When looking at societies that are in transition from violence to peace, one of the major issues that is present is the need to reconcile with past adversaries. Political philosophy points to the need for the creation of a social contract that all groups can reach through reasonable agreements. This represents a political reconciliation between groups. This thesis classifies this idea as the need for cognitive reconciliation. The field of Social Psychology points to how negative emotions, or affect, can inhibit the use of reason. The field of Conflict Resolution asserts that there must also be a reconciliation on an emotional level as well. This thesis classifies this as the need for affective reconciliation. This project looks at a way to integrate the cognitive and affective forms of reconciliation into a single model.

University of Macau / Faculty of Science and Technology. / Department of Computer and Information Science

The nature of conflict occupied my mind as I pieced together the 2016 election. Much of my dazed shock was the weight of hearing all at once a group of people who had felt ignored. I felt compelled to write about the nature of conflict — how opposing sides see one another with similar levels of skepticism and derision that comes from fear that something essential will be lost. I wanted to write about this without directly discussing politics. Instead, I used nature. I find warmth and stillness when I’m unanswerable to any other person as the steady and constant presence of trees and sky contrast my frantic mind until it slows down. This collection uses nature as a vehicle for conflict – a piece of land at war with itself, and the fragility of the family who tries to make their home there. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.F.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2018. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

In what circumstances do individuals sacrifice direct self-interest for the good of their partner or their relationship? The research presented in this thesis used interdependence theory (Kelley & Thibaut, 1978; Thibaut & Kelley, 1959) as a theoretical framework for examining willingness to sacrifice in intimate relationship dilemmas. Two person specific variables, commitment and personal relationship needs, were examined alongside three situation specific variables, the cost of sacrificing, partners' relationship needs, and partners' strategy. The research had a varied methodological base consisting of two laboratory-based studies (outcome matrices represented relationship dilemmas), a scenario based paradigm, and a recall paradigm. The situation specific variables revealed tendencies for individuals to strive to maximise personal outcomes rather than joint outcomes. Individuals were consistently found to sacrifice less in dilemmas involving a high level costs and rewards, exhibited less sacrifice with a selfish partner as opposed to a sacrificial partner, and less sacrifice when paired with a partner who was described as being high in relationship needs. However, the person specific variables demonstrated factors within intimate relationships that may restrict this pursuit of self-interest. In line with previous research (e. g. Van Lange, Agnew, Harinck, & Steemers, 1997) a positive relationship was found between commitment and willingness to sacrifice. However the current research demonstrated that this relationship is only found in dilemmas that involve a high level of costs and rewards (e. g. moving home). When the costs and rewards involved are low (e. g. washing up), individuals classified as low in commitment exhibit similar levels, or sometimes even greater sacrifice, than individuals classified as high in commitment. It was demonstrated that individuals who are highly committed to their relationship hold more dyad-focused motives (e. g. concern for partner's well-being and needs) than less committed individuals. It is proposed that this increased focus on the dyad promotes a greater desire to maximise joint outcomes, resulting in the greater sacrificial behaviour exhibited in the high cost dilemmas. It was demonstrated that less committed individuals are more influenced by self-focused motivations for sacrificial behaviour, such as short-term exchange (i. e. getting something in return for their sacrifice) than high committed individuals. It is argued that these self-focused motives generally only justify sacrifice in dilemmas involving a low level of cost. The main conclusion drawn from this research is that both self-focused and dyad-focused motives underlie sacrifice. However, low committed individuals are more influenced by self-focused motives than high committed individuals, and high committed individuals are more influenced by dyad-focused motives than low committed individuals. This discrepancy results in situational differences (in terms of cost) in which low and high committed individuals are willing to sacrifice.

No description available.

This dissertation deals with two problems central to contemporary philosophy: the unacknowledged bias of structuralist theory towards linguistic signs and the lack of a coherent theorisation of social conflict. In order to address these conundrums, I reconcile Saussurean and Peircean semiotics and then use Ruthrof’s corporeal pragmatics to break from the verbocentric idea of language as a closed system, showing instead that verbal meanings originate from the body, its senses and its imagination, as informed by the deixis of individual communities. With the transformation of linguistic semiotics into corporeality, Foucault’s notion of discourse and the neglected category of discursive practice are then reworked to show how statements based on nonverbal signs might function discursively. The culmination of the 1970s Northern Irish prison war in the events of the 1981 hunger strikes offers a study that unites the focus upon nonverbal discourses with the examination of conflict. In exploring the ways in which republican hunger strikers struggled for legitimacy with the prison authorities, I am able to show how previous notions of conflict, especially Lyotard’s différend, are thrown into disrepute by a corporeal perspective recognising the intersemiotic and heterosemiotic character of communication. The availability of diverse semiotic media such as the visual, the haptic, the proximic, etc., offers positions in which conflicts may be regulated without ending in the stalemate that Lyotard describes. The division of semio-discursive phenomena into verbal and nonverbal elements, and the tracing of the effects that these elements have upon ideational and pragmatic planes of action, also reveal a variety of strategies related to conflict that are superposable upon other instances. As a result, the thesis suggests that the role of political violence in politics and the meanings associated with the taking of life can be approached from a new angle.

Many questionnaires used in the measurement of conflict are expensive and difficult to obtain. In addition, instruments of this kind are usually associated with diagnosis rather than intervention and education. The present thesis evaluates the recently developed questionnaire that is easily accessible through the Internet, the Conflict Resolution Questionnaire (CRQ). The CRQ was developed as a measure of the conflict resolution ideas presented by Weeks (1994), and Fisher and Ury (1991). It has been used to measure a person's ability to create mutually beneficial resolutions to conflict for all participants. In addition, the CRQ items measure respondents' perceptions regarding how often they engage in certain conflict-related behaviours, and their level of awareness regarding conflict issues. The CRQ is also designed to promote understanding of conflict, and has been used as an educational tool. Participants were asked to fill in the CRQ alongside an established questionnaire, the Rahim Organisational Conflict Inventory, part two (ROCI-II) (Rahim, 1983a). The responses of 338 participants to the CRQ and ROCI-II were statistically analysed. Hypotheses were tested regarding the CRQ's reliability and validity. CRQ reliability was statistically appraised through exploration of internal consistency and split-half reliability scores. CRQ validity was examined by evaluating the CRQ in terms of content, construct and concurrent validity. Establishing content validity was a qualitative process. Corroborating construct validity essentially relied on factor analysis procedures. Decisions regarding CRQ's concurrent validity were based upon correlation measures between the CRQ and the ROCI-II, which was used as an established standard measure of conflict. The results confirmed that two of the McClellan's (1997c) factors were reliable and that the CRQ had content validity. There was marginal support of construct validity, whereby from the factor rotation it was shown that two of the CRQ factors were matched by their derived counterparts. In addition, the results showed modest support for concurrent validity based on the comparisons of three CRQ factors against two factors from a well-established questionnaire. These findings also lend support for the methods of conflict resolution presented in the works of Weeks (1994) and Fisher and Ury (1991).A modified version of the CRQ is presented, the 'CRQ-II'. A posthoc analysis suggests that the CRQ-II can satisfy psychometric requirements, although further research is recommended to confirm the CRQ-II. Practice implications regarding the development of the CRQ-II are discussed, and future research considerations are explored.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Texas at Austin, 2004. / Vita. Includes bibliographical references.

Thesis (M.Ed.)--North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2004.

Thesis (Th. M.)--Dallas Theological Seminary, 2006. / Includes bibliographical references (leaves [55]-60).