Face Negotiation Theory - Essay Example

Face Negotiation Theory Continuously, the concept of face have been used by different in explaining linguistic politeness, embarrassment episodes, apology acts, rapport building, requesting behaviors, and in conflict interactions. The origin of face negotiation theory stemmed from the dissatisfaction of the author with the mainstream interpersonal conflict communication literature in the early 1980s. In the mainstream, research on Western based workplace and interpersonal conflict communication literature, self-disclosure, and the twin ideologies of conflict confrontation reflected strong endorsement (Oetzel and Ting-Toomey 2-4). At the same time, research findings reflected that, there were minimal silence strategies, avoidance styles, and conflict tactfulness. As such, the author set out to incorporate a stronger Eastern or Asian cultural lens on conflict negotiation in a variety of contexts. This research paper will seek to test the underlying assumption of the face negotiation theory that face is an explanatory mechanism for culture’s influence on the behavior of conflicts. To begin with, the research will administer a number of questionnaires to several participants in various different national cultures asking them to give a description of interpersonal conflict. After administering the questionnaires, the major findings of the this study came as follows; cultural individualism collectivism revealed direct and indirect effects on conflict styles, self-face and other-face related positively with independent self construal. Additionally, self-face related positively with conflict styles that are dominant and other-face related positively with integrating and avoiding styles, and finally, face accounted for all of the total variance explained (Littlejohn and Foss 172). However, it is worth noting that, face dominated and avoided some of the variances explained when considering face concerns, cultural individualism- collectivism, and self-construal. According to Stella, conflict earns the meaning, a perceived and actual incompatibility of values, processes, expectations, and outcomes between two or more parties over relational or substantive matters. In this research, a number of investigations make maximum use of the face negotiation theory. With reference to face negotiation theory, the author argues that face is an explanatory mechanism for management different styles of conflict within different cultural groups. Face is a representation of a claimed sense of a positive image of an individual in the context of social interaction. The general tendencies of patterned responses to conflict in a variety of antagonistic interactive situations refer to styles of managing conflicts. Face negotiation theory has strength whereby, it provides an explanatory and organized framework for behavior conflicts (Littlejohn and Foss 175). Nevertheless, the underlying assumption that face is an explanatory mechanism for conflict behavior has no previous tests. Prior investigations did not measure face directly but rather used face post hoc in explaining the relationship between conflicts and variables of culture. Hence, this research sought to incorporate testing the assumption that face is the explanatory mechanism for the relationship between culture and conflict management style as well. Research findings shows that, face negotiation theory provides a decisive framework of explanation for describing differences and similarities in face and face work during times of conflict. Concisely, the face negotiation theory argues that, in all cultures, people try to maintain and negotiate face in all communication situations. In addition, the concept of face becomes problematic especially in situations where there is uncertainty such as conflict or embarrassment circumstances (Littlejohn and Foss 191). This happens when situated identities of communication respond to questioning. Individual level variables, variability of culture, as well as variables of situation influence the cultural selection concerns of members of one set of face over others such as self-oriented face-savings versus other-oriented face-saving. Subsequently, face concerns influence the use of a number of face work and conflict strategies in intergroup and in interpersonal encounters. The current version of face negotiation theory by Stella has 32 propositions whereby, these propositions focus on behavior of conflicts between cultural variables such as individualism collectivism. Furthermore, they posit the relationship between individual level variables like self-construal and conflict styles. Prior researches and tests support fully these propositions (Landis, Bennett, and Bennett 218). This research tested the underlying assumption that face mediates the relationship between cultural or individual level variables and conflict styles. More over, it reviewed styles of conflict, discussed the explanatory variables, while referring to specific assumptions and propositions of the face negotiation theory, and sectioned the findings into the following subheadings. Conflict styles Therefore, conflict is a combination of traits such as personality and cultural background and states like a situation. There are a number of approaches deployed in explaining conflict styles, but the primary ones are five-style and three-style models. Anthropologists findings base the five-style model on the dual-concern model of concern for own outcomes and concern for other’s outcomes. From the two dimensions, this research documented the following results for five-style models of handling interpersonal conflicts. The five-style model integrative in that, it is high on both concern for self and other, dominative in that, it has high self-concern and low other concern (Landis, Bennett, and Bennett 242). Moreover, compromising such that it is moderate on both concerns for self and other, obliging since it has low self-concern and high other concern and finally, it is avoiding, as it is low on both concern for self and other. The three-style model proponents explained that the five-style models could reduce to the following three primary conflict styles. First, they can reduce to control, force, and dominate. Second, the can trim to issue-oriented, solution-oriented, and integrating and lastly to smoothing, non-confrontational or avoiding. Stella demonstrated existence of three underlying factors for behavior of conflict by use of a methodological procedure which the Q-sort technique. She identified that, there were thirteen different types of face work behavior at the time of conflicts with relatives or best friends. They include, apologize, aggression, compromise, avoid, express feelings, defend self, involve a third party, private discussion, pretend, consider the other among the rest (Littlejohn and Foss 374). This research on face negotiation theory sought to ask the participants to rate the effectiveness and appropriateness of three messages within each of the categories. After that, factor analysis of these ratings revealed three underlying categories that include dominating, avoiding, and integrating. Cultural Individualism-collectivism In face negotiation theory, individualism-collectivism is one of the key cultural variables integrated in explaining conflict styles. Individualism is a social pattern that consists of loosely linked individuals who happen to view themselves as independent of collectives and who give priority to their personal goals over those of others (Littlejohn and Foss 380). On the other end, collectivism is a social pattern that consists of closely linked individuals who see themselves as part of one or more collectives as in form of family, tribe, nation, coworkers, and are willing to give priority to the goals of these collectives over their own personal goals. In order to establish qualitative findings, this research decided to examine four national cultures: China, Japan, Germany, and the United Sates. This study of national cultures revealed the following information regarding these four cultures under study: China as collectivistic, Germany as moderately individualistic, Japan as moderately collectivistic and the United States as individualistic. Drawings from the face negotiation theory depict that, some propositions posit the relationship between cultural individualism collectivism and conflict styles. Specifically, members from individualistic cultures tend to use more dominating strategies such as integrating and fewer avoiding conflict strategies compared to members from collectivistic cultures. Previous researches conform to these arguments and demonstrated support for the propositions. For instance, this research revealed that, American students used measures when confronting conflicts and avoided conflicts less than Japanese students avoid. Thus, in cultural individualism collectivism, face negotiation theory presents moderate and absolute classifications of different cultures. Individual level: Self-construal Individual level factors mediate the relationship avid cultural level variables and conflict styles. One can learn conflict behavior within the primary socialization process of one’s cultural or ethnic group. Individuals learn the scripts and norms for effective and appropriate conduct of conflict in their immediate cultural environment. Furthermore, these tendencies, in turn, also influence individual level factors that include the way individual conceive of themselves. As such, individuals can vary from the predominant framework of culture of a society (Walker 73). Essentially, values of culture have a direct effect on conflict behavior and an indirect effect on conflict behavior mediated through individual level factors. Self-construal is one’s self image and composes of an independent and an interdependent self. It is a key individual factor responsible for focusing on individual variables between and within cultures. The independent construal of self involves the view that an individual is a unique entity with an individuated repertoire of feelings, motivations, and cognitions. In contrast, the interdependent construal of self involves an emphasis on the importance of relational connectedness. Specifically, some propositions of face negotiation theory associates independence with dominating and substantive conflict styles, whereas interdependence associated positively with avoiding and relational conflict modes. Therefore, self-construal associates both integrating substantives and relational modes (Walker 81). Recent research studies found that, self-construal and conflict styles of Latin Americans and European Americans associate dominating styles and independence positively whereas obliging, avoiding, and compromising styles associates positively with interdependence. Face concerns Face negotiation theory made emphasis on three face concerns whereby, self-face concern is for one’s own image. Other-face is the concern for another’s image and mutual face is concern for both parties’ image and the image of the relationship. Nonetheless, the majority of the assumptions and propositions of the current theory focus on self- and other-face. Propositions one to six focuses on differences between members of individualistic and collectivistic cultures in regards to self- and other-face. An extant review of the literature supports this summary (Guilherme and Glaser 26). The author’s research findings from hypothetical conflict episodes involving members from collectivistic cultures and members from individualistic cultures document the following. Members from collectivistic cultures of different nations such as Taiwan, Korea, and China reported a higher degree of other-face compared to members of the individualistic cultures like the United States of America. The same findings established that, the latter had a higher degree of self-face compared to the former. As surprising as it may sound, Japanese were contrary to expectations as the study results demonstrated that they tend to have a low self-face and a high other-face relative to other national cultures. Similarly, self-concerns influence face concerns. The revised face negotiation theory does not include specific propositions focusing on these relations, but this study can extrapolate that similar relationship for self-construal and face concerns to that of individualistic collectivism as well as face concerns. In particular, face negotiation theory associate self-face with independence positively and other-face with interdependence whereby a recent study supports this assumption. This study examined face concerns in different national cultures and found out that, the independent self-construal correlated positively with self-face and interdependent self-construal positively correlated with other-face. Face concerns, in turn, influence styles of conflict. Self-face associate positively with dominating styles of conflict, whereas other-face associate positively with avoiding styles of conflict (Guilherme and Glaser 36). In addition, integrating relational conflict modes and substantive this research found that they associate positively with both self-and other-face. Hypothesis The underlying assumption of the face negotiation theory is that face is the explanatory mechanism between individual- and cultural-level variables and styles of conflict. Further, Stella described the causal paths of the face negotiation theory where she explained that, cultural socialization provides the foundation for individual orientations that is, self-construal and conflict behavior. Cultural orientation influences the degree of people’s self-construal and face concerns when individuals undergo a conflict situation. Finally, these concerns then go ahead to impact people’s conflict behavior (Watts 99). Additionally, cultural socialization influences directly behavior of conflict because it is in people’s culture that they learn appropriate and effective behaviors of conflict. Based on this literature review, this research decided to test the relationship of face negotiation variables using four hypotheses. First hypothesis posited that, cultural individualism collectivism has both direct and mediated paths through self-construal and face concerns to conflict styles. Secondly, independent self-construal associates positively with self-face, whereas interdependent self-construal associates positively with other-face. Thirdly, self-face associates positively with dominating conflict styles whereas other-face associates positively with integrating and avoiding styles. Fourth, face concerns mediate the relationship between cultural individual collectivism and conflict styles. The hypotheses incorporated participants, used different research instruments such as questionnaires, and followed a set of procedures in establishing responds. Results There is potential overlap in the items for the variables for example self-construal, self-face, independent, and dominating. The first hypothesis predicted that cultural individualism collectivism has direct and mediated paths to conflict styles. The second hypothesis posited that independent self-construal associates positively with self-face whereas interdependent self-construal associated positively with other-face. The third hypothesis predicted self-face associated positively with dominating conflict styles whereas other face associated with avoiding and integrating conflict styles positively (Watts 83). The fourth hypothesis proffered that face concerns mediate the relationship between cultural individualism collectivism and conflict styles. Further research findings support the fourth hypothesis for having dominated and partially supported integrating and avoiding. Particularly, it should be borne in mind that, face concerns explains all of the variance in dominating, most of the variance I integrating, and some of the variance in avoiding. Discussion This study made some major findings that include the following; cultural individualism collectivism had direct effects on conflict styles as well as mediated effects via self-construal and face concerns. In addition, independent self-construal associated with self-concern positively and interdependent self-construal associated positively with self-face- and other-face concern. Self-face concern associated positively with dominating conflicting styles and other-face concern associated positively with integrating and avoiding conflict styles. Face concern accounted for all of the total variance explained integrating, some of the total variance explained in avoiding when considering face concerns, cultural individualism collectivism, and self-construal. This research made maximum use of different methods of data collection and as a result, it was in a position to give adequate explanation the thesis statement. Moreover, it recommends further findings and any suitable citation that is beneficial for future use as well as recommendation that can see this assumption soar to different heights (Rimmington and Alagic 130). Limitations, future directions, and conclusion Although the measures employed in this study are beneficial for intercultural research from an attic perspective, there are one or two limitations regarding this investigation. Often, a structural model posits causal relationships, and this is the case for the face negotiation theory. The data collected in this study were cross sectional. Thus, it is impossible to asses whether the variables relate causally or associate simply. Therefore, future research using a different design will be necessary to test the causal relationship of the face negotiation theory. In sum, this study provides further step in understanding the complex nature of face and conflict behavior. The findings provide supportive evidence of the face negotiation theory, especially that face concerns providing a mediating link between conflict behavior and cultural values (Rimmington and Alagic 151). Finally, face negotiation theory is a popular theoretical framework for practice and research, and this test of the theory further substantiates usefulness of the theory. In spite of this support, this paper recommend further research in order to better understand how face can negotiate in cross-cultural and intercultural conflicts to create more harmonious multicultural relationships. Works Cited Guilherme, Manuela and Glaser, Evelyn. The Intercultural Dynamics of Multicultural Working. Bristol: Multilingual Matters, 2010. Print. Landis, Dan, Bennett, Janet and Bennett, Milton. Handbook of intercultural training. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2004. Print. Littlejohn, Stephen and Foss, Karen. Encyclopedia of Communication Theory, Volume 1. Thousand Oaks: SAGE, 2009. Print. Littlejohn, Stephen and Foss, Karen. Theories of human communication. Ohio: Cengage Learning, 2007. Print. Oetzel, John and Ting-Toomey, Stella. Face concerns in interpersonal conflict: A cross-cultural empirical test for the face negotiation theory. Retrieved from http://www.uk.sagepub.com/jandt6estudy/study/chapters/03/Oetzel.pdf on April 9, 2012. Rimmington, Glyn and Alagic, Mara. Third Place Learning: Reflective Inquiry into Intercultural and Global Cage Painting. Charlotte: IAP, 2008. Print. Walker, Ryan. Strategic Management Communication for Leaders. Ohio: Cengage Learning, 2010. Print. Watts, Richard. Politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print. Read More