The effects of self‐construals and ethnicity on self‐reported conflict styles

Abstract

This study examined whether self‐construal and/or ethnicity predict self‐reported conflict styles of individuals in small group settings. Participants (N=349) completed a questionnaire about a cooperative or competitive task with members from an ingroup or outgroup. Comparisons between Latino(a)s (n=115) and European Americans (n=234) suggest that: (1) self‐construal is a better predictor of conflict styles than ethnic/cultural background; (2) dominating conflict styles are associated positively with independent self‐construals while avoiding, obliging, and compromising conflict styles are associated positively with interdependent self‐construals; and (3) integrating conflict styles are associated strongly and positively with interdependent self‐construals and weakly and positively with independent self‐construals.