CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

8. CONFLICT ESCALATION IN ORGANIZATIONS 253
Group Characteristics. Personality effects such as those just described
are important in interpersonal interaction, but they tend to wash out in
intergroup and interorganizational settings, where several people with
different personalities make collective decisions. In such settings, group
characteristics are much more important.
As mentioned earlier, groups tend to escalate farther in response to
persistent annoyance than do individuals (Mikolic et al., 1997). In addition,
some kinds of groups are more prone to escalation than others. For
example a culture of honor, requiring retaliation in the face of personal
slights, is seen in some parts of the world. Strong evidence of this cultural
trait has been found for White men from the U.S. South (Nisbett & Cohen,
1996). Such cultures are also found in U.S. inner cities (Anderson, 1999)
and in many prisons (Toch, 1969).
Group mobilization is often an antecedent of escalation. Mobilization
means that group members become aware of their common identity and
grievances and develop group solidarity. Leaders typically emerge in the
process of mobilization. Gurr (1996) found that mobilization often occurs
when ethnic groups come into conflict. The early days of unionization followed
a similar path, with workers becoming mobilized in workplace after
workplace. Mobilized groups are particularly prone to retaliate when their
group is attacked or one or more members of their group are harmed.
Relationships Between the Parties
Retaliation, and hence escalation, is less severe to the extent that there
are bonds between the actor and the defender. The bonds in question
include kinship, friendship, common group identity, perceived similarity,
positive attitudes, and dependence. The importance of friendship was
shown by Ransford (1968) in a survey of African Americans immediately
after the first Watts riots. Respondents who reported having social contact
with Whites were much less likely to say that they were willing to use violence
to get African American rights than those who did not report such
contact. The importance of dependence was shown in a laboratory experiment
on negotiation by Ben-Yoav and Pruitt (1984). Participants who were
dependent on the other negotiator for future cooperation were less likely
to employ contentious tactics than those who were not so dependent.
The opposite side of this coin is that the absence of bonds makes
retaliation, and hence escalation, more severe. Thus, in a survey of Israeli
citizens, Struch and Schwartz (1989) found that respondents who saw
ultraorthodox Jews as very different in behavior and appearance from
their own group were especially likely to endorse punitive actions to keep
the ultraorthodox in line.
The effect of bonds is often masked by the fact that bonds encourage
interaction, which encourages conflict. But the existence of bonds means
that this conflict is more likely to be handled by problem solving and