Conflict resolution
Kenneth Thomas, an industrial psychologist, has proposed the existence of five distinct styles of conflict resolution: confrontation, appeasement, collaboration, compromise, and avoidance.
It is my understanding that by applying Model B in a certain manner, relations between information subelements can be modeled and hence, the specific attitudes which give rise to these styles.
Each person is dominated by tendencies either to confrontation, appeasement, collaboration, or compromise (also called negotiation in some circles). Upon self-introspection, I observe that I choose confrontation for the specific purpose of avoiding compromise. It is my experience that everyone has in mind a conflict style they specifically intend to avoid when they choose their dominant style (although it seems that they can choose one approach to a style over another, more serious approach).
In essence, the preferences on the one hand to exalt a specific style, while on the other avoiding another such style (or variant), yield a 16-type system of personality in conflict situations.
I call the preferred style the "dispute resolution type" of the individual, in that it is the most preferred means of navigating social disagreements, and the avoided style the "threat resolution type", in that it is used minimally and only as a means of last resort. It seems like there is a complex web of projections against the non-preferred styles which varies depending on the type -- the two choices are the outcome of very deeply rooted philosophies of responsible self-conduct.
The avoided style does receive some use, but only at a close psychological distance.
It is my understanding we are romantically attracted to individuals who prefer the style we avoid. When two individuals have inverse preferred/avoided style pairings, there will be maximum mutual attraction in comparison to other such pairings.
Example: my conflict resolution type is confrontational/negotiating: I push others to accept my solutions without modification; only when the situation gets serious do I switch on my negotiators hat and ask myself what about my solution is critically important enough that the opposition must accept it. I never appease anyone -- it's something I just don't do. I see there being too much appeasement already, I certainly won't contribute to what is already a failing political gambit.
I'll try to survey the CR types in this thread. May take a week or two.
Dispute resolution types
Confrontational-type people are explorers. They tend to be bold in their conduct and more willing than the other types to take risks. They will try to push people to adopt their positions while abandoning their own. Because of this, they need knowledge of personality types (especially IM and EM types) moreso than the other CR types.
Collaborator-type people look for common ground. They tend to be "bridge builders" and exalt civility. They are very welcoming and will "make the first move" in a relationship. Their approach is essentially to ignore conflict altogether, and focus only on those areas of the relationship where there are no conflicts. Where they can't avoid conflict with someone, they will try to avoid that person entirely.
Negotiator-type people aim to be self-important. They hone in on crises and reflect deeply about what is the minimum they can afford to sustain of their position. They are always looking to "give-a-little-to-get-a-little" by continually assessing and reassessing the importance of specific planks in their position. They create and sustain feelings of patriotism for their state and pride in their groups. Because of this, they tend to be strong and steady leaders. They despise conflict and strive to define a "mainstream" for their culture that has minimum confrontation and minimal disagreement. They are "pan-nationalists", taking deep interest in other cultures and trying to unite them into single states when the opportunity arises.
Appeaser-type people try to play it safe. They specifically avoid bold moves and try to curry favor with the opposition. Appeaser-type people have deep respect for one another and generally abjure political maneuvering of any kind. They are peace-nicks absolute, and will berate, savagely and piercingly, any who attempt to disrupt the peace for just about any reason.
RELATION TO SOCIONICS
The base function is seen as the crux of any conflict. An individual will generally be willing to compromise with respect to any function BUT the base. Negotiating types show others how to "give in" with respect to the other functions. The appeaser type will give in EVEN to the base (albeit grudgingly). The confronter will insist on the importance of all conclusions drawn with other functions that are reinforced by the base. The collaborator insists on the importance of the base and looks for signs that others ARE WILLING TO ACKNOWLEDGE the base's importance.
The ROLE FUNCTION is observed as a lock-in to obey the base. An LII, for example, will try to show that only the knowledge they seek to spread can make the world equitable and fair -- this focuses them very narrowly on a select set of ideas.
Conflict Resolution Types
Some of these may be renamed... at the end of the day, DCNH subtypes and conflict res types have to be considered together to get a complete picture.
Confronting/Confronting - "Adventurer":
Persona: Confronter/Appeaser
Thought cycle: "The spurned overture for peace is the fuel for the confrontational fire. Don't be the one who started it... let your opponent take the blame for violating the accord."
This type likes to go on adventures. Alone, more often than not. Whether traveling to an exotic, remote and dangerous clime, or striving to be "the best of the best", this type is always exploring new frontiers. They have a tendency to the bold and the reckless -- the more risky and "edgy" the activity, the more it appeals to them. In their partner they look for someone every bit as bold and adventurous as they, although EM compatibility is especially vital. They tend to be fiercely competitive and are like to seek self-discovery through combat with rivals who are every bit the loner they are.
Confronting/Collaborating - "Expeditionary":
Persona: Confronting/Negotiating
Thought cycle: "Let the necessity of compromise be the fuel for the confrontation. When the compromise is rejected, paint the opposition as having walked away from negotiations and therefore, the belligerent party. Avoid taking a hard line or risk blame for the breakdown of talks."
Personal obligation: "Avoid seeking impossible concessions."
this type prefers adventuring together with friends. They are distinct from confronting/confronting types in that where the confronter/confronter is something of a loner, the confronter/collaborator is a little more friendly, less competitive, and a little more likely to delay their adventure until finding companions. "Adventuring with friends" is something of a dream for these people. Their commitments are highly idiosyncratic and circumstantial: they will not attempt to broker a compromise with those with whom they disagree, but will simply draw a boundary between themselves and those with whom they disagree on any given topic. They enjoy team competition.
Confronting/Negotiating - "Intrapreneur"
Persona: Confronting/Collaborating
Thought Cycle: "Assemble those with common interests and aims for confrontation with the opposition. In all things there is a right and a wrong -- Let 'right' win out over 'wrong' in all ways, and concede only where there is evidence of one's own error."
Obligation: "Avoid using compromise as a disguise for intent to confront. Be truthful of your intentions, and people will reward you with the support you need to win."
This person tends to be the leader of a team with a very specific focus. They spend time trying to improve their base function; however rather than relying completely on their own energy to effect the improvement, they are like to enlist others in that cause. For this purpose they have evolved with a certain charisma, a certain affection for the people around them -- they are always prepared to show how their improvement project will benefit everyone on the team. They tend to "aim high" -- to focus on those goals which will bring about maximum community reward. They will often try to do the impossible, and then scale back to something more feasible. However, they can be stubborn and this can cause them to miss out on opportunities and, at times, to waste energy. They tend to have many, many friends, however their attention to these friends is mostly centric on the problem at hand, waxing and waning with their individual relevance to the project. They are highly self-motivated and tend to develop a strong sense of self-importance.
Confronting/Appeasing - "Cohort":
Persona: Confronting/Confronting
Thought cycle: "Don't let up on your opponent. One point after another, explain your case and move the opponent's opinion into alignment with yours. Debate and debate until all error is eliminated."
Obligation: "Those who show fortitude in the name of truth are rewarded. Don't be so naive as to think people will back down from their beliefs just because of a mere problem of public image. Public victories are fleeting... the only real victory lies in the transformation of the opposition into a replica of one's own mind."
this type wants adventure, plain and simple. They are aimless and indifferent as to the goals of the adventure, preferring to have these made plain to them by confronter/negotiators. They will usually give in to their friends in an argument, although it is the confronter/negotiator to whom they give most of their confidence. They believe strongly in the importance of friendship and try to keep the harmony between themselves and their companions.
Collaborating/Confronting - "Civiliarian"
Thought Cycle: "Collaboration at any price."
Personal Obligation: "The problems of the world exist because people let their petty conflicts get in the way of working together. Too much talk of who is right and who is wrong, while avoiding the real issues. Avoid pressing matters that only lead to disunity and conflict."
To this type, collaboration and mutual respect are the means to avoiding problems. Problems occur, this type observes, because people are not acting in a spirit of social civility. From their perspective, the world would be just about perfect if people would only respect one another.
Collaborating/Collaborating - "Unifier"
This type is always trying to keep people together. They will bend over backward and expand the reach of their collaboration to keep people engaged. The phrase "a uniter, not a divider" is very apt for this type. They want people working as a unit, but in full respect to each others' wishes -- they are the magnum core of society. For every ounce of disrespect leveled, this type can sense the social fabric breaking. Paradoxically, this type will use the threat of their own incivility as a hedge to keep their peers civil, a gambit that often works because only then are their peers forced to face the reality they themselves had been laboring under.
Collaborating/Negotiating - "Protestor"
Persona: Collaborating/collaborating
Thought Cycle: "Strength of numbers is the best way of sustaining disagreement over policy."
Personal Obligation: "Where people have disagreements, they should be straightforward about them and not try to hide behind political games. What is needed is not gamesmanship, but mutual respect. Nonetheless, respect is to obtained by strength of numbers, because the majority has the victory."
This person works to condense support around an approach to civil disagreement. Where there is agreement, there will be unity; where there is disagreement, there will be disunity and the collaborator/negotiator will leverage their support base as a check against attempts by the opposition to impose an artificial unity.
Collaborating/Appeasing - "Self-Determinist": this individual believes in independence. They respect the independence of themselves and others, which they believe is the key to preventing hostility. They will aggressively assert their independence when they feel it is threatened. They are mainstay of the tactic of "agreeing to disagree", and will resist capitulation at all cost. There are times, however, when they will discuss the meaning of their capitulation, an event which is as eye opening as it is significant. Rarely does society obtain a glimpse of the darkness that awaits so vividly as when a self-determinist explains the gravity of their adversary's vision.
Negotiating/Confronting - "Arbitrator": this type aims to keep the peace. In all things, they aim to bring their quarreling peers back to the bargaining table and to keep tensions sedate. They avoid confrontation except for when the parties refuse to negotiate, at which point they will advocate measures to compel the resumption of talks. When they try to be confrontational at a far distance, they tend to come off as overbearing and and bossy, finding themselves alienated and unable to rely on others' help. They see a variety of reasons to keep tensions down, and are generally respected as impartial, their proposed agreements often that much more acceptable as a factor of their non-threatening demeanor.
Negotiating/Negotiating - "Governor": this type rules the world. They have a strong sense of self-importance and a desire to make themselves important by anyone's standards. They desire power, prestige, and control. They are the nexus of nations and "big tent" organizations. They beam with confidence and will approach people confidently, assuredly, and with unwavering direct eye contact. They care deeply about others and can inspire their followers to sacrifice their very lives for the causes they support. Although strongly attuned to cultural normatives and respectful for the history of diligent compromise which has created them, they are absolutely willing to play the partisan games of other negotiation-avoidant types so as to obtain a solid base of support. They will then jockey with each other for leadership in community efforts. They speak "the language of a nation", knowing exactly where their nation stands on every issue and how to communicate and to think in a manner their entire country will accept. This language is the language of crisis, immediate danger and peril, which is never far off as national consensus revolves around the necessity of the moment and long-term problems go unanswered. The governor will use the crisis, invariably, as an opportunity to demonstrate their loyalty to their base by offering the consensus they have formulated at close psychological distances as the consensus for the entire community. Governors tend to be prided for their conviction to buck their bases in favor of the common community good represented in compromise, their reward for being somewhat the odd ones out in their circle of friends. And yet, they tend to be liked more personally and are more popular than other negotiation avoidant types. It is they who will make the case for their party's peaceful exit from power when the situation seems to warrant control by the opposition.
What exactly do these types "avoid" negotiating? Basically, they dislike the partisanship with arises from relations at close psychological distances. They invite people into their group and yet, they are afraid of getting too close. They prefer, rather, shallow relationships based on identity and creed. "The country before the party" is a common sentiment of these people. Indeed, what they most resist is attempting to press on for a deal that seems impossible. On this basis they will look to the intractability of certain arguments as a guide to the maximum outcome of negotiations. As such, when bids to relent on basis of these intractable arguments become a condition for the end of negotiations, the governor unceremoniously leaves the table until the opposition relents of their demands.
Negotiating/Appeasing - "Brinksman": (May 10, 2011)This person is willing to negotiate away everything of value to them until reaching the values of their core group. Then they will stand firm, no matter what. The reason for this sentiment is that they place a high priority on being respected by those close to them -- they will never "sell out". This type reminds of the archetype of the scrapper who fights on, once hostilities begin, until given specific instruction by a close, trusted ally to stop.The Brinksman sees appeasement as something which absolutely must be avoided, or else the eventual compromise will be less than optimal for the situation. Confrontation is leveraged as the means to a deal. Risk all you can to threaten your opponent, and find out what it is he really values. What will he really fight for? What is really important to him? How far will he push his defiance, which creates the crisis? Usually only outside pressure can bring an end to the Brinksman's more radical demands, and in service to this pressure they may concede. However coping with concession is for the Brinksman a journey in and of itself.
Negotiating/Collaborating - "Hold-out": This is a cultural chameleon. They adhere to the standards of their culture and will only engage in close relationships to the extent that these relationships do not estrange them from the "mainstream" of their culture. This individual is one apart, a person who doesn't quite know who they are outside of their culture, which they try to rely on for everything. They are a headache for governors, who find themselves endlessly trying to "rope them in" in their efforts to "bring home" their culture to a respectfulness and integration for their values. The type reminds of the politician who holds out on supporting legislation of urgent state priority until a specific "deal" has been included in the proposal to exceptionally benefit their region. "This for that, or else I...."
This person puts tremendous pressure on other to abide by cultural norms. They are want to try to impress their will upon others, to win "victories" over those who they disagree, teaming in large armies for the purpose. "Zero tolerance" is an accurate descriptor -- their first instinct is to "move against" any sign of disagreement unless they are shown otherwise by a collaborator. They will freeze their culture's development in a "freeze frame" if they cannot advance it without conflict.
Appeasing/Negotiating - "Conciliator": this is the type of a sudden genius who appears with strange claims that at once seem outlandish, but the more you understand about them, the more it is evident that they are indeed true. This person teaches people to see reality in new ways; but what is most striking is not what they propose, but the means by which they propose it. Unwilling to commit any act of culturally unsanctioned conflict, they will instead let their peers make the bulk of the discoveries and changes, then canvas this information as fodder for a vastly overarching conclusion and/or tranformation that was far from the obvious. Einstein is the exemplar of this type: beneath his robust theories are a slew of mathematical devices not of his invention. People talk of his genius but a reading of his life shows that he was a consummate learner, always taking in the ideas of his peers and often even seeking out instruction. His general relativity theory is, in fact, grounded on mathematics for he received private instruction by a pair of mathematicians, and although few knew of it he did in fact have a mathematician in his personal employ for a time.
He himself said it best: "Common sense is the prejudice instilled in oneself before the age of sixteen."
I have noticed that this type has a strikingly precise way of talking. They will often use "high falutin'" language in a way that others would mocked at for using. This type comes off as the consummate respected professor, their stamp left in long, detailed academic treatises that universally confound laymen. They see everything the intraprenuer, in their drive to solve problems of immediate import and thus drive their conquest, neglects to give adequate time for. And they are a headache most firmly in the mind of the intrapreneur, in that they will always have assembled a team of cohorts ready to back them as they uncompromisingly berate intrapreneurs for their controversial initiatives. When the intrapreneur makes a call, in the heat of partisan tension, for their team to "quit the field", the conciliator is like to declare their independence of the intraprenuer, setting the stage for the "rise" of a negotiator who can work out a compromise. This is the process by which political movements adjust to cultural environments, distill themselves of radical voices, and re-orient to the center.
Prejudices
A person's prejudices are the lines by which they "box themselves in" to a type. In essence, the type is defined not by what it is, but what it isn't.
Each dispute resolution type has a reason for being itself and itself only -- it chooses the road of its type instead of either of the three alternatives, citing critical flaws in the approaches they see the others as taking. It's another case of the old Jungian maxim, "a man criticizes others not for what they are, but what they think they themselves would be if they made the same choices in the same situations." (this is a paraphrase of the line "man hates in others what he hates in himself")
The Dispute Res grievances are on the whole practical: each type can see a certain problem with the approach taken by the other three in accordance with its unique vantagepoint.
The Confronter
- sees the Collaborator as not taking a stand or setting an example ("working with the enemy"), and possibly self-interested.
- sees the Negotiator as possibly dangerous, a sell-out who may arrange to have the Confronter bartered in chains in exchange for dubious peace, if the Confronter does not exercise the utmost personal vigilance.
- sees the Appeaser as outright ineffective.
Scale
The styles can be expressed as a scale of attitudes towards resistance to assimilation, ranging from unconditional resistance to unconditional acceptance. The rationale for assimilation or resistance is always an expectation of catastrophe of the kind expected by the threat res type.
Wait, I just realized something. There are no "appeasers", only people who doubt the wisdom of forcing concessions by the other side. Granted, some of these people are appeasers, but NOT the entire group -- they are effectively a subtype of the peaceniks.
This is the key to unraveling the symmetry of the perspectives: I recognized the types well enough, but mischaracterized them. Labcoat doubts the usefulness of forcing people to come to his point of view, but he is hardly an appeaser.
Here's how it comes out:
- Confronters justify the pursuit of absolute capitulation and victory by arguing that the other side is creating a problem. (this is where I am, Esper, and Rat are)
- Collaborators justify refrain from confrontation by arguing the possible negative consequences which could emerge from it. (this is where April is)
- Negotiators lean towards peace, but ask "at what cost?" (I think this is where Ashton, Rick, and Mune are).
- "Appeasers" justify not angering their adversaries by pointing to the rewards of peace. (labcoat is here)
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Originally Posted by tcaudilllg
--> perhaps Normalizing 
