Communication and Conflict as Dialectics

An alternative approach to the study of communication and conflict treats the two concepts as reflecting on each other. In this way, disputants simultaneously enact both communication and conflict, and their mutual constructions reflect back on the conflict itself.

Dialectical Approaches to Mediation. In a dialectical approach, patterns of mediation emerge from the tensions that both mediators and disputants face. Prescriptive approaches to mediation suggest that mediators must be detached yet proactive, empowering but asserting control, and suppressing feelings while providing emotional support (Cobb & Rifkin, 1991). These contradictions, then, set the stage for developing a reflexive relationship between communication and conflict; namely, navigating the tensions between impartiality and bias, autonomy and connectedness, and openness versus closedness (Jones, 1994).

Although mediators strive to be impartial, they often enact implicit biases, as Cobb’s (1993, 1994) research on disputants’ narra­tives illustrated. Autonomy and connected­ness referred to tensions between maintaining a unique identity or being interconnected with the parties.

Managing contradictions creatively chal­lenges the reflexive relationship between com­munication and conflict. A party who made one pole dominant and ignored its opposite inten­sified the push-pull tensions (Baxter, 1990). For example, feeling a bias toward one party intensified the neutrality dialectic in mediation and increased the prospects of feeling trapped. Mediators also shifted back and forth between bias and neutrality through segmenting agenda items, for example, being neutral on the mon­etary aspects of a divorce settlement and being biased on child custody issues, or being impar­tial in joint sessions and showing a bias in caucuses (Jones, 1994). Specifically, mediators might reveal a bias to protect the children dur­ing custody discussions through raising topics that were important for the children’s needs.

Mediators also chose to neutralize tensions through their indirect actions, such as allowing the disputants to avoid confrontation on the tough issues. Separating and neutralizing dia­lectical tensions, however, led to problems in managing contradictions effectively. Another approach was to reframe the contradictory poles in ways that made them seem congruent. For instance, mediators might help disputants realize that refusal to be open and exchange ideas often made a person more vulner­able than actually sharing information (Jones, 1994). If parties could see contradictory states as no longer in tension, then they could act in different ways toward each other. In effect, dialectical tension in mediation functioned as a generative force to manage conflict through “both-and” as opposed to “either-or” ways of thinking.

tensions through shaping the discourse that imposed on the conflict itself.

Dialectics in Organizational Conflicts. Tensions between opposites, such as coop­eration and competition, also shaped orga­nizational conflicts (Kolb & Putnam, 1992). As organizational members worked out the nature of their interdependence, they engaged in dialectical tensions between autonomy and connectedness and control and yielding. In particular, issues of autonomy and connec­tion characterized work group conflicts as members encountered incompatibilities about project priorities, task procedures, and scarce resources (Jameson, 2004). During organiza­tional changes, these dialectics characterized informal conflicts as they surfaced in formal negotiations about authority and responsibility. In a similar way, teachers and administrators in a public sector negotiation embraced the dialec­tic of control and yielding through shifting the meanings of language used in a labor contract as the parties enacted a formula for reaching an agreement (Putnam, 2004a). This dialectic was also evident in a study of an airline pilot’s resistance group who set up opposition ten­sions through discursive strategies that advo­cated unity while campaigning for division and upheld an elitist image of the pilot’s occupation while advocating for a class system within the profession (Real & Putnam, 2005). Thus, forming dualities and pitting them against each other enabled the resistance group to construct a defense in the absence of any clear attack.

Even though most research on organi­zational conflict centers on public, formal, and rational disputes, these concepts simul­taneously reference their opposites. To avoid making one pole of this dialectic dominant, researchers examine private, informal, and nonrational aspects of organizational con­flicts (Kolb & Putnam, 1992). Private and informal conflicts are often fused with other activities, including social events, gossip, and coalition building.

Relational Paradoxes in Hostage Negotiations. Similar to dialectics, a para­dox refers to mutually exclusive injunctions that operate simultaneously and often lead to double binds. An injunction is a request or an order, for example, the command to “be spon­taneous” is seen as paradoxical in that it is dif­ficult to be spontaneous and act spontaneously at the same time. In hostage negotiations, a crisis situation prevailed in which a paradox could form within the developing relation­ship between the negotiator and the hostage taker. This paradox stemmed from the mixed messages in verbal immediacy that signaled moving with and moving against each other (Donohue, 2001; Donohue & Roberto, 1993).

Specifically, competitive paradoxes arose from moving against each other through send­ing verbal immediacy messages that signaled high interdependence but low affiliation, whereas cooperative paradoxes stemmed from immediacy cues that signaled low interdepen­dence but high affiliation or moving with each other (Donohue, Ramesh, & Borchgrevink, 1991). These relational paradoxes evolved dynamically through the incongruent mes­sages that both parties simultaneously sent; thus creating a double bind in which the par­ties felt trapped. Thus, hostage negotiations involved managing potential paradoxes to create the openness, affiliation, and inter­dependence necessary to form collaborative agreements.

In essence, scholars who espouse a reflex­ive approach to communication and conflict investigate how dualities and oppositional tensions codevelop and reflect back on each other. This approach is rooted in relational development and how relationships enable or constrain effective conflict management.

The key to conflict management in the reflexive approach is responding to contra­dictions in ways that capture the energy between opposites, generate new insights, and transform the definition of the conflict itself. Choosing one pole and ignoring the other, separating them, vacillating between them, and neutralizing them may lead to less than optimal responses. Reframing the dualities or embracing them creatively may spawn new approaches that can engender novel solutions (Baxter & Montgomery, 1996).

Conclusion and Discussion

From its early game theory roots to contem­porary studies on dialectical tensions, commu­nication researchers have made huge strides in understanding the complexities of conflict and conflict management. This section reviews the recommendations of early scholars to see how the field has evolved, how it depicts the com­munication-conflict relationship, and where it needs to move to enhance theory building and research.