Abstract
This study aimed at filling a gap between two views of interpersonal conflict: sequences of conflict interactions and a situational approach. Assuming that negative reciprocity is a predominant pattern in conflict communication, this study investigated how a partner’s social status (high or equal), initial response messages (distributing or integrating), and self-construals affected sequences. Japanese university students (N = 246) rated scales of self-construals and conflict styles before and after reading a partner’s response in vignettes. The current study revealed three major findings. First, the partner’s message affected avoiding and third-party-help styles. After receiving distributing messages, the participants tended to decrease the level of avoiding style and increase the level of third-party-help style to a greater degree than the changes made when they received integrating messages. Second, the effects of social status and gender interacted with the avoiding style. Social status and gender affected general conflict styles: the higher the social status, the more third-party-help styles were used. The males tended to use more distributing and third-party-help styles than the females did. Third, both interdependent and independent self-construals affected general conflict styles: interdependent self was positively associated with avoiding, integrating, and third-party-help styles, while the independent self was a positive predictor of the distributing style. The results of this study have two implications for theories of interpersonal conflict. First, the current study can extend the situational appraisal framework of intercultural conflict to the realm of sequential conflict patterns. Second, this study showed initial evidence that situational and cultural factors might affect the relatively long sequential patterns of conflict exchanges. The findings provided evidence that the partner’s message, along with relational features such as social status and gender, and individual factors such as self-construals affected general conflict styles and their changes.
