I understand you feel that way, but I feel this way: the benefits of I-language and communicating perspective during conflict

Communicating perspective—giving and taking

Consideration of the perspective of the other party is widely held to be beneficial during conflict (Ames, 2008; Galinksy et al., 2008; Hargie, 2011; Howieson & Priddis, 2015; Kidder, 2017). An understanding of perspectives facilitates a more integrative approach where parties are willing to compromise to arrive at a mutually beneficial solution (Galinksy et al., 2008; Kemp & Smith, 1994; Todd & Galinsky, 2014). Therefore, in dispute resolution a mediator will endeavour to encourage perspective taking by both parties (Howieson & Priddis, 2012, 2015; Ingerson, DeTienne & Liljenquist, 2015; Kidder, 2017; Lee et al., 2015). However, fostering perspective taking is more involved than simply telling someone to try and consider the other person’s point of view. In the negotiation/mediation literature it is recognised that increasing levels of perspective taking is best achieved via the communication process that occurs during a negotiation (Howieson & Priddis, 2012, 2015; Kidder, 2017).

It is important to consider that perspective taking is an internal cognitive process, so is not readily apparent to the other party unless it is made observable via communication (Kellas, Willer & Trees, 2013). Kellas, Willer & Trees (2013) refer to this as communicating perspective taking, and report that married couples typically perceive agreement, relevant contributions, coordination, and positive tone as communicated evidence of perspective taking. A more direct strategy to communicate perspective taking is to paraphrase the perspective of the other party (Howieson & Priddis, 2015; Kidder, 2017). For example, by explicitly stating what you perceive is the other’s point of view by saying something like ‘What I’m hearing is that perhaps you aren’t seeing enough evidence of appreciation and so feel like you’re being taken for granted’. Seehausen et al. (2012) demonstrated the utility of paraphrasing by interviewing participants (interviewees) about a recent social conflict while varying interviewer responses across participants as simple note taking or paraphrasing. Interviewees receiving paraphrase responses reported feeling less negative emotion associated with the conflict compared to interviewees receiving note taking responses. Similarly, other research has reported that perceptions of empathic effort during conflict is associated with relationship satisfaction (Cohen et al., 2012).

While communicating perspective taking is useful during conflict, so is perspective giving (i.e. attempting to communicate one’s own position/perspective) (Bruneau & Saxe, 2012; Graumann, 1989). For example, ‘I am not feeling great about this because I don’t feel like I am receiving a fair deal’. Perspective giving can be beneficial for the person offering the perspective to help them ‘feel heard’ (Bruneau & Saxe, 2012), and also assist the other party to engage in perspective taking, which fosters a greater sense of mutual understanding (Ames, 2008; Ames & Wazlawek, 2014). This is why negotiation experts recommend that during conflict both parties should communicate what their perspective is, and also communicate explicitly to the other person that they are attempting to consider their perspective (Howieson & Priddis, 2015). However, while communication of perspective taking and giving have received research attention individually, no prior research has attempted to systematically compare them. In the present study we examine the perception of statements that vary in the extent of communicated perspective (i.e. none, self-only, other-only, self & other). By contrasting two types of communicating perspective (i.e. giving and taking) we can contribute to the research literature while also answering questions that have practical relevance for everyday communication.

The present study

The present study will extend earlier research investigating the impact of I/you language and communicated perspective by employing a rating statements design similar to the experimental research of Kubany and colleagues (Kubany et al., 1992a, 1992b, 1995a, 1995b). Based on prior research, we hypothesise that participants will rate: (1) I-language as less likely to provoke a defensive reaction than you-language (Kubany et al., 1992a, 1992b; Simmons, Gordon & Chambless, 2005); and (2) communicating perspective as less likely to provoke a defensive reaction compared to statements that do not communicate any clear perspective (Cohen et al., 2012; Gordon & Chen, 2016; Howieson & Priddis, 2015; Kellas, Willer & Trees, 2013).

Importantly, we also varied the type of communicated perspective. As there has not been any prior research contrasting self-oriented versus other-oriented communicated perspective using a statement-rating paradigm, only tentative expectations were possible. We anticipated that a blend of one’s own and the other’s perspective would be received the best. We think this strategy is superior because it conveys both understanding (by acknowledging the other) and positive assertion (by acknowledging the self) (Howieson & Priddis, 2015).

Participants

Participants were 253 university students (Mean = 28 years; SD = 8.75; 77% female). Prior to commencement of the research ethical approval was obtained from Edith Cowan University ethics committee (Ref: 15257). All participants supplied informed consent to take part in this research. Prior research by Kubany and colleagues using a similar rating statements paradigm reported significant effects with relatively low sample sizes ranging from 16 to 40 (Kubany et al., 1992a, 1992b, 1995a), with one study using a larger sample of 160 (Kubany et al., 1995b). We were therefore initially aiming to collect around 100 responses, but ended up with a larger sample, which has the benefit of assisting us feel more confident in our results.

Materials

Six hypothetical scenarios were constructed that described a hypothetical conflict situation. One example scenario was: Mike and his partner Lucy are living together and both working full time. Whenever Mike does some cleaning of the house and asks Lucy to help, Lucy typically replies that she is too tired after a full day at work to do cleaning. Mike feels it is unfair that he should be responsible for all the cleaning duties.

Each scenario was designed with two protagonists, an offended party (e.g. Mike), and the party causing offense (e.g. Lucy). An overall problem was communicated within the scenario description (e.g. Lucy is not helping to clean the house as often as Mike would like). In addition, both the perspective of the offended party (e.g. Mike feels it unfair that he is responsible for all cleaning), and the offending party (e.g. Lucy is usually very tired after a full day at her work) were also included. After reading a scenario, the participant was presented with eight statements that the offended party might use to begin a conflict discussion with the offending party. These statements varied on the usage of I/you language and communicated perspective. Table 1 shows all the statements presented to participants for the example scenario.

The six scenarios were evenly spread across issues between romantic partners (two), friends (two), and work colleagues (two). All scenarios are provided in Supplemental Information 1 associated with this article. This research aims to investigate a general impact of subtle differences in communication rather than focusing on specific relationships or situations. The authors acknowledge that there is likely to be interesting differences to be found across different relationships and situations but those questions, while interesting, are beyond the scope of the present research.

Procedure

Scenarios were presented in random order to participants, as were the order of the statements, via the online survey program Qualtrics. For each statement the participant rated the likelihood that the offending party would react in a defensive manner on a six-point scale (extremely unlikely to extremely likely).

Limitations

Scholars have recognised that the non-interactive rating statements paradigm used in the present study limits the generalisability of findings beyond non-interactive communication contexts (Bippus & Young, 2005; Kubany et al., 1992a). Arguably, our findings reported here are more appropriately generalised to less interactive forms of communication such as text messaging and email. However, it must also be noted that the results of the present study do parallel findings investigating more interactive contexts (Cohen et al., 2012; Gordon & Chen, 2016; Simmons, Gordon & Chambless, 2005).

In our study we utilised a within-participants design, where each statement was rated by all participants. A within-participants approach for a rating statements task has been criticized due to a potential risk that differences in the perception of statements might be exaggerated by participants engaging in a comparative process when making judgments (Bippus & Young, 2005). There is however no empirical evidence to confirm or disconfirm this assertion. In the present study, our interest was to gain insight into the relative utility of the statements used. So even if participants engaged in a comparative process we don’t believe this seriously compromises the findings, as we were interested in determining which statement/s the participants thought was best (compared to all other statements). We concede however that there is a possibility that the magnitude of differences observed among statements in the present research might be lower if the study used a between-participants approach.

Our study is limited to perceptions regarding the likelihood of a defensive reaction. We assume that underlying the broader perception provided by our participants are more specific perceptions regarding levels of politeness, appropriateness, aggression, assertiveness, effectiveness, rationality, fairness, consideration, and clarity, and so on (Bippus & Young, 2005; Hess et al., 1980; Kasper, 1990; Kubany et al., 1992b; Lewis & Gallois, 1984; Schroeder, Rakos & Moe, 1983). The purpose of our study was to broadly assess the perception of the statements, so we decided upon broad terminology (i.e. rating the likelihood of a defensive response). Asking participants to rate all statements for many adjectives (e.g. aggression, clarity, and so on) would have caused the survey to be too long. Investigating the more specific perceptions mentioned here, perhaps using fewer scenarios and/or statements for practical reasons, is an avenue for future research.

Future research

The present study suggests that I-language is less likely to produce a defensive reaction in a message recipient compared with you-language, particularly when it includes self and other communicated perspective. However, a related type of language framing outside the scope of the present study is we-language. Various researchers have suggested that we-language (e.g. ‘We should talk about what we need to do to solve our problem’) is of greater benefit than I-language during times of conflict or tension (Seider et al., 2009; Williams-Bausom et al., 2010). Seider et al. (2009) argue that we-language emphasises togetherness and therefore fosters more collaboration compared to I-language, which might foster a sense of separation. A replication and extension of the present study incorporating statements predominately using we-language would therefore be a useful test of some arguments that exist for the benefits of we-language.

Our research has focused on opening statements to a conflict discussion. Assessing language for making closing statements would also be a useful avenue of further inquiry. Additionally, an investigation of the impact of specific statements mid-discussion would be interesting. For example, if the discussion has started badly, will the use of a targeted statement that communicates perspective using I-language ‘fall on deaf ears’? Or, as discussed by Howieson & Priddis (2015), might communicating perspective mid-discussion halt a downwards spiral, or even direct the flow of conversation into an upwards spiral? Jameson, Sohan & Hodge (2014) describe these kinds of moments in a negotiation as ‘turning points’.

Another avenue for future research is to specifically investigate if communicating perspective, or I-language and you-language, have different effects across discursive actions such as requesting, describing, questioning, criticizing, blaming, offering alternatives, rejecting, refusing, inviting, and so on. As an example, consider the action of making an invitation (Bella & Moser, 2018; Margutti & Galatolo, 2018). What might be the best way to solicit a commitment? A simple request using you-language (e.g. ‘You should come to dinner tomorrow night’), or incorporating I-language (e.g. ‘I think you should come to dinner tomorrow night’), or communicating perspective in addition to the request (e.g. ‘I think you should come to dinner tomorrow night, because I think you’ll benefit from getting out of the house’ OR ‘You should come to dinner tomorrow night, because you’ll benefit from getting out of the house’). The current research has potential to be extended to further understand how to best communicate during conflict, but also how to be more persuasive in general.