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Sixth Graders’ Conflict Resolution in Role Plays with a Peer, Parent, and Teacher

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Abstract

This study used conflict resolution role play vignettes and self-report surveys of 450 New York City 6th graders to examine associations between adolescents’ conflict resolution efficacy and social skills. Vignettes covered 3 social contexts, conflict with a peer (disagreement over activities), with a parent (raise in allowance), and with a teacher (low grade on report). Effective and ineffective strategies for resolving these conflicts were coded from the videotaped interactions. Adolescents were more often effective in resolving conflict with peers than with parents (χ2(1) = 7.10, p < .01). Strong communication skills cut across interpersonal context as associated with effective resolution. Assertiveness and absence of aggression were associated with effective conflict resolution in vignettes with peers. Assertiveness was also associated with effective conflict resolution in vignettes with parents, however nervousness was unexpectedly found to facilitate conflict resolution in vignettes with parents. Only skills observed within a particular context were associated with effective resolution in that context; self-report skills and cross-context observed skills were not associated with efficacy. Implications for implementation and evaluation of social skills curricula and conflict resolution process are discussed.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. National Center for Children & Families, Teachers College, Columbia University, 525 West 120th Street, Box 39, New York, New York, 10027

    Christina J. Borbely (Research Fellow)

  2. Department of Psychology, University of Florida, Gainesville, FL

    Julia A. Graber (Associate Professor)

  3. Department of Public Health, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY

    Tracy Nichols (Assistant Professor)

  4. Department of Public Health, Weill Medical College of Cornell University, New York, NY

    Jeanne Brooks-Gunn (Virginia & Leonard Marx Professor of Child Development and Education, Co-Director)

  5. National Center for Children and Families, Teachers College, & Professor, College of Physicians and Surgeons, Columbia University, USA

    Gilbert J. Botvin (Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry, Director)

Authors
  1. Christina J. Borbely
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  2. Julia A. Graber
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  4. Jeanne Brooks-Gunn
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  5. Gilbert J. Botvin
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Correspondence to Christina J. Borbely.

Additional information

An earlier version of this paper was presented at the meetings of the Society for Research on Adolescence, New Orleans, LA, April 2002

Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2004. Research interests include adolescent social competence and youth development programs.

Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Pennsylvania State University in 1991. Research interests include the psychosocial correlates of puberty, stress reactivity, and health compromising behaviors and adjustment.

Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2002. Research interests include social competence, prevention research, and women’s health.

Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Teachers College, Columbia University in 2002. Research interests include social competence, prevention research, and women’s health.

Received Ph.D. in 1975 from University of Pennsylvania in Human Learning and Development. Research focus centers around designing and evaluating interventions aimed at enhancing the wellbeing of children living in poverty and associated conditions. Conducts research on transitional periods during childhood and adolescence, focusing on school, family and biological transitions in childhood, adolescence, and adulthood. Specific interests are in the factors that contribute to positive and negative outcomes, and changes inwell-being over these years.

Received Ph.D. in Developmental Psychology from Columbia University in 1977. Research interests include tobacco, alcohol, and drug abuse prevention, violence prevention, AIDS risk reduction among adolescents, health promotion and disease prevention, smoking cessation.

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Borbely, C.J., Graber, J.A., Nichols, T. et al. Sixth Graders’ Conflict Resolution in Role Plays with a Peer, Parent, and Teacher. J Youth Adolescence 34, 279–291 (2005). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-005-5751-8

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-005-5751-8

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