Managing conflict through team member schema accuracy: A fresh perspective on perspective taking

Abstract

The present study sought to investigate perspective taking as a means to decrease harmful affective conflict within teams. Previous research has demonstrated that teams often experience unhealthy affective conflict along with the healthy debate that is encouraged in team discussions, when team members misinterpret such debate as personal attacks. By utilizing Olsen and Kenny's dyadic SEM approach (2016) to simultaneously explore all hypothesized actor and partner effects, the present study identified perspective taking and team member schema accuracy as mechanisms that can prevent such misinterpretations and thereby decrease harmful affective conflict among team members. Perspective taking was assessed using a novel higher-order factor approach to capture the complexity of the cognitive process, rather than the traditional single measure self report scale. Results indicated an actor effect such that increased perspective taking led to greater team member schema accuracy. Team member schema accuracy had a negative actor effect and a negative partner effect on affective conflict, which in turn had a negative actor effect on team effectiveness. Additionally, training team members to engage in perspective taking behaviors led to increased team member schema accuracy compared with teams that did not receive training, providing an effective practical solution for the reduction of affective conflict in work teams.