Conflict escalation in negotiation at work

Conflict Escalation in Negotiation at Work
Student’s Name
Institutional Affiliation

Conflict Escalation in Negotiation at Work
De Dreu’s (2005) article discusses the factors that escalate disputes during conflict negotiation and resolution at work. He discusses time, power balance, cooperative motivation, and accountability to process as variables that may reverse or reduce conflict escalation. These variables turn disputing teams from experiencing difficulties in constructive negotiations (selfish misers) to solving disputes for mutual benefit (pro-social thinkers).
The dominant perspective about conflict negotiation and resolution is that parties fail to reach an integrative agreement due to cognitive barriers and different structures and values. Researchers in the field of psychology have for a long time focused on understanding the principles and processes that are involved in conflict negotiations. In the process, they have analyzed how factors such as cognitive barriers, motives, and structures enable disputing teams to reach an agreement that goes beyond a 50-50 compromise to serving the aspiration of both parties. It is also assumed that conflict escalation occurs as a result of parties ignoring, distorting, and derogating the perspectives and interests of their counterparts.
De Dreu (2005), however, provides a minority perspective regarding reducing incidences of conflict escalation during negotiation and resolution. He suggests that it is easy to understand why and when people succeed or fail in dispute resolution and integrative negotiation by looking at ego-defensive and naive realism and how the four variables (time, accountability to the process, power balance, and cooperative motivation) mitigate them.

In his opinion, the four variables have an impact on information processing regarding one’s counterpart which contributes to the reverse or reduction of the negative influence of cognitive barriers (ego defensiveness and naive realism). In an attempt to accurately understand a dispute and that of the other party (epistemic motivation), the four variables are used as a combination to overcome cognitive barriers. Thus, the article supports the idea that conflict escalation can be reduced through pro-social motivation whereby disputing teams perceive the negotiation as a game that encourages objectivity, harmony, collaboration, and a win for both teams.

Reference
De Dreu, C. K. (2005). A PACT against conflict escalation in negotiation and dispute resolution. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 14(3), 149-152.