Browsing by Subject "conflict"

Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
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    Behavioral, affective, cognitive, and physiological consequences of relational power during conflict
    (2016-07) Farrell, Allison
    Power is a fundamental and much-studied concept in social psychology, but the majority of the research on power tests for power differences between pairs of strangers or in hierarchical organizations. The way power operates in other social contexts, such as close relationships, may be very different. This study tested for effects of relational power in romantic couples on behavioral (e.g., influence tactic use, hostility), affective (e.g., negativity, emotional suppression), cognitive (e.g., careful speech, empathic accuracy), and physiological (e.g., heart rate, skin conductance) consequences during a discussion regarding a major conflict. Very few effects of actor or partner power were found, and there were very few consistent patterns for moderators expected to ameliorate the effects of power (e.g., commitment, closeness, partner responsiveness) or exacerbate power differences (e.g., exchange orientation, hostility), nor were there consistent gender differences. Potential explanations for the lack of clear effects are discussed.
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    Demographics and Conflict
    (2016) Andregg, Michael M.
    Demographics and Conflict Introduction to an Ancient Paradigm: population growth, environmental degradation, rising death rates and conflicts, exodus, war or genocide. People have been killing each other since before the beginning of written history, as recorded by the broken bones of people massacred long before writing was invented. One of the quiet reasons for the really large scale killings called genocides and wars is demographics, the statistics of birth rates, death rates, growth rates and migrations into or out of territories. This dimension is under-covered by those who focus on the statements or acts of key leaders. Commanders of war typically describe their reasons in political, religious or military terms, not demographics. But they were also often driven by forces they barely understood and could not control. The Mayan Empire probably fell that way. Easter Island certainly did. And the deserts of North Africa are filled with ruins from cities and empires that thrived … before the forests and farmable land turned into desert. The Kenyans have a saying: “First came forests, then man, then the deserts.” Therefore this chapter will show how simple births, deaths and migrations lead to an iron law of biology. This law observes that all living populations eventually achieve equilibrium with their environment, which means birth rates equal death rates and the population neither grows nor declines, or they die. Populations that try to grow forever become extinct or suffer catastrophic death rates. The modern case of Syria disintegrating after 2010 will be considered in some detail, because it also shows how global factors like climate change can trigger chaos. Syria’s population growth rate in 2011 was 2.4% per year, but when half its population was displaced by civil wars and about 6 million fled, its growth rate became sharply negative. At least 250,000 people died by violence alone. This will be followed by a short section on “Human Nature, Nurture, Free Will and War” because that topic has generated much commentary over centuries, with large implications if one accepts the simplistic conclusions that people are either born “innately” warlike, or rather “innately” social and cooperative. Truth is that people can be either one or the other depending on circumstances, and that much neglected factor “free will” or personal decisions. Finally we close with how a few more complicated demographics like “pyramidal” vs. “columnar” age distributions, and distorted sex ratios may influence the probability of organized armed conflict on earth today and in the future.
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    Examining Children's Apologies in the Preschool Classroom
    (2024-07) Joyer, Amy
    Although acts of apology are learned early in development and play a fundamental role in repairing interpersonal relationships, most children's apology research is not based on naturally occurring child apologies but on children's impressions of adult actors, hypothetical peers, or story characters apologizing for transgressions. This study focused on closing the gaps between the current understanding of young children's impressions of apologies and their actual apologetic behavior by examining 3- to 5-year-old children's naturally occurring peer apologies in two preschool classrooms. An apology coding frame was created to account for verbal and nonverbal apologetic communication behaviors and social repair was measured using forgiveness markers, a peer likeability sorting task, and the time it took to return to play following each conflict. Responses from child participant interviews and parent and teacher surveys were used to evaluate differences in child participants' ideas about apologies, their actual apologetic communication behaviors, and parent and teacher expectations. Findings add to the broader understanding of early apologetic behavior by (a) confirming that preschoolers' verbal apology use is positively associated with peer likability in a natural setting, (b) offering new insights into preschooler's apologetic communication tendencies by substantiating how preschool children use nonverbal apologetic behaviors at a significantly higher rate than verbal apologetic behaviors, and (c) documenting differences between preschool children's understanding of apologies and their apologetic tendencies following actual peer conflicts.
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    Gendered Coping Mechanisms for Human-Tiger Conflict in Chitwan National Park, Nepal
    (2019-06) Helle, Samantha
    Human-tiger conflict (HTC) threatens both tiger (Panthera tigris tigris) conservation initiatives and the lives of local people who depend on tiger-shared forests for subsistence. In buffer zone community forests around Chitwan National Park, Nepal, incidences of human-killings have increased over the past 20 years resulting in widespread research and programs to mitigate HTC. While previous studies have explored conflict mitigation strategies at the government and institutional levels, this study seeks to understand, through a gendered lens, HTC mitigation methods known and practiced by individuals living in three HTC hotspot buffer zone communities south of Chitwan National Park. We applied Feminist Political Ecology theory, with gender as the central analytical variable along with the consideration of other socio-demographic factors, to understand where tigers rank in perceived wildlife threats, what individual HTC mitigation methods are known and practiced, and what barriers exist to implementing known methods. Individual interviews (n=150), sampling men and women equally, revealed that tigers rank second overall as the most threatening wildlife species to residents, with no difference in mean ranking between women and men. Across the three sampled communities, 31 unique HTC mitigation methods were reported. The three most commonly reported methods were going to the forest in groups, taking a weapon for protection, and not wearing the color red. There was no significant difference in mean number of HTC mitigation methods known between men (μ= 2.57) and women (μ=2.29). However, using a repeated measures ANOVA, a significant difference in mean number of methods known and practiced in the last month of the survey was found between men and women. Men reported significantly more barriers to implementing methods than women. Respectively, the top methods men and women reported not using often were traveling in groups and wearing non-red clothing. Dominant socio-cultural practices coupled with known biological factors associated with HTC may contribute to reported implementation barriers and place men from one out of the three study areas who enter the forest alone at high risk for an attack. Further analysis and understanding of how gender and other social constructs play a role in HTC is needed to reduce incidences of HTC and the removal of tigers from core conservation areas.