Motivational Goals, Tactical Communication, and Group Profiles
Motivational goals and conflict tactics are inextricably linked. Motivational goals fuel action, giving behavior its energy and direction. Motivation is the first link in a chain of interconnected interactions that lead to various outcomes, both intended and unintended.
To understand bullying conflicts requires understanding the motives of the actors who are involved or affected. The drive for justice, for example, is often an overriding motivation in bullying conflicts, particularly for targets, (Cowan, 2009) but also for bystanders (Lutgen-Sandvik, 2006) and even bullies (Crawshaw, 2007). Tactics in conflict management are the ways in which people approach and engage with conflict, and tactics make sense in light of what motivates them. Tactics are driven both by personality tendencies, social situations, and the relational context of the conflict. In all conflict, and especially in bullying conflicts, “the opponent’s message behavior accounts for the majority of variance in communication strategies” (Knapp et al., 1988, p. 416). Underscoring target, bystander, and bully motivations and tactics helps us better understand what is going on in these conflicts, where to intervene, and why certain interventions are less than effective. In addition to understanding motivations and tactics, different experienced subjectivities (i.e., profiles) can contribute to specific motivations and tactics.Profiles are the common markers of persons who self-identify as belonging to one of the three groups and report certain personal or social characteristics in interviews or
Table 13.1 Motivational Goals in Conflict Management
Motivational Goal Description
Resource goals • Economic—drive to obtain or protect something of economic value
• Personal—drive to maintaining privacy or personal freedom and choice
Social goals • Relationship—drive to maintain or protect good relationships with others
• Power/hostility—drive to punish or establish influence or dominance over another
• Identity—drive to face-saving, identity supporting, and preserving self-image
• Functionality—drive to resolve conflict in a constructive way
• Justice—drive for fairness and the need to restore social justice
surveys. Profile markers can help organizational decision makers better discern who is doing what and why, without having to depend solely on he-said she-said accounts.
On one hand, profiles are overgeneralizations and exceptions always exist. As such, those dealing with bullying conflicts will want to avoid using profiles as fuel for either witch-hunting or victim-blaming. On the other hand, to ignore personality traits, social tendencies, and the patterned human communication and behavior documented in scientific research can be naive and counterproductive when trying to manage such conflicts. Profiles are useful sensitizing devices when trying to sort out bullying, if used prudently as a general guide rather than a hard-and-fast set of rules.
More on the topic Motivational Goals, Tactical Communication, and Group Profiles:
- Goals and Conflict
- Oetzel John, Ting-Toomey Stella. The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Communication: Integrating Theory, Research and Practice. SAGE Publications,2013. — 912 p., 2013