Mainstream orientations to conflict management neglect to account for the long-term impact of emotional satisfaction during interpersonal interactions. Thus, this paper proposes a new approach to conflict management, the “Multi-Dimensional Orientation” (MDO), which builds upon prior notions of conflict management by incorporating affective and instrumental elements of conflict. The MDO suggests that people's short- and long-term relationship quality can be enhanced if their affective and instrumental needs during conflict situations are satisfied. To test hypotheses derived from the MDO, survey participants reported on a recent interpersonal conflict and their relationship quality with the other disputant during the reported conflict. Analyses revealed a positive relationship between the extent to which disputants' affective and instrumental needs were satisfied during the conflict and their assessments of their working and post-conflict relationship quality with one another. Affective satisfaction showed to be the more powerful predictor of long-term relationship satisfaction in general, although characteristics of the participants influenced affect's predictive power. In particular, gender differences emerged, showing that affective and instrumental satisfaction relate to long-term relationship quality for females, while for males long-term relationship quality relates only to instrumental satisfaction.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UMASS/oai:scholarworks.umass.edu:dissertations-3237 |
| Date | 01 January 1999 |
| Creators | Shapiro, Daniel L |
| Publisher | ScholarWorks@UMass Amherst |
| Source Sets | University of Massachusetts, Amherst |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Source | Doctoral Dissertations Available from Proquest |
Page generated in 0.0019 seconds