Power as determinant of the distributive conflict resolution: strategies of university students

The present study is designed to explore the role that power difference plays in relation to three types of distributive conflict resolution strategies: forcing, avoiding, and accommodating. This report invokes the data of a student conflict resolution skills survey created by the author. The study involved 238 students from Mykolas Romeris University and was carried out in 2012-2014. The results showed that about two-fifths of young people tended to avoid a conflict by denying it. About one-fifth of students tended to accommodate by passively accepting the decisions that their partner makes. Some of students tended to damage or to humiliate the opponent. These distributive conflict resolution tendencies should be borne in mind when developing student skills during lectures and seminars at a university. Support was found for the relationship between referent role and the strategies of handling interpersonal conflict. Overall there was a greater use of accommodating in unequalpower dyads, and a greater use of forcing in equal-power dyads. Avoiding strategy did not show a meaningful difference. This study confirms the importance of mitigating the effects of unequal power relationships in dealing with conflict.