CONFLICT MANAGEMENT The Psychology of conflict and conflict ...

18 DE DREU AND GELFAND
ent from oneself or one’s own group or community (Ellemers et al., 2002;
Van Knippenberg, De Dreu, & Homan, 2004). This is clearly seen at the
group level, where social category diversity leads to more value-related
and relationship conflicts than social category homogeneity (Jehn, Northcraft,
& Neale, 1999). It is also seen at the intergroup level, where fault-line
research shows that when individuals in a collective can be categorized into
separated social entities, intergroup hostility and value-related conflicts
emerge (e.g., Homan, Van Knippenberg, Van Kleef, & De Dreu, in press;
Lau & Murnighan, 1998; also see Jehn et al., chapter 6, this volume).
Summary and Synthesis. Identity-related conflicts often take the form of
value conflicts, or relationship conflicts (e.g., Jehn, 1995; see also Jehn et al.,
chapter 6, this volume). Importantly, conflicts rooted in threatened selfviews
appear at both the individual level and the intergroup level. Social
identity theory provides clues as to whether identity conflicts emerge at the
individual, within-team, or intergroup level; it depends on which level is
made salient through incentive structures, categorization principles, and so
on. Research by Wit and Kerr (2002) on nested social dilemmas showed, for
example, that when the individual level was made salient—it was emphasized
that individuals differed from one another—participants more often
made choices that served their personal interests and not those of their
group or the overarching organization. However, when the group (organization)
level was made salient—it was emphasized that individuals within
the group (organization) shared important features—participants sacrificed
their personal interests to serve those of their group (organization). Thus,
this work shows how social categorization processes can lead individuals to
identity at the personal, group, or organizational level, and that identification
subsequently drives strategic choices in resource-based conflicts of interest. 1
It is important to note that social identity theory—and its core principles—allows
one to understand conflicts at any level. Whereas our discussion
thus far emphasized the interindividual and the intergroup level, the
theoretical predictions can be equally well applied to conflicts between
entire organizations. A good example here is the work on mergers and
acquisitions discussed by Terry and Amiot (chapter 13, this volume), who
have applied social identity theory to understand conflicts between individuals
and groups who belonged to different organizations now being
merged. Their work also highlights that many of the interpersonal and
intergroup conflicts that arise out of identity issues are latent rather than
manifest—they exemplify themselves in prejudice, feelings of superiority,
implicit tendencies to serve one’s ingroup at the expense of the outgroup,
and so forth.
1 It is worthwhile noting that in contrast to controlled laboratory experiments
where resource-based conflicts of interest can be separated from identificationbased
value conflicts, such clean-cut distinctions cannot be made in the context
of organizations where participants are outcome-interdependent by definition.