THE IMPORTANCE OF INTELLECTUAL CONFLICT

Since the general or prevailing opinion on any subject is rarely or never the whole truth, it is only by the collision of adverse opinion that the remainder of the truth has any chance of being supplied.

—John Stuart Mill

An airline flight crew is taking their large passenger jet with over 150 people on board in for a landing. The instruments indicate the plane is still 5,000 feet above the ground and the pilot sees no reason to doubt their accuracy. The co­pilot thinks the instruments are malfunctioning and the plane is much lower. Will this disagreement endanger the passengers and crew by distracting the pilot and copilot from their duties? Or will this disagreement illuminate a problem and increase the safety of everyone on board?

We know what Thomas Jefferson would have said. He noted, “Difference of opinion leads to inquiry, and inquiry to truth.” Jefferson had a deep faith in the value and productiveness of constructive controversy. He is not alone. Conflict theorists have for hundreds of years posited that conflict could have positive as well as negative benefits. Freud, for example, indicated that extra psychic con­flict was a necessary (but not sufficient) condition for psychological develop­ment. Developmental psychologists have proposed that disequilibrium within a student’s cognitive structure can motivate a shift from egocentrism to accom­modation of the perspectives of others, and what results is a transition from one stage of cognitive and moral reasoning to another. Motivational theorists believe that conceptual conflict can create epistemic curiosity, which motivates the search for new information and the reconceptualization of the knowledge one already has. Organizational theorists insist that higher-quality problem solving depends on constructive conflict among group members. Cognitive psychologists propose that conceptual conflict may be necessary for insight and discovery. Educational psychologists indicate that conflict can increase achievement.

Despite all the theorizing about the positive aspects of conflict, there has been until recently very little empirical evidence demonstrating that the pres­ence of conflict can be more constructive than its absence. Guidelines for man­aging conflicts tend to be based more on folk wisdom than on validated theory. Far from being encouraged and structured in most interpersonal and intergroup situations, conflict tends to be avoided and suppressed. Creating conflict to cap­italize on its potential positive outcomes tends to be the exception, not the rule. In the late 1960s, therefore, building on the previous work of Morton Deutsch and others, we began a program of theorizing and research to identify the con­ditions under which conflict results in constructive outcomes. One of the results of our work is the theory of constructive controversy.

The purpose of this chapter is to provide an integration of theory, research, and practice on constructive controversy for individuals who wish to deepen their understanding of conflict and how to manage it constructively. The first part of the chapter provides (a) the definitions and procedure and (b) a theo­retical framework that illuminates fundamental processes involved in creating and utilizing conflict at the interpersonal, intergroup, organizational, and inter­national levels. The second half of the chapter is aimed at helping readers use constructive controversy effectively in their applied situations.