The
more Emily seems to withdraw, the more alone, then hurt, then
enraged Greg becomes; the angrier he gets, the more hurt and distaste
Emily feels, and the deeper she retreats. Pretty soon they’re locked in a
destructive cycle from which they can’t escape, partly because both
spouses believe they’re arguing in an appropriate manner.
This dynamic shouldn’t surprise anyone familiar with the relationship
between personality and conflict resolution style. Just as men and
women often have different ways of resolving conflict, so do introverts
and
extroverts; studies suggest that the former tend to be conflict-
avoiders, while the latter are “confrontive copers,” at ease with an up-
front, even argumentative style of disagreement.
These are diametrically opposite approaches, so they’re bound to
create friction. If Emily didn’t mind conflict so much, she might not react
so strongly to Greg’s head-on approach; if Greg were milder-mannered,
he might appreciate Emily’s attempt to keep a lid on things. When
people have compatible styles of conflict,
a disagreement can be an
occasion for each partner to affirm the other’s point of view. But Greg
and Emily seem to understand each other a little
less
each time they
argue in a way that the other disapproves of.
Do they also
like
each other a little less, at least for the duration of the
fight? An illuminating study by the psychologist William Graziano
suggests that the answer to this question might be yes. Graziano divided
a group of sixty-one male students into teams to play a simulated
football game. Half the participants were
assigned to a cooperative
game, in which they were told, “Football is useful to us because to be
successful in football,
team members have to work well together
.” The other
half were assigned to a game emphasizing competition between teams.
Each student was then shown slides and fabricated biographical
information about his teammates and his competitors on the other team,
and asked to rate how he felt about the other players.
The differences between introverts and extroverts were remarkable.
The introverts assigned to the cooperative game rated all players—not
just their competitors, but also their teammates—more positively than
the introverts who played the competitive game. The extroverts did just
the opposite: they rated all players more positively when they played the
competitive version of the game. These findings suggest something very
important: introverts like people they meet in friendly contexts;
extroverts prefer those they compete with.
A very different study, in which robots interacted with stroke patients
during physical rehabilitation exercises, yielded strikingly similar results.
Introverted patients responded better and interacted longer with robots
that were designed to speak in a soothing, gentle manner: “I know it is
hard, but remember that it’s for your own good,” and, “Very nice, keep
up the good work.”
Extroverts, on the other hand, worked harder for
robots that used more bracing, aggressive language: “You can do more
than that, I know it!” and “Concentrate on your exercise!”
These findings suggest that Greg and Emily face an interesting
challenge. If Greg likes people more when they’re behaving forcefully or
competitively, and if Emily feels the same way about nurturing,
cooperative people, then how can they reach a compromise about their
dinner-party impasse—and get there in a loving way?
An intriguing answer comes from a University
of Michigan business
school study, not of married couples with opposite personality styles, but
of negotiators from different cultures—in this case, Asians and Israelis.
Seventy-six MBA students from Hong Kong and Israel were asked to
imagine they were getting married in a few months and had to finalize
arrangements with a catering company for the wedding reception. This
“meeting” took place by video.
Some of the students were shown a video in which the business
manager was friendly and smiley; the others saw a video featuring an
irritable and antagonistic manager. But the caterer’s
message was the
same in both cases. Another couple was interested in the same wedding
date. The price had gone up. Take it or leave it.
The students from Hong Kong reacted very differently from the Israeli
students. The Asians were far more likely to accept a proposal from the
friendly business manager than from the hostile one; only 14 percent
were willing to work with the difficult manager, while 71 percent
accepted the deal from the smiling caterer. But the Israelis were just as
likely
to accept the deal from
either
manager. In other words, for the
Asian negotiators, style counted as well as substance, while the Israelis
were more focused on the information being conveyed. They were
unmoved by a display of either sympathetic
or
hostile emotions.
The explanation for this stark difference has to do with how the two
cultures define respect. As we saw in
chapter 8
, many Asian people show
esteem by minimizing conflict. But Israelis, say the researchers, “are not
likely to view [disagreement] as a sign of disrespect, but as a signal that
the opposing party is concerned and is passionately engaged in the task.”
We might say the same of Greg and Emily. When Emily lowers her
voice and flattens her
affect during fights with Greg, she thinks she’s
being respectful by taking the trouble not to let her negative emotions
show. But Greg thinks she’s checking out or, worse, that she doesn’t give
a damn. Similarly, when Greg lets his anger fly, he assumes that Emily
feels, as he does, that this is a healthy and honest expression of their
deeply committed relationship. But to Emily, it’s as if Greg has suddenly
turned on her.
In her book
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