People with Masculine Styles . . .

Are concerned with equality of rights and fairness; adhere to abstract principles, rules. Interact to achieve specific goals; seek autonomy and distance.

Are less aware of interpersonal dynamics

Protect self-interest

Attribute crises to problems external to the relationship

Are neither self- nor relationship-centered

Respond to conflict by often focusing on rules and being evasive until a unilateral decision is reached.

In addition to gender, an individual's culturally learned assumptions influence his or her conflict management behavior. In some cultures, conflict is typically expressive, in that it focuses on the quality of relationships and on managing interpersonal tension and hostility. In other cultures, conflict is more likely to be instrumental, centering less on relationships and more on achieving a specific goal or objective. Individuals from collectivist cultures, those that value group harmony and peaceful interpersonal relationships, tend to be more sensitive to expressive relational cues, which are often ex-pressed nonverbally. People from cultures that value achievement, especially individual achievement, are more likely to use an instrumental style of conflict management.

Another factor that an influence how conflict is managed in interpersonal relationships is whether those involve is from a low-context culture (whose members derive more meaning from words than from the surrounding context) or a high-context culture (in which the context of the conflict, including nonverbal cues, is especially important). One researcher noted that for people from low-context cultures, such as most North Americans, conflicts are most often instrumental. Many Asian cultures, in con-trast, are high-context cultures. They are also collectivist; they value group effort over individual achievement. For people from these cultures, conflicts often center on expressive, relational concerns. Keeping peace in the group or saving face is often a higher priority than achieving a goal.

A model defines five styles of conflict management: collaboration, compromise, competition, accommodation, and avoidance. These five styles are determined by people's degree of concern for others and concern for self. Two communication researchers, Deborah Cai and Edward Fink, wanted to know whether people from individualistic cultures have different preferences for ways of managing conflict than people from collectivistic cultures. They found that although the colla-borating (integrating) style was the overall preferred conflict management style in most cultures, people from individualistic cultures are more likely to use the avoiding style than people from collectivistic cultures. And people from collectivistic cultures are even more likely to first use a collaborative style when conflicts occur.

Some broad generalizations about culture and conflict management are that everyone in a given culture manages conflict the same way. For example, one research team found that there are differences in the way older and younger Chinese adults manage conflict. Older Chinese people tended to favor more accommodating approaches to managing differences, whereas younger Chinese adults used a problem-solving approach. Researchers suggest that Americans of European descent receive little training in how to develop solutions to problems that are acceptable to an entire group. Because of an emphasis on individual goals and individual achievement, they are often socialized to stick up for their own rights at any cost, and they approach conflict as a win-lose situa-tion. In contrast, people from collectivistic cultures approach conflict situations from a win-win perspective. To them, it is important that both sides save face and avoid ridi-cule. Such differences in approaches provide a double challenge. In addition to disagree-ing over the issue at hand, people from different cultures may also have different strate-gies for reaching agreement.

What are strategies that will help you manage conflict when interacting with someone who comes from a culture different from yours? Managing culture-based conflict requires a strong other-orientation. Consider these strategies.

• Don't necessarily attempt to manage the conflict based on your own cultural comfort zone; consider the cultural perspective of the other person.
• Review the strategies for intercultural competence to help enhance communication accuracy.
• When in doubt, it's best to use a collaborating style.
• Because people from collectivistic cultures prefer compromising and collaboration, which are styles that take time, it may be wise not to rush the conflict management process if you're interacting with someone from a collectivistic culture.

If women have more peaceful tendencies than men, then it follows that a greater presence of women in peace organizations, and positions of conflict resolution and power should then to lead to different approaches to the use of force. In difference Feminism women are assumed to possess different values and when women hold a more equal role in society their values will play a larger role in the policy making process. Caprioli (2003) has summarized the relationship between these attitudinal differences and state use of force: "If women are inherently more pacifist or support less aggressive state policies due to socialization, then state international policies should become less aggressive as women break through the structural barrier and gain more influence over state politics, whether directly through political participation or indirectly as male politicians temper their support for aggressive policies in order to appeal to broader constituencies that include women." For this reason it is important to research into this issue; if women have different approaches towards conflict resolution than men, it carries important implications for the presence of women in political decision making and negotiations.

Дата добавления: 2015-11-14