to not attempt to exercise some control and self-
defense in a fight may result in a “zombie-like deadening of consciousness” (pg. 42-
43). The fight is often described in terms of feeling a loss of control over the
circumstances of the interaction, and hence one’s interpersonal power and personal
strength is called into question. Participants describe using strategies of control within
the fight, or of having others use strategies to control them. Feeling powerless is an
extraordinarily vexing situation, as Malachi Murmur portrays it in describing his
conflicts with others on the road: ‘they’re just gone, I feel powerless,’ or Sanford in
conflicts with his mother, ‘her control is very much out of control’. Even the threat of
potential powerlessness may lead to extreme self-doubt and a need for strong assertion.
The psychologist May (1972) described five domains of power that are potentialities in
human life, and when these aspects of power are blocked, the individual reacts with
escalating levels of aggression, leading eventually to violent action against the other(s).
As May conjectures:
A great deal of human life can be seen as the conflict between power on one side (i.e.,
effective ways of influencing others, achieving the sense in interpersonal relations of the
significance of one’s self) and powerlessness on the other. In this conflict our efforts are
made much more difficult by the fact that we block out both sides, the former because
of the evil connotation of ‘power drives,’ and the latter because our powerlessness is to
painful to confront . . . . As soon as powerlessness is referred to by its more personal
name, helplessness or weakness, many people will sense that they are heavily burdened
by it (pg. 21-22).
Orlando notes the significance of control, power, and strength in stating:
I was at the point that I would put up with any situation but that. I would walk ten miles
if that was required just to not give him the impression that he had me, that he had some
power over me.
Having control in the moment of the fight is fundamentally an issue of
selfassertion, of feeling that one is effective and can handle whatever the other may try
to do to disrupt or damage one’s sense of self and one’s ability to achieve one’s own
ends. One of May’s (1972) domains of power refers to self-assertion: when the
individual is met with resistance in the social world, he or she has the power to make
demands on others and to have others respond to those demands. If demands are resisted
or undermined, however, the individual has to force the other to accede (barring violent
action). Finally, if nonviolent aggression proves ineffective, the individual may move
toward overt violence. For May, issues of power in human life manifest themselves in
an escalating tension between that of demanding self-expression (power) and of
acknowledging the demand of that expression by others (powerlessness). As Eidelson
and Eidelson (2003) have argued, an individual belief that one is powerless, helpless,
and dependent may be a significant factor contributing to the escalation of destructive
conflict.
The meaning of blame relates to two aspects of the fight: first, the participant is
able to take up a mantle of moral power by adopting a victim role and, second, blame
may be used to justify extraordinary and dangerous actions toward the other (the
perpetrator) being blamed. Within the scientific and philosophical literature, it seems
that the victim-perpetrator relationship consists of a victim role and a correlate victim
perspective, but only a perpetrator role—‘perpetrator’ being perceived and designated to
the other almost always from the perspective of the victim. It can be a dangerous
dichotomization. Participants often seek to resist seeing themselves in the role of
perpetrator as this role denies them full status within the interaction. From the
perspective of the victim, the perpetrators’ explanations are empty excuses, and their
potential mistakes, intentional and unjustifiable acts of harm. Moreover, the social
world tends to side with the victim. Being blamed (or blame-worthy) denies the blamed
individual a perspective and hence a voice with any moral force. Thus, within the fight,
exchanges concern ‘who is at fault?’—‘who has wronged whom?’ Most of the accounts
that serve as the basis for this analysis were narrated from the victim’s perspective.
Even from this perspective, however, participants note that the perpetrator sought to
blame them for the betrayal, or to use other betrayals, as justification for the present
betrayal enacted against the participant.
Eidelson and Eidelson (2003) contend that a belief in unjust treatment at the
hands of others contributes significantly to conflict. Blaming and being blamed is no
doubt a controversial theme for discussion here as assuming a position of neutrality on
the matter may seem like I have taken the side of the perpetrator(s) described by the
participants. This is certainly not the case. McNamee and Gergen (1999) emphasize the
significance of ‘relational responsibility’ for assessing fault within conflict interactions
and that it is our cultural bias toward viewing disputants as morally accountable
‘subjective agencies,’ who are solely responsible for their own actions within the
conflict, that lead them to make attributions of victim and perpetrator to themselves and
to each other. An attribution like this seems to serve to maintain the fight, rather than
resolve it. When we shift our emphasis to conflict as a transactional phenomenon, for
which both disputants share responsibility, rather than as an exchange relation between
independent entities, fault cannot be located absolutely in any one individual.
Denied a sense of control over the conflict interaction and being blamed by the
other, participants report feeling fear and anger toward the other. The other has become
threatening to one’s sense of identity and one feels unprotected and vulnerable in what
seems an out of control situation. The theme of anger and fear is in accord with May’s
(1972) discussion of power and as well with themes in the Thomas, Smucker, and
Droppleman (1998) and Thomas (2003) studies of male and female experiences of anger.
Women’s experiences of anger often concern feelings of powerlessness in a relationship
whereas men often report feelings that the anger-eliciting situation is wrong or unfair. In
the moment of the fight, it seems that both themes are present and have relevance to the
themes of fear and anger that emerge. In Horton-Deutsch and Horton’s (2003) study of
intractable conflict, participants report feeling fear of the other with whom they are
unable to resolve a conflict and anger in a situation that seems out of control. These
participants further note the negative effects of extreme stress—lost sleep and appetite,
etc.—which they attribute to ruminating on their feelings of anger.
In this investigation, the theme of fear and anger was connected by some
participants to a need to take time to be alone and reflect on the conflict. The negative
emotions experienced within the fight and the experience of a loss of control and of
blame make the moment of fight so aversive that participants may walk away from the
interaction, only to return when things have ‘cooled.’ In Horton-Deutsch and Horton’s
(2003) study, the only resolution for intractable conflict was to walk away from the
situation permanently—to leave and not return. Participants in this investigation, such
as A2, report finally giving up on a relationship because of intense feelings of fear and
anger in a situation that became threatening to her physical safety and emotional well-
being. Fear and anger concern what might happen in the out-of-control situation and
thus relate to a radical revision of Adler’s (1998) guiding fiction: a situation that is out of
control is no longer predictable and hence gives no coherent indication of future.
Feeling that anything can, and may, happen is connected to the theme of fear and anger
and also to the incomprehensibility of the fight.
The theme of frustration and confusion indicates that participants felt unable to
understand what was happening and why the other was doing what they were doing.
This is fundamentally a cognitive theme—the participant is unable to make sense of their
situation—although it also has an emotional component of frustration. Participants use
statements like ‘it didn’t make any sense,’ ‘why can’t we just talk?,’ or ‘we don’t
understand it completely’ and often report frustration with the other and with themselves
for not making sense of the situation.
The theme of disconnection and difference is often given as a reason for an
inability to understand a fight. The other is viewed as being different in some
fundamental way, in terms of personality or perspective, etc. This difference is viewed
as the reason for the conflict, even though the participant is unable to ascertain what
exactly is the difference. Feeling disconnected from the other speaks to the ineffective
exchange that is unfolding between the disputants. The disputants are engaged in
blaming each other, they are fearful of, and confused by, each other in a situation that is
out of control and hence they feel disconnected and different from each other. Eidelson
and Eidelson (2003) describe the destructive potential of us/them beliefs for conflict
situations. Often a failure to understand the other may lead one to suspect the other has
motives that are underhanded and dangerous. One cannot develop trust in a situation of
disconnection because it does not allow for a mutual acknowledgement and
understanding of difference. In a fight, the agree-to-disagree option is not on the table
from the perspective of disputants; disconnection from the other never fully allows the
participant to understand the other within the fight.
The Moment of the Aftermath
The aftermath is a reflective moment. Much of the initial storm represented by
the betrayal and fight has died down, and the participant seeks to understand what the
conflict means within the context of his or her life. The aftermath may perhaps represent
a moment in which personal history is being written, victor or not.
A final verdict concerning accountability and responsibility for the conflict is
significant here. The line existing in the initial dichotomization of victim and
perpetrator blurs, and participants often acknowledge some responsibility for what
happened. Participants are often able to view the other as a fellow human being with
feelings, desires and meanings independent of the roles that emerged in the conflict.
Sometimes, circumstances and misunderstandings beyond the control of either disputant
are viewed as causing the fight. Other times, participants will acknowledge fault, and
report that they learned and changed because of the fight.
The theme of learning and change seems to have a redemptive quality. While
interviewing participants, there were times when unflattering characteristics of the self
and questionable actions were described. Often, when participants would disclose in this
way, they would explain themselves by providing a justification for what they did in
terms of what they learned in the situation and how they have changed because of it.
Such qualifying statements concerning learning and change seemed as if the participant
was saying ‘look, I did some bad things in a bad situation, but I did learn to be more
mature and behave better in future conflicts.’ Participants described things they regret
having done and the hopes they have for themselves, the other, and the relationship.
A positive aspect to the aftermath, however, was not always the case. Some
participants learned and changed in ways they viewed as destructive to future
relationships—being stuck in a negative interpersonal pattern, being made insecure in
love relationships—or they expressed regret at not having the presence of mind within
the fight to get in a few really good caustic remarks. Reflecting on the fight participants
report fantasizing about what they could have done and what the outcome might have
been. This is similar to what participants reported in the Benson and Archer (2003)
study of bar fighting in that they wish they had “given [their opponent] a bit more.” The
phenomenologist Merleau-Ponty (1962) reports a similar meaning in the lingering
presence of the other being “felt as a threat” even after the conflict has ended. When
participants discuss the theme of regret, they seem to be ruminating on their own
powerlessness within the fight. They regret not being quick-witted enough or aggressive
enough to have wielded more power and control in a situation that was out of control.
The aftermath defines a moment of decision as to what to do about the relationship.
Some participants end their relationship, some repair or dramatically change their
relationship (e.g., divorced spouses becoming friends), and some remain in the
relationship with the issue(s) leading to the conflict remaining unchanged. This is a
similar set of circumstances to those described by Hawthorne (1989) as exit, stalemate,
or repair. Exit refers to the decision to leave the relationship, repair, to apologies and
amends making within the relationship, and stalemate, to a tense and avoidant pattern in
the relationship. A similar pattern was noted here in that participants discussed (a)
leaving the relationship, (b) staying in the relationship (with the ‘dysfunctional pattern’
still in place), or (c) changing the relationship and starting anew.
The aftermath is often a creative moment in the experience of face-to-face
conflict in which personal and social meanings are reconstructed and is that moment in
which the possibilities present in conflict interactions become most clear. Even in an
interaction such as the fight, the openness and possibility for new personal and
interpersonal meanings are present. Thus, if one thinks of the betrayal and fight as
Sartrean
(1945/1989) moments, the aftermath certainly belongs to Buber (1924/1987; 1951/1999)
and Merleau-Ponty (1962) since it represents a time of possibility for the parties in
conflict and for their social relationship.
Arendt (1958) has argued that two fundamental social activities make possible
human social life: making promises and forgiveness. Promises stabilize social life and
forgiveness erases past transgressions (e.g., broken promises). In this light, one might
view the preexisting relationship as an implicit promise relational partners have made to
each other. The betrayal and fight may be viewed as breaking this promise. If this is the
case, the aftermath becomes a moment of potential forgiveness and reconstruction of a
sense of self and/or the relationship.
Psychological and Interpersonal Processes of Conflict
While the above discussion presents the structure of face-to-face conflict in a
linear manner, one should recall that a moment is meant to convey an intentional focus
on a set of meanings within the conflict experience; it should not be taken as indicating a
stage. Moments, in fact, may be understood as locating aspects of five general
psychological and interpersonal processes involved in the face-to-face conflict
experience. On the following page, Table 5.1 enumerates these processes as they emerge
across moments of conflict. These are: (1) controlling the conflict, (2) judging the
Table 5.1: Psychological and Interpersonal Processes of Conflict
Psychological and
Interpersonal Processes
Participant Accounts
Moments Experiential Themes
Controlling the Conflict:
Being Able to Decide and Act
Betrayal
Deciding Whether to Act
Fight Control, Power, Strength
Aftermath
Deciding on the Relationship
Judging the Conflict:
Socially-Relevant Evaluations
Betrayal
Unfairness and Wrongness
Fight Blaming and Being Blamed
Aftermath
Accountability and Responsibility
Understanding the Conflict:
Reflecting and Learning
Betrayal Shock and Surprise
Fight Frustration and Confusion
Aftermath
Learning and Change
Hope and Regret
Feeling the Conflict:
Positive/Negative Emotion
Betrayal
Feeling Hurt and Loss of Trust
Fight Fear and Anger
Frustration and Confusion
Aftermath
Hope and Regret
Explaining the Conflict:
Reasons and Explanations
Betrayal
Issue(s) and Problem(s)
Seriousness of Issue(s)
Fight Disconnection and Difference
Aftermath
Learning and Change
conflict, (3) understanding the conflict, (4) feeling the conflict, and/or (5) explaining the
conflict. The first three themes are binary/oppositional, indicating that participant
awareness of the theme moves between two points of emphasis. For instance, being in
control and/or out-of-control, judging and/or being judged, and understanding and/or not
understanding indicate this bipolarity. Feeling and explaining tend to be unipolar
processes. Often participants reported experiencing a preponderance of negative
emotions (e.g., fear, anger, frustration) in the conflict experience and sought to explain
their own and others’ actions during the conflict. Psychological processes deal with
understanding and feeling the conflict; interpersonal processes deal with controlling,
judging and explaining the conflict. Interpreting themes in this way allows for an
alternate conceptualization of the face-to-face conflict experience that locates it in the
context of more general processes apart from issues of temporal structure.
Controlling the Conflict
The first interpersonal process that crosscuts all three moments is that of
controlling the conflict. Controlling concerns experiencing one’s self as having, or not
having, an ability to decide and/or act within the situation: it consists of (a) deciding
whether to act in the moment of betrayal, (b) exhibiting control, power, and strength in
the moment of the fight, (c) and deciding on the relationship in the moment of the
aftermath. It concerns the participant feelings of being empowered (or disempowered)
within the conflict experience. Eidelson and Eidelson (2003) have suggested this set of
themes when they discuss ‘helplessness’ and ‘vulnerability’ beliefs as major contributing
factors to the escalation of conflict. Conflict may escalate when one or both parties feel
powerless to act effectively and are thus in a vulnerable position vis-à-vis the other.
Feeling vulnerable can intensify aggressive and protective actions on the part of both
disputants.
This theme also deals with participants’ sense of ‘who they are/who they become’
in their social relationships with others and with a need to exert some measure of control
over their social identity. How others see us affects how we come to understand
ourselves:
If it is said that my temperament inclines me particularly to either sadism or masochism,
it still merely a manner of speaking, for my temperament exists only for the second
order knowledge that I gain about myself when I see myself as others see me…
(MerleauPonty, 1962, pg. 435).
In situations of face-to-face conflict, this meaning of ‘self’ as ‘face’ (i.e., as a personal
and social identity) is being challenged and contested in a dialogical relation with the
other. Participants are heavily vested in feeling free to decide and do in conflict, as this
freedom is the freedom to define one’s self and the other in a situation of contested
control and contested meaning. To exert control is to express and maintain an
understanding of self, other, and relationship both for oneself and others.
Judging the Conflict
The second process concerns an awareness of judging the other and of being
judged; thus, judging defines an interpersonal process of conflict. Attributions of
responsibility and other socially relevant evaluations are made (cf. Hawthorne, 1989;
Nowell & Pollio, 1991); these are tied in closely with the victim-perpetrator role
dichotomization addressed in the literature (cf. Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1991;
Goffman, 1951). Judging is composed of the themes of: (a) unfairness and wrongness
from the moment of betrayal, (b) blaming and being blamed from the moment of the
fight, and (c) accountability and responsibility from the moment of the aftermath. It
relates to the belief in having been ‘treated unjustly by the other’ (Eidelson & Eidelson,
2003). This set of themes concerns an individual’s application of social criteria about
how social life should be applied to the present relationship. These beliefs are are drawn
from widely endorsed religious and legal tenets and other systems of legitimation within
the sociocultural world.
The victim-perpetrator role relationship also may be viewed in terms of the
breakdown of preexisting role relationships between disputants and the importing of an
extra-relational role template to make sense of that relationship. ‘Victim-perpetrator’
roles bring into the relationship a readily applicable dichotomy that can be used to make
sense of the conflict and to shift, between disputants, the balance of control and freedom
to act. The most powerful way this role relationship may be used is when witnesses to
the conflict make the attribution of ‘victim’ and ‘perpetrator’ to the parties, and judge the
rightness or wrongness of the behavior of the disputants with respect to those roles. In a
seemingly contradictory manner, the party who can secure the victim role in the eyes of
others may be aware of exerting the greater control over the meaning of the conflict in
the social world (Baumeister, Stillwell, & Wotman, 1990).
Understanding the Conflict
The third process is primarily psychological and concerns themes of: (a) shock
and surprise (betrayal), (b) frustration and confusion (fight), and (c) learning and change
and hope and regret (aftermath). Understanding reflects various attempts at
sensemaking within the conflict experience, or a recognition that the conflict does not
make sense. While the dialogical processes of conflict are not rational in themselves,
rationality and understanding may be an aspect of how participants experience the
phenomenon psychologically.
The strategies and manipulations of conflict require of disputants a great deal of
planning and attention to detail. Even so, the dialogical process itself transcends these
rational and strategic activities. This assertion does not contradict the utilitarian
assumption that actors are able reflectively to comprehend the contingencies present in
real life conflict situations and can then act to maximize personal gain and minimize loss
(Schellenberg, 1996), but suggests that this is only an aspect of the dialogical process of
conflict.
Conflict is a process of developing awareness and understanding. Understanding
and rationality also relate to aspects of the who am I and who is the other role and
identity awarenesses that are ongoingly challenged in conflict. Often, the other—as
perpetrator— is viewed as irrational, confusing, incomprehensible. Not understanding
the other undermines the perceived predictability of the other and of the transaction
taking place and hence the participant is unable to feel trust or security in anticipating
what may happen in the situation. This is similar to the distrust component of conflict
indicated by Eidelson and Eidelson (2003) and may escalate aggressive and hostile
actions between the disputants.
Feeling the Conflict
The fourth process is also psychological and concerns what the participant is
feeling in conflict. As all meaningful aspects of a phenomenon are interrelated, this
process is not be taken as distinct from those summarized above. Themes of feeling in
conflict consist of: (a) feeling hurt and losing trust from the moment of betrayal, (b) fear
and anger and frustration and confusion from the moment of the fight, and (c) hope and
regret from the moment of the aftermath. The sense of feeling hurt is often associated
with questioning the meaning of the other’s actions toward one’s self (e.g., did the other
do this to me because they hate me or no longer think I am worthwhile, etc.?) To
question one’s self and the other in this way also undermines feelings of trust because
the other is now becoming someone to be feared—he or she ‘has become dangerous and
hurtful to me.’
Anger closely relates to feelings of being disempowered by the other and made
vulnerable to harm (Thomas, 2003). Participants often describe anger in a situation of
defense—as in Jo’s description of being physically attacked or in Orlando’s description
of her father threatening to exert control over her by refusing to give her a ride home
from a restaurant. The feeling of frustration ties in closely with being ineffective in the
conflict situation and of not being able to understand what is happening or why. In this
context, hope and regret become lamentations on what has happened in the fight and to
the relationship in the aftermath. The participant may sometimes ruminate about the
conflict and negative emotions may remain for years if the conflict goes unresolved
(Hawthorne, 1989).
Explaining the Conflict
The final interpersonal process that crosscuts all three moments deals with
perceived similarities and differences between one’s self and the other person as well as
newly noted differences in the relationship before and after the conflict. These perceived
similarities and differences in identity, personality and/or perspective were frequently
given as a reason for one’s own and the other’s actions in the conflict; thus, this theme
deals with how a participant attempts to make sense of actions and events in conflict. It
is hence an explanatory theme, and this explanation differs from understanding in that it
is intended for the social world. It is fundamentally defined in terms of an awareness of
dramatic differences and changes that become focal in the experience and consists of
themes of: (a) the issue(s) and seriousness from the moment of betrayal, (b)
disconnection and difference from the moment of fight, and (c) learning and change
from the moment of aftermath.
Often the issue(s) surrounding betrayal are due to some sudden perceived
difference in the other or in the relationship—for example, the other’s interpersonal
behavior toward the participant has suddenly and dramatically changed. The situation is
suddenly made novel in a fundamental way, and this destabilization is often used to
justify subsequent decisions to enter into a fight, or to maintain or end the relationship.
This difference is also evaluated in terms of its magnitude: as serious (i.e., a big
difference or change) or not so serious (i.e., a small and resolvable difference or change),
and relates to the degree of disconnection and difference the participant experiences in
the fight. It is interesting to note that in an ongoing study of college students’
experiences of authority—in which a preexisting role relationship gives the respective
parties disparate social power—the theme of justification in conflicts with an authority
figure is prevalent (Kelly de Moll, personal communication, August 2006).
Finally, the theme of learning and change specifies differences perceived in one’s
sense of self and of the other after the fight, and often serves to justify for participants—
and perhaps for other people—how they chose to comport themselves within the fight.
As noted in the results, when participants discussed this theme, there was often a sense
that having learned from the conflict had some redemptive value (e.g., implying they
will not do it that way again, etc.). Redemption also serves a justificatory purpose
within the conflict and when reflecting on, and discussing, the conflict with the
investigator, who was not present during the situation(s) discussed.
Summing Up: Psychological and Interpersonal Processes
The methods employed in this investigation shift our perspective concerning
social conflict from that of an observer-scientist, studying its objective aspects, to those
of a co-participant and interpreter, seeking to understand the meaning of this
phenomenon within a situation of dialogue with others who shared their experiences of
face-to-face conflict. In face-to-face conflict, our own and others’ socially intelligible
identities—our ‘faces’—are called into question, challenged, and re-created. Conflict is
a social process of seeking to enact and maintain meaningful social roles when ordinary
social roles have broken down. It should be understood in this way as much as in terms
of a process of claiming and exchanging valuable resources within a situation of
interdependence.
Conflict is fundamentally a dialogical exchange rather than an economic
transaction. In ordinary social relations, we hold to the idea that our role identities will
be maintained in our relationships with others (Goffman, 1951). The maintenance of
social roles, as McNamee and Gergen (1999) point out, is a complicated social venture
that necessitates attending to constant changes and unpredictability in our social
environments. While this interpretation is useful for understanding the general
psychological and interpersonal processes of face-to-face conflict it would be inaccurate
to discuss this experience without also attending to the shifting points of focus that
indicate aspects of change. Thus, an analysis of the moments of conflict is as necessary
to our understanding of this phenomenon as are an analysis of related psychological and
interpersonal processes that crosscut the moments.
Theories and Constructs of Social Conflict
How might one come to understand the experience of face-to-face conflict as it
relates to scientific and theoretical understandings of social conflict? From a Gestalt
perspective, scientific knowledge begins in first-person experiences of the phenomenon
the scientist or philosopher seeks to understand (Kolher, 1947/1992). It is useful to view
conflict from the scientific and philosophical literature in this light. The construct of
social conflict developed by Barki and Hardwick (2001) consists of four general features
that seek to account both for its subjective and objective aspects. These features are: (1)
relational interdependence, (2) disagreement, (3) interference and (4) negative emotion.
Interdependence may be viewed in terms of the ground of the preexisting relationship
and the themes of the issue(s) and seriousness emerging in the moment of betrayal.
Thus, it speaks to the social norms that guide interactions within a relationship and to the
value attached to such a relationship.
Disagreement and interference correspond to the themes of disconnection and
difference, and control, power, and strength. These themes are most related to the
moment of the fight. Likewise, negative emotion relates to experiences of frustration
and confusion, fear and anger, and in some ways, of blaming and being blamed. It is
reasonable that researchers seeking to construct a parsimonious definition of social
conflict would emphasize the moment of the fight within the conflict experience, as it
would seem to have the highest potential for destructive actions and outcomes. While
Barki and Hardwick’s (2001) conflict construct makes sense in terms of the present
description, it is based on a corpus rooted in a priori theorizing (the general conflict
literature), seems to lack specificity, and does not account for the shifting intentional foci
present within the experience.
The present experiential description seems to agree with Barki and Hardwick
(2001) with respect to the ground of the preexisting relationship; their definition of
interdependence depicts relationships as complex exchange relations in which one
party’s goal-directed actions are positively or negatively influenced by another party’s
goaldirected actions. This definition of a relationship, however, does not account for the
complex negotiations of meaning and identity taking place within the role relationships
being played out between, and violated by, disputants (Deutsch, 1973; Simmel,
1908/1955). The themes related to the aftermath are not included in Barki and
Hardwick’s (2001) conceptualization likely because accountability and responsibility,
hope and regret, learning and change, and deciding on the relationship, relate more to
reflecting on, and making sense of, the conflict than on the experience of conflict itself.
Within the present corpus, some participants viewed face-to-face conflict as an
interaction taking place between subjective agencies (i.e., individuals) who are
connected in a shared environment and/or a specified role relationship. Often this role
relationship was one of victim and perpetrator. McNamee and Gergen (1999) note that
this understanding of individual accountability is one of the biases of Western culture
that leads to blaming actions and power plays within conflicted social relationships; it is
a potentially destructive bias that fragments rather than fosters interpersonal
relationships. In addition, participants clearly noted that their sense of being in control
or of losing control of the conflict situation derives from an experience of an empowered
and/or disempowered sense of self.
Goffman (1951) might make sense of this in terms of the challenge conflict
presents to ‘face’ within the joint context of the betrayal and the fight as the challenge
presented calls into question the meaning of the present social relationship in much the
same way as a confidence-game. When one expects a particular behavior from another
with whom one is in a preexisting relationship, a violation of that expectation may be
experienced as an affront to one’s sense of personal and social identity and may make
social life seem less coherent and predictable and, hence, more threatening. Betrayal
represents a challenge to an individual’s former understanding of self by challenging the
stability of a relationship. Being able to maintain a sense of coherence in a role relation
with the other is undermined by the betrayal and the fight. To have one’s sense of self
interrupted by betrayal, and further challenged and fragmented by a fight, personalizes
conflict by calling into question the other’s treatment of the self. Adopting the victim
role allows the person to assume a position of moral authority and to undermine the
perpetrator’s ability to justify his or her actions within the fight.
Preexisting relationships may be conceptualized as an exchange relation although
it is a relation that only emerges within a complex web of meanings that make a social
reality of the relational situation. In face-to-face conflict, how one comes to understand
oneself and others emerges within the relational situation; thus a fight, by taking the
betayal of the preexisting relationship to its possible limit, may also be a basis for the
creation of novel personal and social meaning in the aftermath (e.g., Simmel
1908/1955). For instance, face-to-face conflict in the moment of the fight is being
mediated by socially relevant experiences of control, disconnection and/or blame, by
cognitively relevant experiences of confusion and difference, and by emotionally
relevant experiences of fear and frustration.
The irony of conflict is that all these moments—betrayal, fight, and aftermath—
imply an investment in one’s relationship with the other that can both destroy and create
new modes of being in social life. Conflict puts rational understandings and
expectations about social life into potential jeopardy and thus creates, changes and/or
demands new patterns of interaction and new understandings within those relationships
(Kellett & Dalton, 2001). Thus, it seems that conflict is a transactional process in which
rationality (and irrationality) are constructed as relevant aspects of the phenomenon but
do not ultimately define the phenomenon, as often conceptualized in
utilitarian/behaviorist theories of conflict (cf. Rapoport, 1960; Thibaut & Kelly, 1959).
The rational-actor assumption may be useful in microeconomic and game theory
investigations but tends to constrain the experiential meaning of conflict as lived in
everyday relationships.
Like contemporary theorists, early social theorists seemed to emphasize the
moments of betrayal and fight over those of aftermath. Marx and Engels (1848/1978)
tended to focus on themes of control, power, and strength (with a more general focus on
power disparities), disconnection and difference (with a general focus on differences in
social class identity) as well as on blaming and being blamed (with a more general focus
on injustice with the valuing of private property over persons in Western culture).
Durkheim (1893/1997) would seem to have similar concerns, except that he suggests
society ideally would be conflict free with his equilibrist/homeostatic metaphor. Simmel
(1908/1955) took a different tack by emphasizing conflict as a social force for personal
and historical change; thus did he incorporate such themes of the aftermath as learning
and change and deciding on the relationship.
Each of these theorists specifies the issue(s) or problem(s) that betray some ideal
state of the social world. For Marx and Engels (1848/1978), the issue concerns what the
social world should be—a world in which individuals have equal access to the means of
production and thus equivalent social power. Conflict moves the social world toward
that ideal. For Durkheim, the issue concerns what the social world would be if not for an
economic system that encourages power disparity and exploitation. He believed that
exploitative conditions of capitalism encourage disparity and alienation (notions
captured in his concept of anomie) in the social world. Simmel focused on the
possibilities inherent in conflict relations to change the social world and to move it
toward novel states of affairs.
An understanding of conflict as the basic mechanism of social/historical change
emerged with theorists such as Hegel (1837/1991) and may been seen in his model of
historical progress as consisting of a pattern of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. It would
seem that the particular structure of conflict developed here fits a Hegelian model more
than a Marxian model of thesis followed by unending antitheses. The ground of the
preexisting relationship would seem to serve as the thesis in both Hegelian and Marxian
models. Marx and Engels (1848/1978) would see social processes in history as taking
place in persistent betrayals and fights between social classes whereas Hegel might see
betrayal and fight in terms of antithesis and synthesis in terms of the aftermath, since the
aftermath tends to suggest themes dealing with reflection and rationality and of making
sense of the betrayal and fight.
It is necessary to recall here that the present corpus of accounts relates to life
experiences of face-to-face conflict and less so, to the theoretical conceptualizations
of conflict. Perhaps, however, we do get some insight into the personal meanings
these
