Bound in Honor: How Honor Values and Insults Affect the Experience and Management of Conflicts

Abstract

A quasi-experiment tested the effects of honor values and the other party's communication style (insulting versus not insulting) on experienced conflict intensity, negative emotions, and intentions to behave distributively and integratively during a workplace conflict. After honor values were measured, participants read a scenario in which a conflict was described. In the scenarios, the other party's communication style was manipulated by describing the other party's communication such that either an insult was uttered or no insult was uttered. Consistent with our hypotheses, results showed that conflicts in which the other party used an insult lead to higher ratings of experienced conflict intensity, more negative emotions, and higher levels of distributive behavior than conflicts in which the other party did not use an insult in high-honor-value participants, but not in low-honor-value participants. Mediation analyses showed that the interactive effect of honor values and the other party's communication style on distributive behavior could be explained by experienced conflict intensity and negative emotions.

Keywords: Honor Values, Insults, Conflict Management