Foundations and Evidence for an Interaction-based Approach to Conflict Negotiation.

This paper outlines 4 assumptions behind attempts to explain the sequential organization of communication behavior during conflict. These assumptions were supported by an analysis of behavioral sequences coded from 9 hostage negotiations and 20 divorce mediations. Analyses showed that negotiators use only a small proportion of available responses to other party’s behavior, and that this proportion rapidly decreases as sequence length increases. Critical to this channeling in behavior was the triple-interact (i.e., cue-response-cue-response), which represents the maximum sequence length required to enable accurate prediction of negotiators’ future behavior. More detailed analysis showed that the triple-interact reduced uncertainty in behavior by over 70%, which compares to less than 1% from knowledge of negotiation context and approximately 10% from knowledge of individual differences. Efforts to understand the complex behavioral processes that drive conflict originate from one of two perspectives. Most research has focused on the interpersonal dimensions that characterize negotiation and how changes in these dynamics allow an interaction to unfold. Constructs such as facework, affiliation, interdependence, and behavioral intensity have each been shown to play a role in the progress of negotiations (Donohue & Hoobler, 2002; Rogan & Hammer, 1994; Taylor, 2002a) and the outcome that is achieved (Olekalns, Smith, & Kibby, 1996). A second approach to understanding conflict is to looks for consistent patterns in the sequences of actions that underlie and give rise to the patterns found at the conceptual level. Although several researchers have discussed this process in relation to negotiation (Putnam, 1985), evidence of the behavioral sequences that actually shape interaction is only beginning to emerge (Olekalns & Smith, 2003; Weingart, Prietula, Hyder, & Genovese, 1999). This paper adds to that growing body of work by explicating and then testing some of the assumptions that underlie an interaction-based approach to understanding conflict. These assumptions represent basic predictions about the character and limits of behavioral organization in conflict.