Goal Types, Gender, and Locus of Control in Managing Interpersonal Conflict

This article examines how actors' goals, gender, and locus of control affect conflict strategy behaviors. Extending a research program that investigates influence goals, conflict episodes were categorized into subsets of proactive and reactive goal types. Moreover, a measure of conflict locus of control (CLOC) was developed to assess actors' internal and external control orientations toward their interpersonal conflicts. Results revealed that distributive strategies were used more when defending oneself, whereas integrative tactics were used more to change one's relationship. Females were more likely than males to use personal criticism and anger strategies, whereas males were more likely to use denial tactics. In addition, CLOC internality was positively associated with integrative tactics, whereas CLOC externality was positively associated with avoidance and sarcasm strategies.