CONFLICTS, STRESS AND COMMUNICATION WITHIN GROUPS

Applying Different Concepts Related to Managing Conflicts and Stress

Definition

The term conflict management refers to processes and programs that teach individuals concepts and skills for preventing, managing, and resolving conflicts non-violently. Conflict management programs can teach life skills, "win-win" negotiation strategies, mediation skills, and violence prevention strategies. They are implemented in elementary, middle and high schools to help students, teachers, administrators and parents resolve conflicts effectively.

Basic Principles of Conflict Management

Conflict is natural, necessary, and normal

How we manage conflict determines whether it is functional or dysfunctional – productive or destructive

There are a variety of conflict styles that each have advantages in certain situations

Conflict is natural. Conflict, to differing degrees, occurs daily in everyone's life. Conflict in and of itself is not necessarily good or bad.

It's the way that conflict is handled that makes the outcome positive or negative. If handled effectively, conflict can create a good learning experience. If handled ineffectively, conflict can quickly escalate, even to physical and emotional violence.

Basic Principles of Conflict Management in Schools

Individuals can learn new skills. Although conflict is a natural part of human existence, many children and adults lack the skills necessary to effectively resolve conflicts. However, children and adults can learn new conflict skills and can learn to rely upon them when in conflict situations.  Young people and adults can quickly learn to use effective problem-solving concepts and skills, if they are given an opportunity to practice the new skills are encouraged to use their new skills in real life situations and are able to observe peers and people in authority modeling effective problem-solving skills

Ideally, all students, school personnel, parents, and community members who work with youth should receive conflict management skills training. Although this goal cannot be accomplished immediately, it should be a long term goal of school and community leaders.

Conflict Resolution education (CRE) should be culturally sensitive. Some people assume that conflict management can only work in certain cultures and certain school populations. The research demonstrates that many CRE programs are equally effective in a variety of cultural contexts. However, programs may be more effective and more readily adopted by students and staff if they are clearly sensitive to the school culture and the student culture

 What is Stress?Stress is any action or situation

that places special physical or psychological demands upon a person, anything that can unbalance his individual equilibrium. And while the physiological response to such demand is surprisingly uniform, the forms of stress are innumerable.

1.1 CONCEPT OF STRESS

Stress is a complex phenomenon. It is very subjective experience. What may be challenge for one will be a stressor for another. It depends largely on background experiences, temperament and environmental conditions. Stress is a part of life and is generated by constantly changing situations that a person must face. The term stress refers to an internal state, which results from frustrating or unsatisfying conditions. A certain level of stress is unavoidable. Because of its complex nature stress has been studied for many years by researchers in psychology, sociology and medicine

1.2 DEFINING STRESS

Defining stress is a very complex matter, which is the subject of different analyses and continuous debate among experts. Beyond the details of this debate, a general consensus can be reached about a definition of stress, which is centered around the idea of a perceived imbalance in the interface between an individual, the environment and other individuals

1.3 OCCUPATIONAL STRESS

Occupational stress can be defined as the harmful physical and emotional responses that occur when the requirements of the job do not match the capabilities, resources, or needs of the worker. Job stress can lead to poor health and even injury. The concept of Occupational stress is often confused with challenge, but these concepts are not the same.

1.4 DEFINITIONS OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESS

According to Kyriacou (1987), defines “teacher stress as the experience by a teacher of unpleasant emotions such as tension, frustration, anger and depression resulting from aspects of his work as a teacher.”

1.5 CAUSES OF OCCUPATIONAL STRESS

Nearly everyone agrees that Occupational stress results from the interaction of the worker and the conditions of work. Views differ, however, on the importance of worker characteristics versus working conditions as the primary cause of Occupational stress. These differing viewpoints are important because they suggest different ways to prevent stress at work.

 

1.6 SYMPTOMS OF WORK-RELATED STRESS

Defining a clear link between occupational causes, and the resulting symptoms is much harder for a condition such as stress than is it for a disease such as mesothelioma (which is only caused by exposure to asbestos). Because many of the symptoms of stress are generalised - such as increased anxiety, or irritability - it is easy for them to be ascribed to a characteristic of the worker, rather than to a condition of the work.

Differentiating among the various stages of group formation

Group development

The goal of most research on group development is to learn why and how small groups change over time. To do this, researchers examine patterns of change and continuity in groups over time. Aspects of a group that might be studied include the quality of the output produced by a group, the type and frequency of its activities, its cohesiveness, the existence of group conflict.

A number of theoretical models have been developed to explain how certain groups change over time. Listed below are some of the most common models. In some cases, the type of group being considered influenced the model of group development proposed as in the case of therapy groups. In general, some of these models view group change as regular movement through a series of "stages," while others view them as "phases" that groups may or may not go through and which might occur at different points of a group's history. Attention to group development over time has been one of the differentiating factors between the study of ad hoc groups and the study of teams such as those commonly used in the workplace, the military, sports and many other contexts.

Ways a manager can induce desirable conflict

What is Conflict

The potential for conflict exists whenever and wherever people have contact. As people are organized into groups to seek a common goal, the probability of conflict greatly increases. Since only the most serious conflicts make headlines, conflict has a negative connotation for many people. All conflicts are not the same.

Conflict and Competition

Although competition is often confused with conflict, there are important differences between the two concepts. U.S. society is based on a tradition of competition in jobs and leisure activities as well as in stress competition. Most competition however, contains the seed for potential conflict.

Conflict and competition have a common root because in each case individuals or groups are usually striving toward incompatible goals. The major difference exists in the form of interference that blocks attainment of the goal.

In competition between groups working toward the same goal, the competitors have "rules" (formal and informal guidelines) that limit what they can do to each other in attempting to reach their goal. Athletic events are examples of organized competition with extensive rules setting forth boundaries of behavior.

The Dimensions of Conflict

Robinson (1972) identifies the dimensions of conflict as: ( I ) threats or disputes over territory, whether the boundaries of the territory are physical, social, or work boundaries; and (2) threats to values, goals, and policies, as well as threats to behavior.

With regard to territory, threats to physical boundaries often involve property disputes or controversy over water resources usage by different groups.

The Effects of Conflict - Positive Aspects of Conflict

"Not all conflict is bad and not all cooperation is good," according to Robinson (1972). People tend to view conflict as a negative force operating against successful completion of group or community goals. Conflict can be harmful to groups but may also serve some potentially positive functions, depending upon the types of groups within and among which it occurs. Not every type of conflict may benefit groups, and conflict may not serve such functions for all groups (Coser and Rosenberg, 1964). Conflict could be productive and could have positive effects on groups. Three of these positive effects are: improving the quality of decisions, stimulating involvement in the discussion, and building group cohesion.

Identifying roles people fill in an organizations communication network

Organizational communication is a subfield of the larger discipline of communication studies. Organizational communication, as a field, is the consideration, analysis, and criticism of the role of communication in organizational contexts.

History of Organizational Communication  The field traces its lineage through business information, business

communication, and early mass communication studies published in the 1930s through the 1950s. Until then, organizational communication as a discipline consisted of a few professors within speech departments who had a particular interest in speaking and writing in business settings. The current field is well established with its own theories and empirical concerns distinct from other fields.

Communication (from Latin "communis", meaning to share) is the activity of conveying information through the exchange of thoughts, messages, or information, as by speech, visuals, signals, writing, or behavior.

Nonverbal communication describes the process of conveying meaning in the form of non-word messages. Research shows that the majority of our communication is non verbal, also known as body language. In fact, 63-93% of communication is non-verbal

Oral communication, while primarily referring to spoken verbal communication, can also employ visual aids and non-verbal elements to support the conveyance of meaning. Oral communication includes speeches, presentations, discussions, and aspects of interpersonal communication.