The DINN of Conflict
Using van de Vliert and Euwema's categories of negotiation, nonconfrontation, direct fighting, and indirect fighting, Gustafson (Pennsylvania State University) and Canary created a coding system for use in training, education, and research.
We labeled this the DINN system (Direct-Indirect, Nice-Nasty). Later (2007), in collaboration with Beth Babin (Cleveland State), Perry Pauley (California State, Fullerton), and Shannon L. Johnson (James Madison University) we revised the DINN category scheme to include other tactics that we discovered in the research (for parallels to these behaviors, see Sillars et al., 2004). We do not claim these behaviors exhaust the numerous communication strategies and tactics reported in the literature. Instead, we claim the communication strategies and tactics as reported in the DINN clearly represent communication strategies and tactics that people choose to use. Moreover, the reader can readily use the DINN coding scheme to identify different ways they can learn many tactics to achieve their goals to be effective as well as appropriate.According to the DINN of conflict, message behavior can be grouped according to four general strategies of: negotiation, nonconfrontation, direct fighting, and indirect fighting (Van de Vliert & Euwema, 1994).
Examples of these strategies below show that various conflict strategies and tactics do not occur once or in isolation from other behaviors. That is, one person uses a particular tactic followed by the other person’s response, which in turn leads the first person to communicate again and so forth. Accordingly, we need to examine how one person responds to another to find conflict patterns (Messman & Canary, 1998). In the progression of conflict, people are largely unaware of these levels of communication, let alone the specific tactics that reflect the higher-ordered strategies.
In addition, tactics unfold in various ways. That is, one person might adopt the negotiation sub-strategy of “seeks disclosure by using a solicitation of disclosure.” This tactic might not work, for instance, if the other person relies on nonconfrontation and uses a vague or distraction disengagement tactic. Hypothetically, the first person might enact the same tactic (solicitation of disclosure) or rely on a different tactic (such as personal criticism). Let us now examine the four strategic approaches and examples of how they unfold in real interaction.