Cognitive Effects of Attitude Conflict Resolution

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Abstract
Interpersonal conflict usually involves conflict over attitudes as well as over scarce resources. It is hypothesized that the course of attitude conflicts will influence the subsequent view of the issue under dispute. Specifically, competitively oriented subjects will highly differentiate the opposing attitude positions while cooperatively oriented subjects will emphasize the similarity of the positions. These perceptual changes are expected to be cognitively mediated by differential weighting of the ways in which the position differ. In an experiment to test this hypothesis, pairs of subjects were assigned attitude positions on how National Health Insurance should be organized. Positions within any pair differed a great deal in some ways and less in others. Pairs then discussed the issue under either cooperative or competitive contingencies. The results of the experiment strongly confirmed the hypothesis: competition led to decreased perceived similarity between the positions and an emphasis upon those ways in which the positions differed the most. Cooperation had opposite effects.

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