CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

9. CONFLICT, HEALTH, AND WELL-BEING 275
again, the results support a positive relationship between trait anxiety/
NA and stressors including interpersonal conflict, such that employees
reporting a higher level of NA also reported more conflict at work.
Thus, it has been argued that the relationship between trait anxiety/
NA and conflict exists due to the highly anxious person’s tendency to perceive
his or her surroundings as stressful. Therefore, it would be expected
that in addition to the direct relationships previously reviewed, studies
would also report moderating effects of personality on the stress process.
However, research looking at the moderating effects of trait anxiety/NA
on the stress process as it pertains to social stressors is very limited. A
diary study on interpersonal stressors by Bolger and Zuckerman (1995)
found that participants high in NA reported greater negative reactivity to
conflicts. Trait anxiety was also found to be a moderator of the relationship
between interpersonal conflicts and counterproductive work behaviors,
a type of behavioral strain (Fox et al., 2001). As expected, trait anxiety
enhanced the relationship between the social stressor and strain.
Trait Anger
Spielberger (1979) defined trait anger as a proneness to perceive a variety
of situations as provoking anger. Very few studies in organizational research
investigated this personality variable; however, it seems that individuals
high in trait anger may be more reactive to the experience of interpersonal
conflict at work. For example, Fox and Spector (1999) and Fox et al. (2001)
found significant positive correlations between a measure of trait anger
and conflict. Further, Fox et al. (2001) reported a moderator effect of trait
anger on the social stressor/strain relationship. Specifically, the relationship
between interpersonal conflict and counterproductive work behaviors was
stronger for individuals higher in trait anger. Given the association of trait
anger to cardiovascular disease (Booth-Kewley & Friedman, 1987) and to
conflict, trait anger’s role in the stress process warrants further research.
Type A
Type A personality has been commonly studied in conjunction with
research on cardiovascular disease (T. W. Smith, 1992). Friedman and
Rosenman (1974) described the type A person as having a sense of time
urgency and as being competitive, hostile, and impatient. Two dimensions
of the type A personality have received particular attention: impatience/irritability
and achievement striving (Edwards, Baglioni & Cooper,
1990). The first refers to an individual’s proneness to experience anger and
frustration when having to wait, while the latter refers to a predisposition
to work toward goal achievement. Given the fact that a high type A
tends to overreact to uncontrollable stressors (Glass & Carver, 1980a, b) and