Research Roundup: Recent Findings Relevant to Doing Conflict Better

Here’s the latest research roundup, my periodic summary of research that gives us practical information for doing conflict and negotiation better:

When Seeing Is Misleading: Clutter Leads to High-Confidence Errors: This study found that people make more “high-confidence” errors when confronted with visual clutter. The authors believe that the implications of the study go beyond visual chaos, though. “If people find themselves confronted with multiple events in a chaotic, confusing environment, they may decide about some aspect of the situation and be totally wrong even though they have full confidence in their decision.” Seems like it’s reasonable to suspect that a tense or high-conflict environment may increase the chance that decisions are substantially less effective. And yet you’ll feel quite confident about that decision, poor though it is. Yikes! This may be pretty important information about the high cost of workplace conflict. [Read more]

Using Your “Right Voice” in Conflict

Emma said to me, “I’m constantly second-guessing myself when I’m in conflict with someone. I speak and then later wish I’d said something different. And I hate that I cry when I get angry! It’s so stereotypically female. At work I’m told to ‘buck up’ and stop being so emotional.”

I hear different versions of this story from a lot of women in my work, whether I’m coaching, mediating or training. It makes my heart ache every time I hear it.

What’s the “right” way to do it? Maybe it’s better not to say anything than to say the wrong thing. How can I change the way I do this to better fit the people around me? How can I be less emotional during conflict? I know I shouldn’t show strong emotion in the workplace and crying is seen as weakness. Tell me how to change! [Read more]

When Gender Changes the Negotiation

Here’s a great resource article by my friend and colleague, Diane Levin: “Leveling the Playing Field: Neutralizing Gender Differences in Negotiation.” [Read more]

Sometimes Caring and Criticism Are Found in the Same Words

Deborah Tannen, well-known author of “You Just Don’t Understand,” has a new book on the bestseller list: “You’re Wearing That? Understanding Mothers and Daughters in Conversation.”

This new work continues Tannen’s exploration of the ways that, for women, “conversation is the glue that holds relationships together.” In an interview reported in this week’s New York Times, Tannen said, [Read more]

Parental Conflict: Stressful for Children Even 1 Year Later

Here’s yet another good reason to learn how to do conflict better: Your children aren’t as resilient to parental conflict as you might hope. There are long-term effects, even up to one year later from a single dispute they witness.

In a press release about new research reported in the journal Child Development, it’s noted that [Read more]

Inhabit the Gap

Years ago, when I was a college dean, I clipped out an article by Susan Komives, “Inhabit the Gap.” I came across it in my annual file cleaning this week.

The article’s abstract says, “To…translate knowledge into action, we must examine the ways in which what we know may not always be congruent with what we do.” The article was a challenge to educators to model and teach behaviors that narrowed the gap between knowing something and doing it. She could easily have been talking about managing conflict successfully. [Read more]

It’s Time to Make It Dollar for Dollar

When I was in grad school 15 years ago, I had a button that said, “71¢.” A lot of men didn’t get it at the time, and a lot of women knew exactly what it was about. From what the Business and Professional Women tell us, I could now go get an equally depressing button: “76¢.”

In 101 Facts on the Status of Workingwomen, released last July, BPW concluded, “The gap between median earnings of full-time, year-round workers widened last year, with women’s earnings currently 76% of men’s, down from 77% in 2004.” For virtually my entire life, the gap has apparently narrowed about 1/3 of a penny per year. And women readers, if you’re over 35, the numbers are sadder still. [Read more]

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