Hi, I'm Julie Tietz, and welcome to Conflict Resolution: Putting the Pieces Together. Today we're going to cover a theoretical overview of conflict resolution. And here are our key terms and theories we're going to cover. Co-operative model, human needs model, principled negotiation, conflict styles theory, and conflict transformation. We'll define each of these as we go through this lesson.
So all theories, including those in conflict resolution, continue to grow and develop as new information is acquired and integrated into the theory. New information is obtained through new research studies that are conducted that show how things can be improved, or even how things are working. We also have seen through our own conflict resolution practice, in applying these theories, whether or not they are applicable.
So now we're going to define each of these theories. And I want you to notice some similarities and differences as we go through each of them, and see if you can spot them out.
First we have the cooperative model, and that is an approach to conflict resolution that encourages parties to see themselves as partners working jointly to solve the problem. So just as it states, we have people working together to solve the problem. And really, there isn't any competition because you all have the same goal and you want to work together.
Next is the human needs model. And that's a model of conflict resolution that presumes certain universal human needs, often described in hierarchical terms, influence parties' goals in conflict. So we're looking at our needs or interests that we have to have in order to be satisfied in our lives, and how that influences what our goals are going to be in a conflict.
Next we have principled negotiation, a form of negotiation that focuses on meeting parties' underlying interests rather than competing positions. So you're going to look at both sides and look at what their needs are, and try and see if these needs match to come up with a resolution, rather than polarizing each other in their positions.
Next we have conflict styles theory. And this is an approach to conflict resolution which sees the key to resolving conflict as selecting and working within the most appropriate style of resolution. So here we're going to evaluate the parties in the conflict and see what style of conflict resolution is going to work with them best because if we ignore the different styles, and we're working with two different styles of conflict resolution, then it's going to be rather difficult to come to some sort of resolution of the conflict.
Conflict transformation is an approach to conflict resolution which sees the key to resolving and preventing conflicts as changing the fundamental relationship between parties. So here we're going to take a more broad and holistic approach and look at the whole of the relationship between the parties because in examining the relationship, we can possibly move to a bigger and a more sustaining resolution of the conflict.
So today we covered the theoretical overview of conflict resolution. And it's important to remember that theories develop and change over time with new information, such as research or practice in applying the theories. We covered the cooperative human needs, principled negotiation, conflict styles, and conflict transformation theories. And some of the similarities between these theories would include they require cooperation and not competition. And some of the differences is that some of them require a more holistic or broad approach in resolving conflict.
Thank you for taking the time out to view this tutorial on the theoretical overview of conflict resolution, and I hope to catch you again next time.
