STRATEGIES OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION

We have also directly examined how people with different theories about human qualities deal with conflict. Our participants have either told us about impor­tant conflicts in their lives and how they dealt with them, or we have posed conflicts and asked them how they would deal with them.

Voicing Conflict—Focusing on Information and Discussion Kammrath and Dweck (forthcoming) looked at conflicts within close relation­ships. We asked people who were in serious relationships to tell us about a major conflict they had had with their partner in the last few months. They were told to focus on the one conflict that made them the most upset and then to report their strategies for conflict resolution. Entity and incremental theorists did not differ in how serious they thought the conflict was or in how upset they were following the conflict. However, they did differ in how they handled the conflict. Participants who held an incremental theory of personality (that is, who believed their partners were capable of change) were significantly more likely to voice their feelings. Relative to entity theorists, they gave higher endorse­ments to statements such as “I openly discussed the situation with my partner,” “I tried to work with my partner to find a solution to the problem,” and “I tried to bring my concerns out into the open so that the issue could be resolved in the best possible way.”

Entity theorists, not believing in change, were more likely to swallow their feelings and showed little motivation to work toward a solution. They gave stronger endorsements to items such as “I accepted his faults and didn’t try to change him,” “I tried to accept the situation and move on,” and “I learned to live with it.”

In a follow-up study, people kept records of their daily experiences in their relationship for two weeks.

Interestingly, analogous findings were obtained in a very different context. Wood, Phillips, and Tabernero (2002), over a series of sessions, gave small groups of people a difficult managerial task to master. Some groups were com­posed of entity theorists (in this case, people who believed that managerial skills were a fixed ability), whereas other groups were composed of incremental the­orists (those who believed that managerial expertise could be developed). Wood and his colleagues, assessing the groups over sessions, found that in the incre­mental groups there was a fuller discussion of the incoming information, pre­sumably resulting from the belief that everyone could learn the most from an open and complete exchange. Among entity theorists, who believe that “you have it or you don’t,” such full and open exchange was curtailed.

This sort of discussion can serve two purposes. First, as mentioned, sharing of information can help parties to learn about each other and to dispel misun­derstandings regarding the other party’s nature and intentions. Therefore, by adopting a strategy of discussing the issues, incremental theorists naturally engage in a behavior that helps to resolve conflict. Second, conflicts are often assumed to be zero-sum, in that each gain for one party represents a loss of equal value to the other party. However, different groups have differing goals. As such, conflict can be minimized by identifying resources that are unimpor­tant but abundant for one group but highly valued and scarce for another. Yet, it would be quite difficult to identify whether or not such solutions exist with­out opening the lines of communication. Incremental theorists are more likely to share the information necessary to discover when differences in goals exist and to take advantage of these differences to resolve conflict. Because entity theorists do not engage in this discussion, they likely miss out on opportunities for reconciliation.

Punishment Versus Negotiation and Education

What do people do when they are betrayed or when a contract is broken? One possibility is to try to punish or harm the guilty parties. Another is to try to negotiate with, influence, or educate them. In our research, entity theorists are often inclined toward the former: bad people should be punished or harmed. In contrast, incremental theorists lean toward the latter: people should be worked with to reach an acceptable solution.

In research by Chiu and associates (1997), college students were confronted with a situation in which a professor had provided a grading scheme at the beginning of the semester. However, too many students had earned As by the end of the semester, so he changed the grading scheme to make it more stringent. As a result, many students who had earned and expected As were now going to receive Bs.

Entity theorists, not believing in personal change, said they would try to get back at the professor—reporting him to a higher authority or finding ways to harass or harm him. In contrast, incremental theorists more often said they would try to talk to the professor, explain to him that he had violated a moral principle, and try to get him to restore a fair state of affairs. One approach to the conflict was to inflict pain and suffering while the other was to solve the problem through education and negotiation.

In the same set of studies, Chiu and associates (1997) asked participants to assume the role of a teacher dealing with children who had not fulfilled their classroom obligations. As before, entity theorists were more likely than incre­mental theorists to say they would mete out punishment. Incremental theorists were more likely to try to reach a solution through mutual negotiation—by ques­tioning the children about the reasons for their lapse (learning their point of view) and by discussing remedies for the situation.

We have all seen instances of both approaches to conflict, both the approach in which people attempt to harm or destroy the bad guy or group and the approach in which people attempt to negotiate with the opposing party to reach a mutually acceptable solution. One can easily see how these approaches might be tied to beliefs about the potential for change in real-world conflicts. When people believe that their opponents or those in positions of power are change­able, it makes sense to adopt a moderate strategy—one of working within the system to persuade others and bring about real change. When, however, peo­ple believe others to be fixed and unchangeable, a moderate policy makes little sense and more extreme measures are likely to be adopted. If people do not believe in the capacity of the other party to change, yet believe change neces­sary, the only solution they may see is to marginalize, subjugate, or even elim­inate the other people.

Thus far we have been looking at the consequences of implicit theories for how we view and treat others. When we see them as having fixed traits, we are more likely to stereotype them and to ignore or reject information that refutes the stereotype. When we see others as fixed and conflict arises, we skirt the issue, tending to give up on them or even to punish or harm them. When, instead, we see others as having malleable qualities, we are more likely to try to understand their psychology, to see evidence of progress or change, and, when conflict arises, to favor negotiation and education.

Self-Theories

The theories people have about themselves can also play a key role in how they deal with conflict. Our research shows that people who have an entity theory, believing that their traits are fixed, have recurrent concerns about proving those traits. They devote considerable attention to showing that they are the intelli­gent ones or the good guys (Dweck and Leggett, 1988; Erdley and others, 1997; compare Robins and Pals, 2002), and they worry about revealing errors or deficiencies that may call their adequacy into question (Hong and others, 1999; compare Mueller and Dweck, 1998). This concern with how they will be judged can interfere with the conflict resolution process, since resolving conflicts often involves both sides admitting error and working together toward a solution.

A striking example of entity theorists’ unwillingness to admit deficiencies comes from a study by Hong and associates (1999), performed at the Univer­sity of Hong Kong, a premier institution in Hong Kong. In order to do well there, students need to be fluent in English, because all the classes, papers, and tests are in English. However, many of the students arrive there with poor proficiency in English. Hong and colleagues approached freshman shortly after they arrived, told them that the faculty were considering offering a remedial English course, and asked them about their interest in this course.

In a series of recent studies, Nussbaum and Dweck (2004) also examined the way in which entity and incremental theorists cope with a deficiency, a defi­ciency that was a blow to their self-esteem. It was found, once again, that incre­mental theorists repaired their self-esteem by confronting their deficiency directly and learning the skills that they were lacking. But entity theorists repaired their self-esteem by finding people who were worse off than they were and comparing themselves with them. Similarly, Ehrlinger and Dweck (2006) found that entity theorists focused their attention away from the skills they lacked and toward the skills they already possessed, leaving them overconfident. Entity theorists were not willing to admit and confront their deficits head on. Needing to appear flawless or blameless (and therefore looking for flaws and blame somewhere else) is a recipe for trouble in any relationship, let alone rela­tionships that are already fraught with conflict.

Changing People’s Theories

In this section, we show that implicit theories, although relatively stable when left to themselves, can be changed through intervention. We also show that when people are taught an incremental theory, they show decreased stereotyp­ing, greater attunement to others’ progress and change, decreased defensive­ness, and greater openness to learning—all things that should foster more effective conflict resolution.

Levy and colleagues (Levy and Dweck, 1999; Levy Stroessner, and Dweck, 1998) demonstrated that entity theorists were more prone to forming stereotypes, to seeing groups as overly homogeneous, and to seeing negatively stereotyped groups as completely distinct from themselves, but also showed that teaching participants an incremental theory reversed these tendencies. Participants who learned an incremental theory (by means of a scientific article that described the incremental theory and supported the idea that people can change) became more moderate in their assignment of labels, recognized the heterogeneity within groups, and saw the common ground that other groups shared with them.

In a management setting, Heslin, Latham, and VandeWalle (2005) taught man­agers an incremental theory by means of an article, film, and self-persuasion exercises. After going through this training, these managers were significantly more sensitive to improvement in their employees’ performance than were man­agers in the control group. Moreover, this change persisted over the six-week period of the study. Thus, encouraging an incremental theory seems to make people more open to positive changes in others—a factor that, as we have noted, is important for resolving conflicts. If we can recognize true progress in the other party, then we will be willing to reciprocate in ways that will facilitate further progress.

Changing people’s theories about themselves also brings about changes in outlook that can lead to more effective conflict resolution. In the Nussbaum and Dweck (2004) studies, teaching an incremental theory of ability made par­ticipants more willing to admit and address their flaws and less likely to look for flaws in others to bolster their egos. Finally, Blackwell, Trzesniewski, and Dweck (forthcoming) conducted an intervention to teach adolescent students an incremental theory of intelligence. Following the intervention, teachers reported an upsurge in their students’ desire to learn and in the willingness to invest effort, particularly on the part of many students who had previously been apathetic and defensive. This renewed openness to learning has been replicated in two other intervention studies that taught students the incre­mental theory: a study by Good, Aronson, and Inzlicht (2003), also with junior high school students, and a study by Aronson, Fried, and Good (2002), with college students.