Power: The Structure of Conflict

1. Power: The Structure of Conflict Chapter 4

2. What is Power? • Power is a fundamental concept in conflict theory • Power is seen as • Designated (power given by your position) • Distributive (either/or power) • Integrative (both/and power)

3. Designated Power • Comes from your position, such as being a manager, the mother or father of a family, or the leader of a team

4. Distributive Power • Comes from your ability to achieve your objective “over the resistance of another” • Focuses on power over or against the other party

5. Integrative Power • Power with the other • Definition focuses on “both/and” – both parties have to achieve something in their relationship

6. Exercise #1 • Application 4.1, page 104

7. Either/Or Power • Contest of wills when you are in a “power struggle” • The focus for a dispute becomes power – who has the right to move the other • Power becomes the overriding relationship concern • Getting more power becomes the overriding relationship issue

8. Either/Or Power, cont. • When we solve a dispute based on interests, the goals and desires of the parties are the key elements • When power becomes the only personal goal, the dispute is harder to resolve

9. Both/And Power • Often the first choice of women in our culture • Boys learn to relate to power through games and competition more than girls do • Girls learn to play with less focus on hierarchy • For boys, conflict means competition, which often enhances relationships • For girls, competition is often painful and damages relationships

10. Both/And Power, cont. • The ability to develop relationally depends on • mutual empathy, • mutual empowerment, • responsibility to both oneself and others, • and the ability to experience and express emotion, • to experience and learn from vulnerability, • to participate in the development in the development of another, • and to enhance each other’s efforts

11. Both/And Power, cont. • Many effective forms of conflict resolution depend on a relational approach • If competition remains the dominant approach, constructive conflict resolution is unlikely to occur, except temporarily

12. Application 4.2

13. Designated Power • Giving power to some other group or entity

14. Power Denial • Deny that you communicated something • Deny that something was communicated • Deny that you communicated something to the other person • Deny the situation in which it was communicated

15. Whenever you communicate with another, what you say and do exercises some communicative control – you either go along with someone else’s definition, struggle over the definition, or supply it yourself

16. Relational Theory of Power • Power is a property of the social relationship rather than a quality of the individual • Power is not owned by an individual but is a product of the communication relationship in which certain qualities become important and valuable to others • Power is always interpersonal • Power is given from one party to another in a conflict

17. Power is based on one’s dependence on resources or currencies that another person controls, or seems to possess

18. Interpersonal Power • Is the ability to influence a relational partner in any context because you control, or at least the partner perceives you control, resources that the partner needs, values, desires, or fears • Includes the ability to resist influence attempts of a partner

19. Power Currencies • R – Resource Control • I – Interpersonal Linkages • C – Communication Skills • E – Expertise

20. Resource Control • Leadership and position, by their very nature, place a person in a situation in which others are dependent upon him or her, thus bringing power

21. Interpersonal Linkages • A set of currencies depend on your interpersonal contacts and network of friends and supporters • Coalition building • “Who you know . . .”

22. Communication Skills • Conflict management skills depend on a thorough grounding in communication skills

23. Expertise Currencies • When you have a particular skill or knowledge

24. Power Currencies • The most effective conflict participant develops several forms of power currencies and knows when to activate the different forms of power

25. Application 4.5 • Think of a particular relationship which there is conflict • List your own power resources • List the other person’s power resources • Any that are being overlooked or underused?

26. Power Manifestations • Feminine – safety and power needs are often met by becoming smaller and less visible • Masculine – seeking safety is by becoming the feared individual, by becoming bigger and more visible

27. High Power vs. Low Power • A goal that people strive for • May develop altered views of themselves and others • Might corrupt you • Corruption means moral rottenness and inability to maintain the integrity of self • Powerlessness can corrupt also • Powerlessness can lead to giving up, aggression, or violence • Too much losing does not build character; it builds frustration, aggression, or apathy

28. Collaboration • Each person stops directly interferring with the other and actively assists the other in getting what he or she wants • Communication between the two originally in conflict serves as a transcendant function

29. Balancing Power • Face to face conversation is starting point for enacting the internal desire to balance power • Page 134

30. Power-Dependence Relations • When two people elevate their dependence of each other, both increase their source of power

31. Power of Calm Persistence • Substantive change, when power is unequal, seldom comes through intense, angry confrontation

32. Low Power Strategies • Speak up and present a balanced picture of strengths and weaknesses • Make clear what one’s beliefs, values, and priorities are, and keep one’s behavior congruent with these • Stay emotionally connected to significant others even when things get intense • State differences, and allow others to do the same

33. Metacommunication • Focuses the parties on the process of their communication with each other