Conflict and functions, conflict structure. Methods for resolving it.
Conflict
- a collision of 2 opposing goals, positions, interests, which requires its resolution. K. Thomas identified 5 ways of behavior in conflict:
1. Suppression – realizing one’s interests at the expense of the interests of others;
2. Submission - one of the parties sacrifices its interests;
3. Avoidance - avoiding conflict;
4. Compromise - a style of partial concessions (reduces the severity of the conflict);
5. Cooperation is a solution that completely suits both parties; requires the ability to restrain emotions, listen to the other side, and correctly state the essence of one’s interests.
Classification of conflicts:
1. Interpersonal (a collision of interacting people whose goals are either mutually exclusive and incompatible in a given situation, or counteract and interfere with each other).
2. Intergroup (confrontation between groups in a team, society).
3. Intrapersonal (a collision of opposing motives, needs, interests in one person).
In a conflict situation, it is important how the subjects present it. There can be false conflicts (those without significant grounds or contradictions) and genuine ones. Conflicts can be displaced (double) - an obvious conflict, behind which one can discover a hidden one that underlies the obvious one. The most complex is latent (hidden) - either not realized or hidden (contributes to the development of cynicism and hypocrisy among the participants in the conflict). Conflicts can be: – personal and industrial (the most difficult to experience); – a special type – pedagogical conflicts – all conflicts associated with the process of teaching and upbringing.
Diagnostic methods: determining the tendency to see conflicts - the method of K. Thomas.
Structure of the conflict:
The main elements of conflict interaction are:
1) the object of the conflict,
2) participants in the conflict,
3) social environment, conflict conditions,
4) subjective perception of the conflict and its personal elements.
1 - Object of conflict . Every conflict has its own reason; it arises over the need to satisfy some need. The value that is capable of satisfying this need and because of the mastery of which conflict arises is its object. The object of conflict can be material, social and spiritual values.
2 - Participants in the conflict can be individuals, social groups, organizations, states, coalitions of states. The main participants in the conflict are the opposing parties or opponents. They form the core of the conflict. When at least one of the main parties withdraws from the confrontation, the conflict ends. Depending on the nature of these parties, conflicts can be divided into 3 main types (see classification of conflicts)
In addition to the main parties to the conflict, there may be other participants who play secondary roles in it. These roles can be both significant and insignificant, up to the roles of the so-called “people from the crowd.”
The roles of the parties to the conflict are not the same. They differ from both sociological and psychological points of view.
From a sociological point of view, they can differ significantly in their social significance, strength, and influence, which is especially clearly revealed when an individual collides with the state. Of course, in a conflict of this kind, the forces of the participants are far from equal, as evidenced by the tragic fates of the “dissidents” who actively opposed the Soviet state. According to their social significance, the roles of the participants in the conflict are arranged in the following order: 1) individual individuals acting on their own behalf, 2) followed by collectives, 3) social strata, 4) the state. However, the significance and influence of the parties to the conflict do not always correspond to the indicated sequence. As history shows, the role of individuals not only in the life of individual organizations and groups, but also in the destinies of entire nations and states can be very great.
The role of individual participants in the conflict is also different from a psychological point of view; in this regard, it can be sublime, even heroic, or it can also be base and unsightly. Each participant can be guided during the development of the confrontation by his own motives, goals, interests, values and attitudes.
Both the social significance of the participants and their goals and attitudes appear especially clearly only when the conflict reaches a high degree of development. It is at this time that the “moment of truth” comes in the development of the conflict, it becomes clear who is who among its participants.
3 - But in addition to the participants in the conflict, the totality of which constitutes its microenvironment, the macroenvironment , those specific historical socio-psychological conditions in which it unfolds, also plays an important and sometimes decisive role in its development. The concept of social environment defines the ground on which conflict arises and develops. This concept includes not only the immediate, but also the distant, broader environment of the conflicting parties, the large social groups to which they belong, national or class, as well as society as a whole.
4 - The nature of the conflict depends not only on the objective conditions in a given country, large or small group, but also on the subjective perception or image of the conflict that is created by individuals or groups operating in a given conflict situation. This image or perception does not necessarily correspond to the true state of affairs, the actual situation. These images and perceptions of people can be of three types:
1) ideas about themselves,
2) the perception of other participants in the conflict,
3) images of the external environment, large and small, in which the conflict unfolds.
It is these images, ideal pictures of a conflict situation, and not the objective reality itself, that are the direct basis for the behavior of conflictants.
Of course, in general, these images and pictures are generated by objective reality. However, as Immanuel Kant noted, our knowledge reflects not only objective nature, but also includes our own human nature as its integral part. Therefore, the relationship between our images, ideas and reality is very complex and not only never fully corresponds to it, but can also seriously diverge from it, which serves as another source of conflict.
It should be borne in mind that whatever our images, perceptions, ideas about the conflict situation, the conflict will not begin until they are realized in appropriate mutual actions. The objective and subjective causes of the conflict, arising both on its near and distant approaches, as well as the composition of the participants, determine the set of possible courses of action and behavior of the parties. Since each action of one of the participants in the conflict causes a corresponding reaction, they influence each other and interact.
Determining the temporal, spatial and systemic boundaries of the conflict is an important prerequisite for successful regulation and prevention of its destructive outcome.
The maturation of the causes, the formation of the composition of the participants in the conflict, their interaction and one or another outcome of the conflict take time. Therefore, any real conflict is not a one-time act, but a process, often a very long one. In this regard, the analysis of the conflict involves not only consideration of its structure and statics, but also the study of the dynamics, stages and phases of its development.
Five main ways to resolve interpersonal conflicts:
Avoidance, evasion (weak assertiveness is combined with low cooperation). With this strategy of behavior, the manager’s actions are aimed at getting out of the situation without giving in, but also without insisting on his own, refraining from entering into disputes and discussions, from expressing his position. In response to demands or accusations made against him, such a leader moves the conversation to another topic. He does not take responsibility for solving problems, does not want to see controversial issues, does not attach importance to disagreements, denies the existence of a conflict or even considers it useless, and tries not to get into situations that provoke conflict.
Coercion (adversarial) - in this case, high assertiveness is combined with low cooperation. The manager’s actions are aimed at insisting on his own through open struggle for his interests, the use of power, and coercion. Confrontation involves perceiving the situation as victory or defeat, taking a tough position and showing irreconcilable antagonism in case of resistance from the partner. Such a leader will force you to accept his point of view at any cost.
Smoothing (compliance) - weak assertiveness is combined with high cooperativeness. The actions of a leader in a conflict situation are aimed at maintaining or restoring good relationships, at ensuring the satisfaction of the other person by smoothing out disagreements. For this, he is ready to give in, neglect his own interests, strive to support another, not hurt his feelings, and take into account his arguments. His motto: “There is no need to quarrel, since we are all one happy team in the same boat, which should not be rocked.”
Compromise, cooperation - high assertiveness is combined with high cooperativeness. In this case, the manager’s actions are aimed at finding a solution that fully satisfies both his interests and the wishes of the other person through an open and frank exchange of views about the problem. He tries to resolve disagreements by conceding something in exchange for concessions from the other side; in the process of negotiations, he looks for intermediate “middle” solutions that suit both sides, in which no one particularly loses anything, but no one gains anything either.
There are other ways to resolve interpersonal conflicts:
coordination
— coordination of tactical subgoals and behavior in the interests of the main goal or solution of a common task. Such coordination between organizational units can be carried out at different levels of the management pyramid (vertical coordination), at organizational levels of the same rank (horizontal coordination) and in the form of a mixed form of both options. If coordination is successful, then conflicts are resolved with less cost and effort; integrative problem solving. Conflict resolution is based on the assumption that there can be a solution to a problem that eliminates all conflicting elements and is acceptable to both parties. It is believed that this is one of the most successful strategies for a manager's behavior in a conflict, since in this case he comes closest to resolving the conditions that initially gave rise to this conflict. However, the problem-solving approach to conflict is often very difficult to maintain. This is due to the fact that it largely depends on the professionalism of the manager. In addition, in this case, it takes a lot of time to resolve the conflict. In such conditions, the manager must have a good technology - a model for solving problems;
confrontation as a way to resolve conflict
- bringing the problem to public attention. This makes it possible to freely discuss it with the involvement of the maximum number of participants in the conflict (essentially, this is no longer a conflict, but a labor dispute), to enter into confrontation with the problem, and not with each other, in order to identify and eliminate all shortcomings. The purpose of confrontational sessions is to bring people together in a non-hostile forum that promotes communication. Public and frank communication is one of the means of conflict management
3) Socio-psychological reasons:
— possible significant losses and distortions of information in the process of interpersonal and intergroup communication;
— unbalanced role interaction between two people;
— people’s failure to understand that when discussing a problem, especially a complex one, a discrepancy in positions can often be caused not by a real difference in views on the same thing, but by an approach to the problem from different sides.
— different ways of assessing each other’s performance and personality;
- In-group favoritism.
4) Personal reasons
conflicts: the ability to empathize, i.e. understanding the emotional state of another person, empathy and sympathy for him; overestimated or underestimated level of claims.
