Folger, Poole, and Stutman write about the importance of conflict and the potential of conflict interaction, by which they mean that there are advantages to conflict, positive functions deriving from conflict. The authors note that conflict is something everyone experiences and so ask why social scientists and others persist in telling us about something we already know first hand. In order to illustrate the nature of conflict, they use a case study of conflict in a small work group, and based on this they offer a definition of conflict, cite arenas of conflict interaction, and consider what is productive an what is destructive about conflict interaction.
The authors make the interesting and accurate point that conflict should be seen as interactive behavior, for an interaction is necessary to produce conflict. A conflict interchange involves behavior following the pattern initiation-response-counterresponse. The authors also note that this pattern is too complex to be understood by dividing it into its sections, and the cycle has a momentum all its own. Their conclusion is also cogent given the nature of conflict and of their discussion of it--conflict is something standing as if on a precipice so that one push can send it in a negative direction, while another push can send it in a positive direction. The authors do not give much direction as to how to decide which push is which, but they do show that when faced with conflict, you are in a position to make it a negative or a positive experience.
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