Women's and Men's Scripts for Interpersonal Conflict

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Abstract
Two studies are reported in which women's and men's mental representations of interpersonal conflict were compared. In the first, exploratory study, undergraduate women and men wrote scripts for a conflict between two friends over broken promises. In the second, they created scripts for five different types of interpersonal conflicts by selecting from among previously written responses that depict alternative beginnings, middles, and ends to each conflict. Results from both studies suggest few differences in general types of responses selected by women and men but consistent differences in contingencies of their responses. Development of the men's scripts depended more on the offended party's initiation of conflict, whereas development of women's scripts depended more on whether the offending party apologized. Results suggest that men may use more personal or independent criteria in representing the management of conflict, whereas women may use more interpersonal or interdependent criteria.

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