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Researches into the effects on conflict solution channels on campuses in Taiwan - with the universities in Kaohsiung , as an example

The basic characteristics of eastern culture are harmony-emphasized and other-people-centered. In Chinese traditional society, the social contact within life circles is mainly in an operating mode orienting towards relationship and situations; in other words, people are self-centered, making a judgment based on their familiarity with associating subjects, and then orientate them in the society network to further decide a proper associating behavior. On the basis of the reason, we have to take account of this effect when thinking over the social behaviors of social conflicts. Supposed that people do judge their subjects based on familiarity and seniority, the properties of certain relationship will appear to be specially outstanding and important and further relate to the actual interaction when facing different situations and diverse interacting demands.
This range of study is the conflicts on campus, and we seek to understand whether the characteristics of relationship orientation still dominate social conflicts of undergraduates of E-generation, and what kinds of connection are between the properties of relationship and the manners of conflict solution. Besides, HO, Yu-hui and his fellows (1991) put forth the viewpoint of ¡§Relationship Orientation, ¡¨ and he emphasized: The most powerful determinant does not lie in individuals themselves, but in the relative background outside the individuals. To some extent, HO¡¦s argument explains the particulars of general Chinese social behaviors, but does it remain applicable in conflict situations? Therefore, this research tries to bring into study the variables of personality characteristics, such as fear of communication, authoritarianism, collectivism, etc., which may relate to conflict handling, and to verify if these characteristics are able to forecast the social behaviors in conflict situations.
The survey is proceeded with questionnaires. The total questionnaires sent out are 720 copies, and effective questionnaires are 477 copies.¡]Sent out 180 copies respectively to College of Administration, and College of Science & Engineering, Sun Yat-Sen University, Science College in Kaohsiung Teacher¡¦s University, and Medical College, Kaohsiung Medical University.¡^ After reliability analysis, descriptive statistics, uni-factor variance analysis, sample test for independence, and cross hatched map are completed, the important discoveries are as follows¡G
1. Four kinds of relationship¡Xcontemporary familiarity, contemporary unfamiliarity, senior familiarity, and senior unfamiliarity¡Xare defined according to familiarity and seniority. And there are strikingly differences in their corresponding manners of conflict solution.
2. The four kinds of conflict handling have their characteristics respectively:
1) In the relationship of contemporary familiarity, highly cooperative modes are adopted to handle both conceptual and actual conflicts.
2) The relationship of contemporary unfamiliarity still gives the first place to cooperation and compromise; however, its cooperative percentage is much lower than contemporary familiarity, and its compromising manners are higher than contemporary familiarity.
3) In the relationship of senior familiarity, higher percentage of people are willing to make a concession to their seniors in the respects of conceptual conflicts, besides adopting the cooperative manner, and higher percentage of people are willing to compromise with their seniors in the respects of actual conflicts of interests, besides cooperation.
4) People have higher volition to handle their conflicts in a cooperative manner with unfamiliar seniors than with familiar seniors, and the cooperative percentage in conceptual conflicts is especially higher than that in actual conflicts.
3. The corresponding conflict handling manners of the four kinds of relationship are remarkably different, and this is sufficient to verify the judgment of relationship in conflict situations, and that people¡¦s thinking is not only a macroscopic classification of relationship, but also comprehensive consideration of established relationship both parties have accumulated.
4. In the past, Chinese society tended to reconcile conflicts with integration orientation and always confined to ¡§Group-I groups.¡¨ But this research indicates that the four kinds of relationship, to some extent, have a percentage of people (30% at lowest) inclined to handle conflicts in a cooperative manner. And this tells us that today undergraduates seem more willing to solve conflicts with other people in a cooperative way, which gives consideration to mutual relationship and saves their own rights and interests form damage.
5. HSU, Lang-kuang (1971) thought that Chinese relationship put more emphasis on obligatory emotions of human relations than on familiar and spontaneous emotions. This contention cannot be tested and verified in the conflict situations of this research.
6. When conflicts come up, the percentage of escaping from conflicts is higher in people who are not mutually familiar than in those who are familiar with each other. This research result fairly agrees with the viewpoint of CHOU TING, Pu-sheng (1984).
7. In conflict situations, students are still willing to handle it in a cooperative way, or to escape to avoid frontal conflict, even though they are not unfamiliar, instead of resisting to strive for personal interests. It seems that HUANG, Kuang-kuo¡¦s theoretical mode of human sympathy and face has its limit in conflict situations.
8. This research discovers, by descriptive statistic analysis and examination of cross cards, that fear of communication, collectivism or authoritarianism do not have effect of adjustment in human relationship and the way of conflict handling. This result of research seems to support the contention of HO, Yu-hui, etc. (1991) that the effect of background of mutual relationship is greater than the response of personal character in the social behavior of facing conflict handling.
9. Comparison of the ways of conflict handling among different schools, colleges and departments
(1) Fear of communication and authoritarianism of students in the College of Administration, National Sun Yat-Sen University are obviously lower than the College of Science & Engineering of the same university, and more cooperative in the conflict of four relationships than the College of Science & Engineering. However, the College of Science & Engineering shows higher responses of forbearance, conciliation and resistance.
(2) Students in the College of Science & Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University and the College of Science, Kaohsiung Teacher¡¦s University not only have no differences in the characteristics of fear of communication, collectivism and authoritarianism, but also have no obvious differences in the way to face conflict.
(3) Students in the College of Science & Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University and the Medical College, Kaohsiung Medical University also have no obvious differences in the characteristics of fear of communication, collectivism and authoritarianism. However, the tendency of cooperation of students in the Medical College, Kaohsiung Medical University in the way of conflict handling is obviously higher than the College of Science & Engineering, National Sun Yat-Sen University.
(4) Students in the College of Science, Kaohsiung Teacher¡¦s University and the Medical College, Kaohsiung Medical University also have no obvious differences in the characteristics of fear of communication, collectivism and authoritarianism. However, the tendency of cooperation of students in the Medical College, Kaohsiung Medical University in the way of conflict handling is obviously higher than College of Science, Kaohsiung Teacher¡¦s University as well.
10. Comparison between personal attributes and the ways of conflict handling
(1) In the gender, the authoritarianism of males is obviously higher than that of females. In the ways of conflict handling, the cooperation of females in actual conflicts with familiar contemporaries is obviously higher than that of males, and males have generally higher responses of forbearance, escape and resistance toward their familiar contemporaries.
(2) Students of high and low grades have no obvious difference in the characteristics of fear of communication, collectivism and authoritarianism and also have no systematic difference in the ways of conflict handling.

Identiferoai:union.ndltd.org:NSYSU/oai:NSYSU:etd-0118102-174604
Date18 January 2002
CreatorsChen, Sui-ling
ContributorsJason H. Huang, Liang-Chih Huang, Bih-Shiaw Jaw
PublisherNSYSU
Source SetsNSYSU Electronic Thesis and Dissertation Archive
LanguageCholon
Detected LanguageEnglish
Typetext
Formatapplication/pdf
Sourcehttp://etd.lib.nsysu.edu.tw/ETD-db/ETD-search/view_etd?URN=etd-0118102-174604
Rightsrestricted, Copyright information available at source archive

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