defined in terms of the expression of one's honest feelings, attitudes, and opinions (especially as it relates to conflict resolution) became not only an important personal interest but also an academic interest which I choose to explore in my thesis.
Women, Power and Conflict Resolution: The Existing Research
The key question that can be asked with respect to the existing research is: What do conflict resolution studies show about women's experience and use of power? One pattern that has been observed is that women in conflict tend to accommodate or acquiesce.
For example, Nelson and Lubin (1991) explored how legislators share power by administering the Conflict Mode Instrument to 49 Democratic and 49 Republican legislators (87 males and 11 females). Interestingly, findings evidenced no differences between political parties. However, females were observed to be significantly higher on the CMI Accommodating subscale than males.
There is some indication that when the conflict is very important to a woman, she will utilize accommodation less frequently. Rosenthal and Hautaluoma (1988), for example, assessed the influence of interpersonal power, gender, and the importance of conflict by administering a conflict instrument to 59 male and 55 female managers in order to assess their conflict management style.
Results showed no differences between men and women in conflict situations they considered highly important. In such situations, both genders evidenced high use of collaboration and competition and low use of accommodation and avoidance.
Gender differences in characteristics of managers were examined by Rozier and Hersh-Cochran (1996) in terms of leadership roles, use of power, type of supervisory style preferred, career commitment, and work/family conflict for the female profession of physical therapy. A questionnaire sent to all members of the Private Practice and Administration Sections of the Americ...