The framework developed here (figure 21.1) is founded in the role that interests play in negotiation and social conflict and how what people say or demand is often an expression of those underlying interests. Follett (1940) originated this important notion; thus, it is fitting to conclude on a point she made about how to approach underlying interests: the game of interest chess. Follett argued that the other’s positions and interests in negotiation and conflict should be anticipated, much like a chess master anticipates moves and countermoves on the chessboard. And like the chess master, this is done prior to taking any action. In other words, a careful playing through of the underlying interests and then managing them can be the key to success. Follett’s example:
A man liked motoring, his wife walking; he anticipated what her response might be to a suggestion that they motor on Sunday afternoon by tiring her out playing tennis in the morning. . . . You integrate the different interests without making all the moves. . . . like a game of chess. . . . A good chess player sees the possibilities without playing them out. (Follett, 1940, p. 43)
Is managing interests in such a strategic manner cooperative or contentious?5 Of course, if the husband’s wife discovered that his interest in playing tennis was to get her to go for a drive, that he had an ulterior motive, the game might change; but then again, a game of tennis followed by an afternoon of motoring might be just fine for her. And there’s the rub,6 the creative, silver lining to the dark contentious cloud: the result may be an asymmetric outcome—but this may be just fine with the party who accepts it. Indeed, some laboratory work suggests that strategic misrepresentation does not necessarily interfere with the development of integrative agreements (O’Connor and Carnevale, 1997).7
Deutsch (chapters 1 and 2 of this volume) details the values and norms that underlie constructive conflict resolution and includes reciprocity, human equality, shared community, fallibility, and nonviolence. I would just add one thing to this impressive list: a norm of creativity, with the suggestion that a norm for a creative product may be the missing piece when peace is missing.
Notes
1. See http://al-islam.org/kaaba14/1.htm; see also Rubin’s (1981) introductory chapter that describes interesting mediations of disputes in the Bible.
2. See Carnevale and de Dreu (2006) for a sense of the wealth of perspectives on methods across many disciplines for addressing these and related questions.
3. Kahneman and Tversky (1995) indicate that a cognitive orientation to one’s own economic interest, often defined as economic rationality, can inhibit an integrative resolution of conflict, whereas an orientation that also takes in the interests of others may reach agreements that are individually and collectively more desirable than the cognitive orientation of individual economic rationality. As they put it: “It would be inappropriate to conclude, however, that departures from rationality always inhibit the resolution of conflict. There are many situations in which less-than-rational agents may reach agreement while perfectly rational agents do not. The prisoner’s dilemma is a classic example in which rationality may not be conducive for achieving the most desirable social solution” (pp. 45–56).
4. Presented here with a tribute to Joe McGrath (see McGrath, 1984).
5. Consider creativity in the pursuit of death and war, which was revealed in comments by Muhammad Dahlan, a leader of the Palestinians in Gaza, while lamenting the assassination of a leader of the Black September terrorist group: “When we lost Abu Iyad, we lost the creativity and ability to shape opinion” (Samuels, 2005).
6. Shakespeare, Hamlet: “To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there’s the rub: For in that sleep of death what dreams may come.”
7. Where, for example, would the outcome in Follett’s motoring example go in the Agreement Circumplex? Do we need a Disagreement Circumplex for asymmetric agreements or for agreements where one party pulled the wool over the eyes of the other? A large issue is how the parties come to know or be aware that they have found a creative, integrative agreement. It may ultimately be a matter of appropriate measurement that takes into consideration objective and subjective factors that are immediate as well as long term.
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aWriting this chapter was supported by National Science Foundation Grant SES-0453301, Group Effects in Bilateral Negotiation. Special thanks to Morton Deutsch, Peter Coleman, Eric Marcus, and Andrea Hollingshead for many helpful comments on an earlier draft.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
CHANGE AND CONFLICT Motivation, Resistance, and Commitment
Eric C. Marcus
Change means movement. Movement means friction. Only in the frictionless vacuum of a nonexistent abstract world can movement or change occur without that abrasive friction of conflict.
—Saul Alinsky (1971)
In this chapter, I consider the relationship between change processes and conflict. If we define conflict as incompatibility—of ideas, beliefs, behaviors, roles, needs, desires, values, and so on—then resolving such incompatibility leads in some way to change: in attitude, perception, belief, norms, behavior, roles, relationship, and so forth. I examine how conflict influences change and how change influences the conflict process. Finally, I discuss some of the implications these influences have on the practice of training people in skills for productive conflict resolution.
I make the assumption that the process of change is, at its core, one of conflict resolution. Therefore, one can think of change as an outcome of a constructive or destructive conflict resolution process and the process of change as a series of conflict resolution activities that lead to some new (changed) end state. Thus, engaging in planned and spontaneous change gives rise to conflict; conversely, conflicts and how they ar
e resolved exert a strong influence on the success of change efforts. A second assumption I make is that there is a conceptual similarity in the process of change for individuals, groups, and organizations.
In this chapter, I look at common theoretical notions regarding the process of change and focus on three critical psychological components involved in any planned effort of change: motivation, resistance, and commitment to change. I start by clarifying a few ideas about change that guide the remainder of the chapter: definition, context, and scope. I rely on a dictionary definition: “To cause to be different; to give a completely different form or appearance to; transform.” My discussion centers on change affecting individuals and groups within a social context, that is, changes in the social systems of which we are part: a dyad (a marital relationship), small groups we belong to (the fundraising committee of the PTA), and larger groups (the organization in which we work). My interest is in looking at change as it occurs in such social systems as distinct from changes in weather patterns and other types occurring outside our individual or social realm.
THEORETICAL CONCEPTIONS OF THE CHANGE PROCESS
Although there are many psychological theories of individual change (notably the psychodynamic and learning theories), few have been applied to understand change as it occurs in social systems. Nevertheless, Lewin, Beckhard, Bridges, Burke, Prochaska, and others offer theoretical conceptions to help us understand the process of change occurring in organizations and groups as well as individuals. Lewin provides an overall theoretical framework for understanding the process of change in these types of social systems. Beckhard and Harris, Bridges, Burke, and others apply the concepts to understanding planned change. Prochaska, DiClemente, and Norcross (1992) apply a similar linear notion of behavior change as it applies to individuals. I briefly review some of these conceptualizations and then explore key aspects of each and their related dynamics of motivation, resistance, and commitment during the process of change. Furthermore, observations about how planned change occurs have changed in the last decade. Approaches trying to capture the process of change by using a linear view have embraced views that are less linear, seemingly more chaotic yet patterned (See Coleman, chapter 30) and even looked at as successfully coming about through dramatic, sudden episodes driven by subtle, small shifts (Gladwell, 2002). I begin with the more traditional and more time-tested understandings of the process of planned change.
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