8.2: Outline

8.1: Characteristics of Intercultural Conflict

1. Conflict Defined: “conflict is an expressed struggle between at least two interdepending parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from others in achieving their goals.”

A. Expressed Struggle

1. Conflict is a communication process expressed verbally and nonverbally.

2. Often, conflict is easily identified because one party openly and verbally disagrees with the other, but intrapersonal, or internal conflict, may exist for some time before being expressed.

B. Interdependent

1. Parties engaged in expressed struggle do so because they are interdependent.

2. Each party’s choices affect the other because conflict is a mutual activity.

C. Perception

1. Parties in conflict have perceptions about their own position and the position of others.

2. We can anticipate having such differences due to a number of factors that create perceptual filers or cultural frames, including culture, race & ethnicity, gender & sexuality, knowledge, impressions of the messenger, and previous experience.

D. Clashes in Goals, Resources, and Behaviors

1. Conflicts arise from differences and can occur whenever parties disagree over their values, motivations, ideas, or desires.

2. When conflict triggers strong feelings, a deep need is typically at the core of the problem.

2. Characteristics of Intercultural Conflict: Intercultural conflicts are often characterized by more ambiguity, language issues, and the clash of conflict styles than some cultural conflicts.

A. Conflict and Communication

1. Conflict can arise over differences of opinion regarding substantive issues or may derive from misunderstandings based on verbal or nonverbal communication tied to cultural norms and values.

2. Conflict is less likely to come from language mechanics and more likely from mistakes in language pragmatics, most frequently in the area of speech acts, i.e. using language to perform certain actions or to have them performed by others.

B. Conflict and Ethnocentrism

1. In our everyday lives, we don’t have to think about how to navigate through our own culture.

2. When communicating across cultures, this error in thinking can lead us to create expectations for behavior that fail to factor in the cultural context.

3. This ethnocentric thinking can easily lead to misunderstanding and conflict.

3. Conflict Styles

A. Conflict Style Inventories

1. Direct Approaches are favored by cultures that think conflict is a good thing, and that conflict should be approached directly, because working through conflict results in more solid and stronger relationships.

2. Indirect Approaches are favored by cultures that view conflict as destructive to relationships and prefer to deal with conflict indirectly.

3. Emotionally Expressive people or cultures are those who value intense displays of emotion during a disagreement.

4. Emotionally Restrained people or cultures are those who think that disagreements are best discussed in an emotionally calm manner. A sensitivity to hurting feelings or protecting the face or honor of the other is paramount.

B. Intercultural Conflict Style Inventory: disagreements leading to the conflict have two dimensions, an affective (emotional) and a cognitive (intellectual or analytical) side.

1. Discussion style: combines direct and emotionally restrained dimensions.

2. Engagement style: emphasizes a verbally direct and emotionally expressive approach to dealing with conflict.

3. Accommodating style: combines the indirect and emotionally restrained approaches.

4. Dynamic style: uses indirect communication along with more emotional expressiveness.

C. Seven-step conflict resolution model

1. State the Problem. Ask each of the conflicting parties to state their view of the problem as simply and clearly as possible.

2. Restate the Problem. Ask each party to restate the problem as they understand the other party to view it.

3. Understand the Problem. Each party must agree that the other side understands both ways of looking at the problem.

4. Pinpoint the Issue. Zero in on the objective facts.

5. Ask for Suggestions. Ask how the problem should be solved.

6. Make a Plan.

7. Follow up.

8.2: Intercultural Conflict Management

1. Managing Conflict Across Cultures

A. Types of conflict rarely stand alone.

B. Most often, several types of conflict are found intertwined within each other and within the context itself.

C. How people choose to manage conflict depends on the type of conflict, the contexts that they occur within, and the relationships with the other person or people.

D. Considering all the variations in how people choose to deal with conflict, it’s important to distinguish between productive and destructive conflict as well as cooperative and competitive conflict.

1. Destructive conflict leads people to make sweeping generalizations about the problem by escalating issues with negative attitudes.

2. Productive conflict features skills that make it possible to manage conflict situations effectively and appropriately.

3. Competitive conflict promotes escalation. Coercion, deception, suspicion, rigidity, and poor communication are all hallmarks of a competitive atmosphere.

4. Cooperative conflict promotes perceived similarity, trust, flexibility, and open communication.

2. Conflict resolution styles represent processes and outcomes based on the interests of the parties involved.

A. If I am intent on reaching my own goals in an encounter, I use what’s called a dominating or controlling style.

B. On the other hand, if I am content to allow others to get their way, I use an obliging or yielding style.

C. Flexibility and openness might lead to the adoption of an integrating or collaborating approach, seeking to find a solution that satisfies both parties.

D. A compromising approach provides a negotiated outcome that necessitates each party to give up something in order to reach a solution that provides partial gains on each side.

E. Avoidance or withdrawal may be appropriate if no resolution is likely, or there is not enough time or information to resolve the conflict.

3. Individualism and Collectivism

A. The strongest cultural factor that influences your conflict approach is whether you belong to an individualistic or collectivistic culture.

1. People raised in collectivistic cultures often view direct communication regarding conflict as personal attacks and consequently are more likely to manage conflict through avoidance or accommodation

2. People from individualistic cultures feel comfortable agreeing to disagree and don’t particularly see clashes as personal affronts.

B. Perspectives

1. If you are an individualist in a dispute with a collectivist, you should consider the following:

a. Recognize that collectivists may prefer to have a third party mediate the conflict so that those in conflict can manage their disagreement without direct confrontation to preserve relational harmony.

b. Use more indirect verbal messages.

c. Let go of the situation if the other person does not recognize the conflict exists or does not want to deal with it.

2. If you are a collectivist and are conflicting with someone from an individualistic culture, the following guidelines may help:

a. Recognize that individualists often separate conflicts from people. It’s not personal.

b. Use an assertive style, filled with “I” messages, and be direct by candidly stating your opinions and feelings.

c. Manage conflicts even if you’d rather avoid them.

4. Face: a person’s self-image of the amount of respect or accommodating a person expects to receive during interactions with others.

A. Conflict Face-Negotiation Theory examines the extent to which face is negotiated within a culture and what existing value patterns shape culture members’ preferences for the process of negotiating face in conflict situations.

1. Three concepts of face:

a. Self-face: The concern for one’s image, the extent to which we feel valued and respected.

b. Other-face: Our concern for the other’s self-image, the extent to which we are concerned with the other’s feelings.

c. Mutual-face: Concern for both parties’ face and for a positive relationship developing out of the interaction.

2. According to face negotiation theory, people in all cultures share the need to maintain and negotiate face.

a. Some cultures and individuals tend to be more concerned with self-face, often associated with individualis

b. Collectivists, cultures, or individuals, tend to be more concerned with other-face and may prefer an indirect approach.

B. Facework: refers to the communication strategies that people use to establish, sustain, or restore a preferred social identity during an interaction with others.

1. Conflict Face-Negotiation Theory recommends a four-skills approach to managing conflict across cultures.

a. Mindful Listening: pay special attention to the cultural and personal assumptions being expressed in the conflict interaction.

b. Mindful Reframing: another face-honoring skill requiring the creation of alternative contexts to shade our understanding of conflict behavior.

c. Collaborative Dialog: an exchange of dialog that is oriented fully in the present moment and builds on Mindful Listening and Mindful Reframing to practice communicating with different linguistic of contextual resources.

d. Culture-based Conflict Resolution Steps is a seven-step conflict resolution model that guides conflicting groups to identify the background of a problem, analyze the cultural assumptions and underlying values of a person in a conflict situation, and promote ways to achieve harmony and share a common goal.