Mindfulness and Mindlessness

The differentiation between mindfulness and mindlessness (Langer, 1989a, 1989b) helps explain differences in levels of consciousness and their effects on conflict communication behavior.

According to Langer (1989a, 1989b), mindfulness constitutes a state of alertness and activity that relies on information from the current situation to determine behav­ior. Ting-Toomey (2009) provides additional information to the term when she refers to the Eastern understanding of mindfulness as “being fully present—attending to our own and our partners’ desires interests and rising emotions” (p. 32). When they are mindful, people can identify their own emotions and their partner’s emotions and communicate those emotions more clearly to their partners. Because they are less judgmental and more responsive to their partners’ behaviors, part­ners move more smoothly through emotional interactions (Wachs & Cordova, 2007).

People tend to be mindful when (a) an action requires more effort than it has required in the past, (b) mindless behavior produces failure, (c) external factors interfere with the comple­tion of a behavior, or (d) behavior produces unexpected consequences. Langer (1989a, 1989b) considers mindfulness as a way for people to realize their full potential.

Conflict episodes are not routine, and they carry some importance. Therefore, as Langer (1989a) contends, people will pay more atten­tion than they will in more routine and mind­less episodes. Mindfulness characteristics can be quite useful during conflict. Creating new categories (Langer, 1989b) helps people find ideas that they might otherwise over­look. Also, cognitive differentiation (Langer, 1989b) causes people to look at more specific, detailed ideas rather than settle for global assessments that are less useful in managing the conflict. Together, creating new categories and cognitive differentiation allows people to develop a better understanding of the conflict. Additionally, multiple views on the situation likely lead to increased sensitivity to the other person’s goals. Several studies have found that a nonjudgmental attitude and attention to the present, which charac­terize mindful behavior, help people under­stand more clearly their partners’ reactions to emotions, thereby increasing their empathy (Block-Lerner, Adair, Plumb, Rhatigan, & Orsillo, 2007; Wachs & Cordova, 2007). Conversely, many of the conscious inferences reported by spouses involve interpretation of specific communicative acts and pragmatic intentions based on one’s own perspective, for example, whether the partner is presumed to be listening, empathizing, criticizing, or evading a point (Manusov & Koenig, 2001; Sillars, Roberts, Leonard, & Dun, 2000; Sillars, Smith, & Koerner, 2010).

Mindlessness, though, results in rigid behavior; people are less likely to go beyond their initial reactions. They often fail to rec­ognize other views or uses for information and continue to insist that their first reac­tions are correct (Langer & Piper, 1987).

These people also tend to see fewer options for managing the conflict because they view the conflict as resulting from simple causes. Obviously, when people use mindless behav­ior, they are less open to integrative solutions (Langer, 1989a).

In sum, being effective in conflict (i.e., achieving one’s goals) is positively associ­ated with being appropriate (i.e., fulfilling the partner’s expectations). Social actors routinely pursue instrumental, relational, and self-presentation goals both automati­cally (mindlessly) and strategically (mind­fully). They function at various points along a continuum of consciousness during different interactions; people will display higher levels of consciousness during conflict but still must make an effort to be mindful. People also are more mindful when they deal with new information, but they will function at much lower levels when dealing with information they have learned many times before (Langer, 1989a, 1989b).

Now that we have discussed the rationale for our framework and the presumption of mindfulness over mindlessness, we can pres­ent our model of strategic conflict. The fol­lowing material relies on a recently published material that outlines how people can react at various stages to prototypical conflict to maximize their personal and relational out­comes (Canary, 2003; Canary & Lakey, 2006, 2013). That model is presented in Figure 10.1. We briefly review each event in the model and discuss implications for the competent man­agement of conflict.