The study reported here was descriptive in nature and looked at 375 subjects involved in a group task. The research focus was on individual satisfaction, type, and amount of conflict, its resolution, perceived inequity, and quality of outcome. The results indicated that greater inequity was associated with people conflicts, which in turn were managed primarily with avoidance tactics. Task conflicts were managed mainly with integrative styles. Greater satisfaction was associated with integrative tactics. Perceptions of inequity were more associated with conflicts centering around people than with task and less inequity resulted from conflicts managed integratively. Inequity was negatively related to satisfaction, positively related to conflict, and not found to be related to outcome quality.
This article focuses on differences between male and female mediators' use of communicative behavior, specifically formulations, in resolved and unresolved mediations. The authors observed and videotaped mediations in a small claims court, transcribed these sessions, and then content‐analyzed the transcripts in terms of formulation function. The authors found no differences in the number of formulations used by males or females, but did note differences in the types of formulations used: females used more clarifying and males used more controlling formulations; males used more formulations when both disputants were male, and females more when both disputants were female. The authors also discovered some differential effects linking mediators' gender to disputants' satisfaction with the mediation and their perceptions of mediator competence, clarity, and fairness.
This study focuses on the relationship among amount of conflict experienced, the style of its management, individual satisfaction, and decision quality of small, task-oriented groups. In all, 129 subjects took part in a task requiring a group product. Data suggested that a curvilinear relationship exists between the number of conflict episodes experienced by group members and the subsequent quality of their decisions. The study also found that integrative conflict-management strategies were associated with higher quality solutions than were distributive strategies. Satisfaction was found to be negatively related to conflict. Interaction between number of conflict episodes and management style was discussed in terms of its implications for increasing decision quality and future research. Downloaded from 32 oriented groups. The focal variable was the group's quality of solution, or outcome. Our goal was to assess the contribution that each of the other variables may make in increasing the quality. A brief review of each of the variables will follow prior to reporting methodology, results, and discussion.
CONFLICT DEFINITIONA cursory review of the conflict literature reveals that one of the problems facing the comparability of research results is the definition and conceptualization of conflict (Deutsch
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