Factors causing conflict

Personal factors of conflicts………………………….7

3. Conflict personality types…………………………………………….…12

Conclusion………………………………………………………………………………..15

List of used literature……………………………………………………16

Introduction

A conflict is a situation in which each party seeks to take a position that is incompatible and opposed to the interests of the other party. Conflict is a special interaction between individuals, groups, and associations that arises when their views, positions and interests are incompatible. Conflict has both destructive and constructive functions.

Conflict is always a complex and multifaceted social phenomenon. It involves a variety of parties: individuals, social groups, national-ethnic communities, states and groups of countries, united by certain goals and interests. Conflicts arise for a variety of reasons and motives: psychological, economic, political, value, religious, etc. But each of us also knows that the personality itself is internally contradictory and subject to constant contradictions and stress.

The relevance of the topic lies in the fact that the causes of conflicts are an important component in resolving any conflict. The causes of the conflict are the driving force behind the development and escalation of the conflict. The nature of the reasons may be objective or subjective. The causes themselves may have a structure, so it is necessary to be able to separate changes in parameters within the causes from the cause of the conflict as a whole.

The purpose of this work is to consider the factors causing conflict.

Psychological causes of conflicts

Conflicts can arise for psychological reasons that are associated with a person’s personality and his individual psychological qualities. They are also determined by the specifics of the processes that occur in the human psyche during his interaction with others. These include the following features:

Assessing behavior as unacceptable. A person has a level of expected behavior on the part of another person. If a person does not live up to expectations, commits unkind or unacceptable behavior, then a conflict arises. The nature of behavior and its perception depends on the individual characteristics of a person, including during direct interaction. If the behavior fits within the acceptable format, then a conflict does not arise.
Low level of psychological competence. A conflict situation is seen as a difficult situation for which a person must be prepared. If psychological preparedness is absent for certain reasons, a person is not able to get out of a conflict situation without infringing on his interests, which inevitably causes conflict.
Lack of psychological stability. A person is exposed to a lot of stress factors every day. If he is psychologically unstable, then resolving interpersonal conflicts becomes a problem and leads to inappropriate actions by the person.
Inability to empathize. When a person poorly understands the emotional state of another individual and is incapable of experiencing, he can hurt the feelings of the other, resulting in contradictions.
The type of human temperament is choleric. It is choleric people who tend to resolve problems through conflict, focusing on the problematic aspects of the situation. By displaying excessive traits of their character, they cross the boundaries of the interests of other people, thereby provoking the emergence of conflicts.

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Objective factors of conflicts

At different levels of social life and in its various spheres, the objective factors causing conflict are very numerous and of different quality. They can be material wealth, resources, power, position, status, public spiritual values, etc. What unites them is independence from the personal qualities of people, their consciousness and will, values and passions.

The role, significance and mechanism of influence of objective factors on the occurrence of conflicts can be more specifically explained using the example of the production sphere of people’s lives, and in particular, at its level such as an organization. Modern conflictology identifies the following objective causes of conflict:

limited resources to be distributed;
interdependence of responsibilities and tasks;
inconsistency of goals of different groups of workers;
poor communications;
unclear distribution of rights and responsibilities;
incompetence, inadequacy for the position held;
excessive workload of employees, exceeding personal capabilities;
unfavorable leadership style;
poor working conditions;
innovations, innovations in production;
insufficient development of legal norms and procedures;
poor development of ethical standards and the absence of ethics committees or commissions.

As we see, only in the organization there are quite a large number of objective conflict factors. And the list goes on. 1. Limited resources to be distributed. These can be a wide variety of resources: material, technical, financial, socio-economic, etc. Their limitations can cause a conflict of interests between individuals and social groups, because allocating them to any individual or production association means that others will receive a smaller share of them. It doesn’t matter what we are talking about - bonuses, computers, new equipment, etc.

2. Interdependence of responsibility and tasks. The potential for conflict in an organization exists wherever one person or group is dependent on other people to complete the tasks. This is due to the fact that any organization is a system, the elements of which are functionally interconnected. Therefore, if any element of the system (employee, department) does not fulfill the duties and tasks assigned to it, that is, it functions inadequately, allows failures in work, then In this case, the normal functioning of the entire system is disrupted. And this is already fraught with conflict at different levels and between different actors in the organization.

The emergence of conflict is also facilitated by an unclear distribution of responsibilities between members of the organization or its divisions. In this case, some may think that they have too little responsibility and are underestimated, while others, on the contrary, that they are too overloaded with work and they perform not only their own, but also other people’s functions.

3. Inconsistency of goals of different groups of workers. The reason for the conflict lies in the fact that various functional groups in the organization may pay more attention to achieving their goals than the organization as a whole. In this case, conflict can arise both between a group and an organization, and between groups within an organization. For example, between the sales department and the production department.

The potential for conflict also increases as units become more specialized and differentiated. This happens because specialized units themselves formulate their own goals and can devote more attention to achieving them than the goals of the entire organization. Thus, the sales department may insist on increasing the product range because it increases sales volume. However, the goals of a manufacturing unit are easier to achieve if the product mix is less diverse.

4. Poor development of ethical standards and the absence of ethics committees or commissions is also an important factor in the emergence of conflicts. The ethical factor is objective for members of the organization, because not a single employee is subjectively able to change generally accepted ethical norms and principles of behavior and must take them into account, whether he likes them or not. In this case, the problem is that the lack of interest of various organizational services in professional ethics very often leads not only to intra-group, but also intrapersonal conflict.

In other types of conflicts, other objective factors causing conflict behavior will come to the fore.

Thus, among the main objective factors of interethnic conflicts prevailing in the modern world, we can name:

1) refusal to ethnic groups to meet their needs based on their identity, and ignoring (or incomplete respect for) the rights of national minorities;

2) the presence in a society or ethnic community of a “critical mass” of problems of a socioeconomic, sociocultural and ethnopsychological nature;

3) unfavorable general political situation;

4) the presence of political forces capable of unleashing an interethnic conflict in their own interests.

Internal political conflicts will also have their own objective factors causing conflict behavior.

Personal factors causing conflicts

Personal causes of conflict are associated with the presence of personal elements in any conflict. Let us recall that these include: the main psychological dominants of individual behavior; character traits and personality types; personality attitudes that form the ideal type of individuality; inadequate assessments and perceptions; manners; ethical values.

The discrepancy between these factors in a person’s actual behavior and communication can become a cause of conflict and, thus, confrontation between people can arise regardless of objective factors. Although very often there is an interaction between the objective and subjective causes of the conflict.

Basic psychological dominants of personality behavior

Conflicts caused by the psychological dominants of a person’s behavior, that is, his value orientations, goals, motives, interests and needs, can be very diverse in their object. Here everything depends on what meaning and significance the person attaches to this or that object, whether this particular person shows interest in this object and whether it acts as a need for him.

This divergence of personal meanings and meanings is one of the main causes of conflicts and determines the line of behavior in the conflict, its strategy and tactics. So, if one of the subjects is not particularly interested in the object of the conflict, then most likely he will choose the tactics of avoidance or evasion. In other words, he will simply pass by and not get involved in the conflict. At best, he can show magnanimity and cede the subject of the dispute to others. If, for example, a person is wealthy, and the bonus that is the subject of the dispute is insignificant, then he will not get involved in a conflict over it. If everything is the other way around, then the line of behavior will obviously be chosen completely opposite.

Another important cause of conflict may be the discrepancy between the characters of individuals. Not only family conflicts and divorces often arise because people “do not get along in character.” This is a very common reason in various areas of human activity. It should be especially taken into account in groups that are in long-term, local and constant communication. It is no coincidence that people who have to work in such conditions are tested for psychological compatibility.

Character accentuations, that is, the excessive expression of its individual traits in accentuated individuals, play a particularly important role in the emergence of conflict. These people experience particular difficulty in communication, because they have “atypical” character traits, some of which are conflict-oriented.

An important factor in the emergence of conflict are personality attitudes that form ideal types of individuality. The cause of the conflict in this case may be the contradiction between different ideal types of individuality, if they are expressed clearly enough.

It should be said that conflict and inconsistency of attitudes exist between all the types of people identified by E. Spranger: theoretical, economic, aesthetic, social, political and religious. Although it manifests itself to a greater extent between certain types, and to a lesser extent between others.

Inadequate perceptions, assessments and self-esteem play a significant role in the emergence and development of conflicts. Especially often they cause conflict behavior in business communication, in which one cannot voluntarily withdraw from interaction or use avoidance tactics. An example of such a conflict is a situation where subordinates believe that they have the right to express their views and opinions on a particular issue, but meanwhile the manager believes that they must unquestioningly carry out his orders.

1. A very important cause of conflict in the context under consideration is the gap between the expected and actual results. And the greater the discrepancy between them, the stronger the tension will arise for an individual or social group. Therefore, to prevent conflicts, expectations should always be supported by real results, and the sooner this is done, the less tension there will be.

An interesting phenomenon that helps explain one of the reasons for social tension was described by S. Stauffer and co-authors in the work “The American Soldier”. To refer to it, they coined the term relative deprivation. In particular, when examining satisfaction with promotions in aviation and military police, they found that in aviation there were more dissatisfied people, although the next rank was awarded more quickly there. The explanation for this, as it turned out, was that the rapid advancement of the pilots raised their expectations and their demands grew faster than the ability to satisfy them. But in the military police you had to wait a long time for promotion, so people were satisfied.

Types of conflicting personalities

Conflict-prone individuals have various characteristics that indicate whether they are capable of aggravating or provoking conflicts through their behavior. So, according to the theory of F.M. Borodkin and N.M. Koryak, the following types of conflicting personalities can be distinguished:

Demonstrative type. She wants to constantly be in the center of attention, and is ready to use any methods and techniques for this. The attitude of a given person towards others is determined by how others treat him. In “superficial” conflicts, he is able to emerge victorious, since those around him do not take him seriously and are ready to give in. At the same time, he is not afraid of conflicts, feeling confident. Conflict acts as a way to demonstrate oneself. Often the demonstrative type acts as a source of conflict, but does not show it.
Rigid type. Is suspicious and has inflated self-esteem. Needs self-affirmation, confirmation of one's own importance. Not ready to accept someone else's point of view, touchy. He is often straightforward and lacks flexibility, which is why he constantly gets involved in conflicts.
Unmanaged type. He is impulsive and can behave unpredictably in any situation. Capable of defiant behavior and aggression. Needs regular confirmation of his own importance, can blame anyone for his failures. Plans are not his strong point. Mistakes and past experiences do not teach him.
Ultra-precise type. Scrupulous, makes high demands on himself, as well as on others. Is sensitive to details and little things. He may not communicate with certain categories of people because it seemed to him that they were treating him negatively. He himself suffers from his hyper-precision, which can lead to diseases, for example, insomnia.
Conflict-free type. Unstable, quickly changes his mind. Inconsistent in his behavior. Always wants to appear “good” to his superiors. Lack of sufficient willpower.
Purposefully conflict type. He uses conflict to achieve his goals by provoking it. He knows how to manipulate, for example, he can be affectionate with someone, but not with others. Masters the technique of emotional argument.

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