Konflikt und Kooperation

- influences expectations towards cooperation of other person --> trust promotes cooperation in situations of conflicting interests 

- cooperation always bears the possibility of getting exploited --> especially in one-time games 

- degree of confliciting interests may affect the relation between trust and cooperation --> trust may even be more predictive of behavior in situations involving a larger, compared to smaller, conflict of interests 

- in situations with less conflict cooperation is more influenced by self-serving motives like impression management and maintaining social ties

- if someone in a high conflict situation shows trust the counterpart can be sure that it's out of benevolent motives --> strong predictor for cooperative behavior

- differentiation between high trust (generalized trust; USA) and low trust (particualized trust; Japan) cultures 

- early trust violation more harmful for cooperation in high-trust cultures and later trust violation more harmful for cooperation in low-trust cultures 

- people with low general trust expect early trust violations and difficulties --> if relationship is already established trust violation hits harder 

- generalized trust is a moderator variable 

- refers to the tendency for relations between groups to be more competitive or less cooperative than relations between individuals

- Many, but not all, experiments contrasting interindividual and intergroup interactions in the PDG context have found that intergroup interactions are relatively more competitive

- Brown’s (1954): "the quality of mob behavior has always required explanation because of its apparent discontinuity with the private characters of the individuals involved" 

Fear and greed perspective = assumes that one reason for selecting the competitive choice is the fear/greed of receiving the lowest/highest possible outcome, either in an absolute sense or relative to the outcomes achieved by the other player

1. Schema-based distrust or fear explanation:  intergroup interactions are more competitive than interindividual interactions because the anticipation of interacting with another group produces cognitive and affective responses denoting that other groups are competitive, untrustworthy, hostile, and abrasive

2. Identifiability explanation: intergroup interactions are more competitive than interindividual interactions because the other player’s ability to assign responsibility for competitive, self-interested behaviour is typically more limited in an intergroup than in an interindividual context

3. Social support for shared self-interest explanation: proposes that intergroup interactions are more competitive than interindividual interactions because group members can provide mutual social support for the competitive pursuit of shared selfinterest, whereas such social support is unavailable to isolated individuals (To respond competitively when the other player is expected to cooperate is inconsistent with norms of fairness and equality. Yet social support from ingroup members for pursuing such a self-interested strategy can reduce these normative constraint)

4. Ingroup-favouring norm explanation: group membership implies normative pressure to act so as to benefit the ingroup

5. Altruistic rationalisation explanation: interactions between groups are more competitive than interactions between individuals because group members can rationalise self-interest as being pursued for the sake of the ingroup

- group polarization = the tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members

- hot sauce experiment (Meier and Hinsz, 2004): test subjects are being provoked and can then allocate hot sauce to an individual or to a group --> subjects who had a discussion before the allocation within the group allocated significantly more hot sauce; they also allocated more hot sauce to groups then to individuals 

- prediciton from group polarization would be different --> if individuals are a bit aggressive group polarization would predict them to be more aggressive in a group, if individuals are cautious, group polarization would predict them to be more cautios in a group 

- group polarization explains behavior of groups in decision making contexts (group discussion); interindividual-intergroup discontinuity explains behavior in a mixed-interest situation

- in two experiments they manipulated the indices of entitativity (common fate, proximity, and similarity) to examine when a set of individuals interacts with another set of individuals in the competitive manner that is characteristic of group-on-group interactions

- in Experiment 1 they found that interactions between two 3-person sets were more competitive when participants
within each set shared (vs. did not share) common fate

- in Experiment 2 they found that observers as well as targets were more competitive when targets shared (vs. did not share) common fate

- Path analyses in both experiments supported the idea that common fate increases competition via increased own-set entitativity and subsequent greed, and via increased other-set entitativity and subsequent fear --> common fate increased the perceived entitativity of the own group (enhances greeed) as well as of the out-group (enhances fear)

- motivated reasoning: self-esteem might be enhanced by the belief that he or she is the primary agent in joint marital tasks 

- egocentric bias in the cognitive availability of information:

• we are always present to witness our own contributions but not always for others' contributions
• we encode our own actions more deeply --> results in reliable egocentric bias in judgements of responsibility (ease with which specific instances come to mind is used to estimate frequency) 
• many contributions of joint efforts are cognitive contributions (planning, obsessing, reviewing) --> those we can't perceive from our partner, but only from our own 
• framing of the question --> if I ask: "How much have I contributed" I retrieve more own contributions of course since the question acts as a prime 

- because also contributions, that have a negative consequence are being perceived with an egocentric bias and therefore not self-esteem eliviating --> this can't be out of motivational reasons because it doesn't serve that purpose

- according to equity theorists people desire proportionality between inputs and outcomes, for both themselves and others; this fairness determines people's satisfaction with their social and business interactions; if people consistently overestimate their inputs, they may feel that they are doing more than their share and that others are doing less than theirs 

- two different reasons for that phenomenon: 

1) people may feel underappreciated or underacknowledged because they have overestimated their own role 

2) people may fail to realize that differences in judgement could arise from honest evaluations of information that is differently available (could be interpreted as a calculated effort to take advantage) 

- people may assume that their actions, because they command so much of their own attention, are likely to occupy the attention of others as well (e.g. dining alone in a restaurant) 

- but actually fewer people may notice one's isolation than one suspects, fewer may view it in a negative light 

- people overestimate the likelihood that those present will notice and remember their own actions

= belief that internal states are more discernible to others than they actually are 

Results of the study: 

- participants judged their own important issues to be more important to their negotiation opponent, regardless of their opponent's actual interest 

- accuracy increased when attention was experimentally focused on the opponent's actual interests rather than their own 

- perception of opponent's interests were more closely related to own interests than to opponent's actual interests 

--> Yes, egocentrism is a fundamental source of biased conflict perception 

- Stressors are the perceived or objective environmental characteristics that may elicit a response from an employee 

- strains refer to the negative responses employees may experience resulting from stressors

- Trait Anxiety/Negative Affectivity: refers to a tendency to perceive situations as threatening (additionaly negative emotional states)

• Meta-analytic findings indicate an average correlation of .33 for six studies assessing negative affectivity and conflict at work (direct relationship between trait anxiety and perceived conflicts at work)
• it has been argued that the relationship between trait anxiety/ NA and conflict exists due to the highly anxious person's tendency to perceive his or her surroundings as stressful --> in addition to direct relationship moderating effects

- Trait Anger (=a proneness to perceive a variety of situations as provoking anger)

• it seems that individuals high in trait anger may be more reactive to the experience of interpersonal conflict at work
• Specifically, the relationship between interpersonal conflict and counterproductive work behaviors was stronger for individuals higher in trait anger

- Type A

- Locus of Control

- perceived control and conflict 

- anger (characterized by antagonism toward someone or something you feel has deliberately done you wrong), anxiety (~.30) (characterized by feelings of tension, worried thoughts and physical changes like increased blood pressure), annoyance (unpleasant mental state that is characterized by such effects as irritation and distraction from one's conscious thinking) and frustration (~.30) (emotional reaction to unsatisfied or unsatisfactory or disappointed expectations)

- interpersonal conflict may elicit a variety of negative emotional states --> Fox et al. (2001): r=.49 between conflict and negative emotion

- Perrewé and Zellars (1999): conflict --> perceived as threatening and anxiety promoting --> other person is seen as cause of conflict and capable to avoid the conflict in the first place (external and controllable) --> anger 

- experiencing and expressing anger is linked to cardivascular diseases 

- experience of negative emotional states leads to suppressing of humans immune functions and increasing of the production of cortisol and catecholamines

- conflict is related to depressive symptoms (r=.31) -->(Fiske, 1992)

- also burnout, life dissatisfaction, and psychiatric morbidity 

- meta-analytic findings also support a positive mean correlation in the mid-.30s between conflict and anxiety and between conflict and frustration (Spector, 1997; Spector & Jex, 1998)

- positive correlation between trait anxiety/negative affectivity and conflicts at the workplace (.30-.33) 

- higher anxiety --> more perception of conflicts --> more conflicts 

- less data but also possible explanation: train axienty/NA as ersonality moderator variable; more anxious --> environment being perceived as stressful --> more conflicts 

- study investigated the roles of three types of conflict at work (task, relationship and non-task organization) in predicting employee strain 

- non-task organizational conflict (are likely to be perceived as having low resolution potential) and relationship conflict emerged as key predictors across strain criteria 

- task conflict can be beneficial and its negative relationship with well-being may be due to its co-occurence with the other forms of conflicts 

- relationship and task-conflict might have joint effects 

- dissent in group decisions has a positive effect on creativity/correctness of group decisions mediated by this two variables

1. Discussion Intensity (much information on a topic is exchanged and discussed in a group, or individual processing is higher)

2. Discussion Divergence (if there is a lot of divergence there is a higher effect on creativity;e.g. that's why minority dissent stimulates creative thinking a lot) 

- majority or minority dissent as moderator 

- difference with minority stimulates divergent thinking --> induces thought processes in multiple directions

- difference with majority stimulates convergent thinking --> stimulates information processing that focusses on the position of the majority

- unanimity decision rule:  for a solution to be accepted, all group members have to agree to this solution -->  If all members have to agree, minorities know that their opinions matter and majorities have to pay attention to minority statements --> groups working under a unanimity rule have shown to express more disagreement as well as to exchange more arguments and opinions they are also more satisfied with their decision and report greater confidence about the correctness of their decision (empirical tests to link are still lacking)

- participation: the more the group members are used to being heard when important decisions are made and being able to influence these decisions through expressing their own opinion, the more each group member will be motivated to express a dissenting opinion if he or she disagrees with the prevailing opinion in the group

- dialectical leadership: the leader is open to dissent and even encourages thoughts and ideas that run counter to the solution and to decision alternatives or ideas that are currently favored in the group 

- critical norms: a common understanding in the group (or even in the whole organization) that independence and critieal thought are essential components of the group's (or the organization's) coIlective work  -->  If group members have internalized such a common understanding, they should feel free to express dissent if they disagree wlth proposals or solutions favored in the group

-  Dialectieal decision techniques = procedures that contrive dissent by enforcing a controversial debate independent of the actors' real opinions 

- devil's advocacy: a single group member or a subgroup is assigned the role of the devil's advocate, which has the task of criticizing as substantially as possible a proposal made by the group

- dilectical inquiry: after a proposal has been made, the opposite faction in the group not only critieizes this proposal but also comes up with a complete counterproposal, and a dialectieal debate between the two factions emerges about both proposals

- inverted u-shape relationship between level of task conflict and team creativity 

--> moderate levels of task conflict show the highest level of team creativity 

--> curvilinear relationship only for teams in the early phase (moderator) of a project life cycle 

- three different, but related emphases: structural, relational, and identity related 

- structural: core of reconciliation as the transformation of power relations between the advantaged and disadvantaged groups into an equality-based social structure

- relational: views greater intergroup trust and more positive relations as key elements in a reconciled intergroup reality

- identity related: suggests that conflicts threaten the identities of the parties involved and that these identity threats fuel the continuation of the conflict

--> “Trustworthy positive relations between former adversaries who enjoy secure social identities and interact in an equality-based social environment”

- grounded in the premise of social identity theory (group members are generally motivated to maintain their positive social identity and strive to restore it to the extent that it is threatened) 

- threats posed to victims’ and perpetrators’ identities are of an asymmetrical nature

- Victims experience threat to their sense of power, honour and control 

- perpetrators experience threat to their identity as morally adequate social actors

- consistent with theorising about the Big  Two in socialjudgment and behaviour:  two fundamental content dimensions along which social targets (such as groups) perceive and judge themselves and others: the agency dimension, representing traits such as “strong”, “competent”, “influential”, and“self-determined”; and the moral–social (or communion) dimension, representing traits such as “moral”, “warm”, and“trustworthy”

- victims --> threat to agency dimension 

- perpetrators --> threat to moral-social dimension 

- experience of threat results in corresponding motivational states

--> victims wish to satisfy their basic need for agency --> victims show heightened power-seeking behaviour and often wish to get even with their perpetrators

--> perpetrators wish to satisfy their basic need for communion --> thorugh encouraging apology or avoiding unpleasent emotions through minimising their responsibility 

- agency/moral needs: enhanced needs for both agency and positive moral image --> need for agency takes precedence and exerts greater influence on their behaviour

- pro-/antisocial behaviour: Like victims, their heightened need for agency translated into vengeful behaviour; unlike perpetrators, their heightened need for positive moral image failed to translate into prosocial behaviour

-  messages from the other party to the conflict, but not from a neutral third party, increased victims’ and perpetrators’ willingness to reconcile compared to the control condition

- messages from a third party who shared a common identity with the other party to the conflict effectively promoted reconciliation

- Perceived representativeness, in turn, mediated the effects of message source on reconciliation (perceives representativeness: member of opponent group > member of neutral group who shares common identity with opponent group > member of neutral group)

- BATNA (=Best alternative to a negotiated agreement ): determines the point at which a negotiator is prepared to walk away from the negotiation table. In practice, it means that the negotiators should be willing to accept any set of terms superior to their BATNA and to reject outcomes that are worse than their BATNA --> reservation point is quantification of BATNA

- Bargaining Zone: the range between negotiators’ reservation points (if range is positive, ZOPA exists) 

- ZOPA (= zone of possible agreement)

- Integrative negotiations: negotiations are integrative when all creative opportunities are leveraged and no resources are left on the table

- distributive negotiations: a negotiation is distributive when negotiators are mainly concerned about their own economic outcomes and not the joint outcomes of all negotiating parties Best alternative

-condition under which mood is likely to affect information processing: situations of deep information processing (not when need for closure, power position or time pressure)

- Anger expressions produced concessions from negotiators with a poor BATNA, presumably because the angry negotiator communicated “toughness" --> emotion is taken as cue to estimate BATNA

- only if offer is within the range of a realistic ZOPA

- but when negotiators expressed positive affect, negative affect, or neutral affect in a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum, positive-affect negotiators were most likely to have their ultimatum accepted

- when the counterparty immediately accepts one’s first offer, a counterfactual thought process is produced (e.g., “Oh no, I should have asked for more!”) --> also taken as a heuristic to where BATNA of negotiation partner lays --> it was probably lower then assumed 

- This counterfactual thought process results in dissatisfaction, even when negotiators’ outcomes were objectively superior to agreements reached later in negotiations.

- trusting negotiators believe their counterparts will use information to identify integrative agreements 

-  they also tend to believe information that the counterpart shares, accepting it as sincere and accurate

-->  trusting negotiators exchange more information about preferences and priorities and achieve more integrative outcomes

--> mostly useful in integrative situations; could be harmful in distributive situations

- the first-offer effect remains remarkably robust across cultures and also extends to multi-issue negotiations

- low-power negotiators benefit from making the first offer across single- and multi-issue negotiations (first-offer effect works regardless of power --> low-power negotiators suffered most from not making the first offer)

- first offers operate through the distributive, not the integrative or compatible issues

--> very generalizable