Directions for Future Research

Context provides a touchstone for discuss­ing future directions in theory development and research in the field. Specifically, studies of communication and conflict fall into highly specialized context domains that limit theory development.

In response to this query, researchers have chosen to pitch their investigations toward context domains and avoid large-scale gener­alizations. In particular, scholars situate their contributions in the contexts of marital con­flicts, friendship disagreements, intercultural interactions, team conflicts, labor-management negotiations, community and divorce media­tions, organizational disputes, hostage negotia­tions, and multiparty environmental conflicts. Chapters in this volume reflect these subspe­cialties in the field. Given that context features directly influence communication patterns, this development seems logical as scholars acknowl­edge their boundaries and design their research programs to integrate within cognate areas, for example, family studies or labor-management relations.

This pattern of locating research in context domains has made communication and con­flict scholarship quite fragmented and, conse­quently, inhibited theory development. For the most part, then, scholarship exists in isolated camps of interpersonal, group, organizational, intercultural, and media conflict studies. This isolation contributes to a problem-oriented focus that increases specialization and moves scholars away from conducting any broad­based synthesis. With the exception of this Handbook, very few texts in communication cross diverse conflict arenas.

Two suggestions may facilitate this process. First, future studies need to integrate knowl­edge across different conflict dimensions. For example, research on conflict intensity across context domains could be integrated to reveal similarities and differences in communication patterns. Similar projects could focus on the salience of conflict situations, the importance of issues, and the overall emotion or affect during conflict. One finding in which communication scholars have crossed context domains is the discovery of microprocesses that foster conflict escalation and de-escalation and the role of communication in curtailing destructive con­flict cycles (Cupach & Metts, 1994; Donohue, 1991; Putnam & Jones, 1982a; Sillars, 1980b). This type of synthesis in research could also occur on topics such as emotions in conflict (Bodtker & Jameson, 2001; Jones, 2001), value-based disputes (Pearce & Littlejohn,

1997), communicative framing of conflicts (Drake & Donohue, 1996; Putnam & Holmer, 1992), and apology and forgiveness in conflict situations (Bean & Johnstone, 1994; Kelley,

1998). Conflict dimensions, then, provide a lens for charting new directions for research and building on knowledge across isolated context arenas.

A second suggestion for integrating context domains across the field is to move dyadic and group research into community and insti­tutional arenas. Studies in the field are begin­ning to shift in this direction as exemplified by research on hostage negotiations (Donohue & Roberto, 1993; Rogan & Hammer, 1995), community mediations (Conrad & Sinclair- James, 1995), and moral conflicts (Pearce & Littlejohn, 1997). Yet the majority of com­munication research on mediation centers on mediator-disputant interactions without attention to their court-oriented contexts, institutional pressures, and cultural processes (Conrad & Sinclair-James, 1995).

Finally, communication researchers need to conduct studies on the productive aspects of conflict. Scholars in the field believe that conflict produces important benefits, includ­ing balancing power, promoting change, facil­itating diversity, and correcting injustices. They acknowledge that effective conflict management serves therapeutic functions, relieves tensions, and generates creativity. Yet investigators simply presume that these benefits accrue from successful or agreement­based outcomes.

Researchers, then, need to unpack the types of benefits that result from different conflict interactions. Specifically, how do communica­tion patterns differ for diverse types of pro­ductive outcomes (e.g., facilitating diversity, promoting change)? Research on transforma­tional mediation has shown that communi­cation development differs considerably for problem-solving outcomes versus helping dis­putants increase recognition and empower­ment (Bush & Folger, 1994, 2005). This work raises the question, do the same interaction patterns produce benefits in substantive, rela­tional, and identity areas or does growth in one of these domains influence benefits in the other two? Thus, communication scholars need to focus on different types of outcomes, ones that directly tie to the individual, organi­zational, and societal benefits of conflict.

Overall, a glimpse of the historical roots of communication and conflict reveals that scholars have adhered to the advice of their predecessors. Researchers have clearly con­firmed that communication plays a vital role in shaping conflict issues and outcomes. Scholars have moved away from treating communica­tion as a variable and have adopted complex ways in which communication and conflict codevelop, constitute each other, and enable/ constrain through their reflexive relationships.