Ellen Giebels

Conflict stress and reduced well-being at work : The buffering effect of third-party help

This study among 108 Dutch social services workers examined whether particularly the intrapsychic tension directly associated with interpersonal conflict at work, i.e., conflict stress, is responsible for reduced well-being in terms of emotional exhaustion, absenteeism, and turnover intentions. Furthermore, we explored whether these detrimental effects were buffered by third-party help. Factor analyses showed that third-party help could be considered an additional conflict management style, next to more traditional behavioural styles such as problem solving and forcing. As expected, conflict stress was positively related to emotional exhaustion, absenteeism, and turnover intentions even when controlled for task and relationship conflict. Furthermore, this relationship was strong for respondents who report low third-party help and nonexistent for respondents who report high third-party help. These findings suggest that third-party help is a successful conflict management strategy to prevent negative outcomes of interpersonal conflict in organizations.

Let it be: expatriate couples' adjustment and the upside of avoiding conflicts

This research examines the moderating effect of conflict avoidance on the relationship between conflict and psychological adjustment among 45 expatriate couples at two points in time. We propose a model based on the actor–partner interdependence model, which assumes both intrapersonal and interpersonal effects, to address simultaneously the effects of ones own and the others avoidance behavior. We found substantial support for our model, especially for expatriate spouses. As expected, and only for expatriate spouses, avoidance moderated the conflict–adjustment relationship such that both ones own and ones counterparts avoidance behavior diminished the negative effect of conflicts. Because these effects were observed only at T2 and psychological adjustment decreased from T1 to T2, our research suggests that the impact of expatriation-associated interaction particularly manifests itself in the long run.

Patterns of Interaction in Police Interviews : The Role of Cultural Dependency

The authors analyzed authentic, videotaped police interviews (N = 27) to examine how the use of different influencing behaviors by police officers affects the provision of information by suspects. The analysis focused on variations in cue-response patterns across suspects from cultures that tend to use more direct and content-oriented communication (i.e., low-context cultures) and cultures in which communication is typically more indirect and context orientated (i.e., high-context cultures). As expected, rational arguments were more effective in eliciting case-related personal information from low-context suspects than from high-context suspects. Contrary to the authors’ expectations, high-context rather than low-context suspects seemed to respond negatively in terms of explicitly refusing to give information to police behavior coded as being kind. Additional analyses considered the effects of two types of intimidating behavior (intimidating the individual vs. the context) across the low- and high-context suspects. Results showed that intimidating the individual was more effective at eliciting case-related personal information from low-context suspects, whereas intimidating the context appeared to be more effective in eliciting case-related contextual information for high-context suspects.

Self-improvement and cooperation: How exchange relationships promote mastery-approach driven individuals' job outcomes

In the present research we argue that mastery-approach goals may be beneficial in social achievement contexts because these goals lead to constructive exchange relationship building. An examination of three methodologically complementary studies revealed that mastery-approach goals lead to more cooperative and higher-quality exchange relationships than performance-approach goals and are, ultimately, associated with better job outcomes, as well. The results of a questionnaire study demonstrated that mastery-approach goals are more strongly related to cooperative motives and more weakly related to competitive motives than performance-approach goals. Furthermore, an experimental study indicated that mastery-approach driven individuals show a higher concern for others and are more strongly inclined to cooperate with an exchange partner when engaged in a complex reasoning task than performance-approach driven individuals. Finally, an organizational field study showed that team–member exchange mediates the effect of mastery-approach goals on job performance, job satisfaction, and organizational commitment.

Are you talking to me? Influencing behaviour and culture in police interviews

Abstract This study examines the relationship between two types of influencing behaviour in police interviews (being kind and rational persuasion) and three types of interview effectiveness, i.e. the suspects’ willingness to give a statement, their estimation of the quality of the relationship with the detective, and suspects’ admission. We expected that being kind and rational persuasion (arguments referring to logic and rationality) would have a different effect on suspects from cultures that tend to be direct and content-oriented (low-context cultures) versus cultures in which communication is more indirect and context orientated (high-context cultures). To examine this, experienced police detectives interviewed mock theft suspects from low-context (n=25) and high-context (n=27) cultures. As predicted, and particularly for high-context suspects, being kind in terms of rewarding and offering was positively related to the perceived quality of the relationship of the suspect, while being kind in terms of active listening behaviour was positively related to admissions. Furthermore, and as expected, there was a positive relationship between rational persuasion of the police detective and admissions for low-context suspects, but also a negative relationship between rational persuasion and admissions for high-context suspects.

No way out or swallow the bait of two-sided exit options in negotiation: the influence of social motives and interpersonal trust

In two negotiation experiments with business students we examined effects of the two-sided availability of alternative negotiators in combination with the parties’ social motive. Contrary to our expectation, prosocial negotiators rather than egoistic negotiators were sensitive to the presence of alternative partners. While egoistic negotiators were relatively unaffected by mutual exit options, prosocials engaged in less problem solving and reached lower joint outcomes when having two-sided instead of no exit options. Low interpersonal trust was identified as being responsible for these effects. These findings add to theory and practice on alternatives and social motives in negotiation.

Lean on me : The importance of one’s own and partner’s intercultural personality for expatriate’s and expatriate spouse’s successful adjustment abroad

This research explores the role of three intercultural personality traits—emotional stability, social initiative, and open-mindedness—as coping resources for expatriate couples’ adjustment. First, we examined the direct relationships of expatriates’ and expatriate spouses’ personality trait levels with psychological and sociocultural adjustment. Psychological adjustment refers to internal psychological outcomes such as mental health and personal satisfaction, whereas sociocultural adjustment refers to more externally oriented psychological outcomes that link the individual to the new environment. Second, we examined the association of expatriates’ personality trait levels with professional adjustment, which was defined in terms of job performance and organizational commitment. Cross-sectional analyses among 196 expatriates and expatriate spouses (i.e., 98 expatriate couples) revealed that the three dimensions are each associated with specific facets of adjustment. A longitudinal analysis among a subsample (45 couples) partially confirmed these findings. Furthermore, we obtained evidence for a resource compensation effect, that is, the compensatory process whereby one partners lack of sufficiently high levels of a certain personality trait is compensated for by the other partners high(er) levels of this traits. Through this resource compensation effect, the negative consequences of a lack of sufficient levels of a personality trait on adjustment can be diminished. Apparently, in the absence of sufficiently high trait levels, individuals can benefit from personality resources in their partners.

The effect of stereotype content on anger versus contempt in “day-to-day” conflicts

Depending on how involved parties appraise day-to-day conflicts, they either may feel angry or contemptuous toward the other party, which, in turn, may result in stronger confronting or avoiding intentions. In this paper we investigated how the content of stereotypes associated with the group to which an outgroup perpetrator belongs affects appraisals, emotions, and behavior. In two experiments, we demonstrated that stereotyping an outgroup as less warm resulted in increased feelings of anger, and tendencies to react forcefully toward an outgroup party in a conflict. Specifically, this effect of low stereotype warmth was explained by increased appraisals of negative intentions. Stereotyping an outgroup as less competent in the same situation elicited increased feelings of contempt, and tendencies to avoid an outgroup party in a conflict. This effect of stereotype incompetence was due to decreased appraisals of control over the other party.

Strategic sequences in police interviews and the importance of order and cultural fit

This study introduces the concept of strategic sequences to police interviews and concentrates on the impact of active listening behavior and rational arguments. To test the authors’ central assumption that the effectiveness of strategic sequences is dependent on cultural fit (i.e., the match with the cultural background of suspects), young people participated in virtual police interviews. Study 1 demonstrated that contrast sequences accentuating rational rather than relational behavior were found to be effective in eliciting information and admissions from suspects originating from cultures that tend to use more direct and content-oriented communication (i.e., low-context cultures), whereas for suspects from cultures that use more indirect and context-oriented communication (i.e., high-context cultures) a nonsignificant trend in reversed order was found. Study 2 added the investigation of the joint impact of active listening and rational arguments. In line with predictions, the results showed that an active listening—rational arguments sequence is most effective when active listening behavior precedes— rather than follows—rational arguments.

The Critical Roles of Task Conflict and Job Autonomy in the Relationship Between Proactive Personalities and Innovative Employee Behavior

We examine why and when proactive personality is beneficial for innovative behavior at work. Based on a survey among 166 employees working in 35 departments of a large municipality in the Netherlands we show that an increase in task conflicts explains the positive relation between a proactive personality and innovative employee behavior. This process is moderated by job autonomy in such a way that the relationship between proactive personality and task conflict is particularly strong under low compared with high autonomy. The present research contributes to the discussion on the potential benefits of task conflict for change processes and highlights the importance of examining the interplay between personality and work context for understanding innovation practices.