Social and Behavioral Sciences Commons^™

Conflict Resolution, Jennifer Theiss, Marie Haverfield

Faculty Publications

Conflict resolution involves various behaviors, tactics, and strategies that help to resolve disputes, reduce interference in personal goals, and rebuff negative emotions toward a partner. Individuals balance a variety of goals during conflict, including instrumental goals, relational goals, identity goals, and process goals. Interpersonal power dynamics and cognitive attributions for the conflict can also influence the extent to which individuals are willing to confront problems and to engage in perspective‐taking. Conflict resolution strategies can be distributive, integrative, or avoidant in nature. Individuals tend to enact the same conflict style in response to all disagreements, which can take the form of …