Conflict, a Basic Social Need

Once a concept ‘conflict’ heard, what do hearers understand? Destructive or constructive? All is possible. Conflict may be defined as ‘an escalation of a disagreement; manifested by “conflict behavior, starting with disagreement, and followed by verbal abuse.” It is also ‘disagreements in viewpoints and opinion, which hearten greater cognitive understanding, as cited by Jehn and Mannix. The understanding and thinking corrupted by destructive conflict reported worldwide make individuals understand destructive at first and they have reason; the wide-reaching terrorist attacks are in line of eroding constructive conflict. As a human being, what do we need in a world full of conflicts? Do we need nations, society, cooperation, families, friendship… without conflict?

Among the characteristics of society, we recite- society depends on differences.  Disparities result from the fact that people do not have the same way and capacity of thinking as well as understanding. Society has weak and strong people in all corners of life. The universal truth is that under the heaven, there are differences which result in conflicts, either destructive or constructive. What do we chiefly need to live good-naturedly in this world, which seems to partially live as Creator would expect?

Constructive conflict, a key development channel

Undoubtedly, constructive conflict should be understood in the clear perspective; the peaceful beneficial context. It refers to disagreements that welcomes different ideas and worldviews, in an effort to get agreeable viewpoint about issue under discussion or move company (group, associations, friends…) toward its goals and mission. This kind of conflict increases productivity, rather than obstructs it because it is seen as task conflict that leads to better decision making and increased satisfaction with the group decision. Constructive conflict is the only peaceful conflict that should be recommended in development process.

 According to different writers (Amason and Sapienza, Sophia Jowett and Irving Janis) we may recite the following types of the conflict which leads to better stage of thinking, understanding and success process.

Content conflict: individuals disagree about how to deal with a certain issue. It can be beneficial, increasing motivation and encouraging discussion. Task conflict is related to disagreements in viewpoints and opinion about a particular task. It is found to be beneficial in view of the fact of encouraging diversity of opinions, although care should be taken to avoid its development into process or relationship conflict which are harmful. Cognitive conflict: the conflict is task-oriented and stems from differences in perspective or judgment (whereas affective conflict is emotional and arises from personal differences and disputes). The conflict, as proposed by Irving Janis, is beneficial in groups and committees to avoid the error of " group think," but it should be the one from above and care should be taken to avoid bad result.