Date of Award

12-2001

Access Restriction

Campus Access only Theses

Degree Name

Master of Arts

Department

Counseling Psychology

School or College

Bellarmine College of Liberal Arts

Abstract

The prevalence and distress caused by interpersonal conflict has been a disturbing aspect I of life since the beginning of time to the present. This study related participants' implemented style of conflict resolution to one of three hypothetical conflict situations, and to their scores on two subscales of a five-factor model of personality. The two subscales used for the present study were Extroversion and Agreeableness. The conflict situations differed only in respect to the status of the person with whom the participant was involved in a conflict (i.e., equal, subordinate, and authoritative status). Contrary to the hypotheses, the present study did not find that the interaction between the participants' score on the personality subscales and the conflict situations accounted for the variance in the level of conflict resolution styles used. More specifically, the study found that the personality subscales factors had significant main effects on the conflict resolution styles used by the participants. One of the significant main effects was that participants who scored low (below the median) on the Extroversion subscale were more inclined to use the nonconfrontational style of conflict resolution. Another significant main effect was that the participants who scored low (below the median) on the Agreeableness subscale were more likely to use the control style of conflict resolution. The third main effect that was found significant was for the participants who scored high (above the median) on the Agreeableness subscale. The high Agreeable participants were more inclined to use the solution orientation style of conflict resolution. In addition, the main effect of conflict situation was not found to be significant. Contrary to the process oriented Lewinian approach, the person by situation interaction model was not supported by the present study.

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