Taxonomies
Before further exploring Face Negotiation Theory, it is important to take a closer look at Dr. Ting-Toomey’s description of facework. She postulates that facework consists of five taxonomies. Understanding these facework classifications will aide in successful face negotiation. Face orientations, or concerns, will be focused on one’s self, the other party, or both.
Focus of Face Orientations
People from individualist cultures tend to be more concerned with self-face maintenance, while people from collectivist cultures tend to be concerned with other-face and mutual-face maintenance. This difference stems from the values of each respective culture.
In individualist cultures, such as the United States, Germany, and Great Britain, there is great value on personal rights, freedoms and the “do it yourself” attitude. In collectivist cultures such as Japan, Saudi Arabia, and Colombia, place more value on “we” vs. “I”. The needs of the group outweigh the needs of the individual. It is interesting to note that one third of the world lives in an individualist society, while the other two thirds are identified with collectivist cultures.
The first taxonomy also involves the concept of power distance with regards to people’s face orientations. People from large power distance cultures accept unequal power distributions, are reliant on established hierarchy, and understand that rewards and sanctions are based on social position. People from small power distance cultures value equal power distributions, symmetric relations, and rewards and sanctions based on performance. The United States is an example of a small power distance culture, while Japan embodies a large power distance culture.
Dr. Ting-Toomey postulates that while individualism and power distance are two separate dimensions, they are correlated. Highly individualistic cultures tend to be low in power distance, and vice versa.
Face Movements or Face Moves’ Patterns
There are four opportunities a mediator has in regards to their concern for self-face, your personal image and other-face, the counterpart’s image of themselves that define face movements:
- If there is a high level of concern for both self-face and other-face, the result is mutual-face protection.
- If there is a low level of concern for both self-face and other-face, the result is mutual-face obliteration.
- If there is a high level of concern for self-face but a low level of concern for other-face, the result is self-face defense.
- If there is a high level of concern for other-face but a low level of concern for self-face, the result is other-face defense.
Dr. Ting-Toomey asserts that several conditions must be perceived as severe in order for a negotiator to feel his face is threatened; the importance of the culturally approved facework that is violated, feelings of mistrust because of a large distance between cultures, the importance of the conflict topic, the power distance between the two parties, and the perception of the parties as outgroup members are all conditions which must be made salient for face-threatening communication to occur. Whether or not a person engages in a conflict depends on how face-threatening the situation is perceived.
In an individualistic culture, the more self-face threatening the conflict, the more likely the individual will engage in an attack. In a collectivistic culture, where mutual-face concern is important, avoidance of conflict may prevail in order for the situation to be defused. A combination of the two cultures may require a third-party negotiation to make progress in finding a resolution.
Facework Interaction Strategies
Individualistic cultures operate with a more direct, low-context facework with importance placed on verbal communication and nonverbal gestures for emphasis. Collectivistic cultures operate in a more indirect, high context facework emphasizing nonverbal subtleties. There are three prevalent facework strategies: dominating, avoiding, and integrating. Dominating facework is characterized by trying to maintain a credible image with the goal of winning the conflict. Avoiding facework attempts to preserve harmony in the relationship by dealing with the conflict indirectly. Integrating facework focuses on content resolution and maintaining the relationship.
In terms of conflict, facework is at play before (preventative), during, and after (restorative) the situation. Preventative facework is an attempt to minimize face-loss before the threat occurs. Preventative strategies include credentialing, appealing for suspended judgment, pre-disclosure, pre-apology, hedging, and disclaimers. Collectivistic cultures tend to employ more preventative strategies than individualistic cultures. Restorative facework attempts to repair face that was lost. Restorative strategies include excuses, justifications, direct aggression, humor, physical remediation, passive aggressiveness, avoidance, and apologies. Individualistic cultures are more likely to use restorative facework than collectivistic cultures.
Facework differs from conflict styles (which will be discussed in a later section) by employing face-saving strategies which can be used prior to, during, or after a conflict episode and can be used in a variety of identity-threatening and identity-protection situations. These strategies are focused on relational and face identity beyond conflict goal issues. Conflict styles are specific strategies used to engage or disengage from a conflict situation. Preventative and restorative face-work strategies are typically employed when one’s face is being threatened.
Conflict Communication Styles
Conflict style consists of learned behaviors developed through socialization within one’s culture. They can be attributed to internalization of ingroup values, morals and behaviors.
Rahim (1983,1992) based his classification of conflict styles into two dimensions. The first dimension demonstrates the concern for self, how important it is for the individual to maintain their own face or that of their culture (this is rated on a high to low continuum) and the second is concern for others, how important is it to the individual to help them maintain their own face (also rated on a high to low continuum). The two dimensions are combined to create five styles for dealing with conflict. The individual will choose a style of handling conflict based on the importance of saving their face and that of the face of the other. Note: explanations are from the reader’s perspective
- Dominating(“win/lose”)-Competing to win your position, one person has more control.
- Avoiding(“lose/lose”)-Removing yourself from the conflict, results in no solution.
- Obliging(“lose/win)”-Willing to let the other person have their way, giving in and giving up.
- Compromising(“lose/lose”)-Neither person is giving up their side, decide to give and take to come to a solution.
- Integrating(win/win”)-Awareness of both sides in a conflict, solve a conflict through working together.
In 2001 Ting-Toomey, Oetzel, and Yee-Jung incorporated three additional conflict communication styles to the original five. These three have further enhanced conflict communication across cultures.
- Emotional Expression-Articulating a persons feelings in order to deal with and control conflict.
- Third Party Help-Resolving conflicts by enlisting additional help to manage communication.
- Passive Aggressive-Reacting to conflict in a roundabout way, placing blame indirectly.
Other researchers used a different way to group the conflict tactics. Ting-Toomey (1983) grouped strategies into three categories of tactics for handling conflict; integrative,distributive and passive-indirect.
Integrative conflict tactics incorporated integrating and compromising styles and is reflective of mutual-face and the need for a solution. Those who chose this tactic work with the other person involved in the conflict to get the best possible solution for both parties. Examples of Integrative tactics may include listening to the other, respecting their feelings, and providing their own personal viewpoints in a manner that assists in the negotiation.
Distributive conflict tactics use the dominating style of handling conflict, and emphasizes the individuals own power over the other. This style reflects self-face.
Passive-indirect conflict tactics are consistent with obliging and avoiding styles of handling conflict and reflects other-face
Individualistic cultures usually see obliging and avoiding conflict styles as negatively disengaged favoring instead more direct forms of conflict. Collectivistic cultures see these as relevant and viable methods of dealing with conflict employing them in an attempt to protect mutual-face interest. Collectivistic cultures view more direct means of conflict communication as negative. The compromising style focuses more on content goal negotiation process neglecting rational and identity-based respect and consideration issues.
Although the five conflict styles serve as a good initial probe of conflict style, it misses factors such as emotions, third-party consultation, and passive-aggressive types of conflict tactics. Emotional expression refers to one using emotions to guide communication behaviors during conflict. Third-party help involves using an outsider to mediate the conflict. Finally, passive-aggressive responses also known as neglect, is characterized by sidestepping the conflict while eliciting an indirect reaction from the other conflict party.
Face Content Domains
Face content domains refer to the different levels an individual will engage in facework on. A disparity in one domain will usually effect one’s feelings in another domain. For instance, one might sacrifice some of the Autonomy face in order to satisfy the needs from their Inclusion face. There are six domains that an individual will operate in:
- Autonomy-represents our need for others to acknowledge our independence, self-sufficiency, privacy, boundary, nonimposition, control issues, and our consideration of other’s autonomy face needs
- Inclusion-our need to be recognized as worthy companions, likeable, agreeable, pleasant, friendly, cooperative
- Status-need for others to admire our tangible and intangible assets or resources: appearance, attractiveness, reputation, position, power, and material worth
- Reliability-need for others to realize that we are trustworthy, dependable, reliable, loyal, and consistent in words and actions
- Competence-need for others to recognize our qualities or social abilities such as intelligence, skills, expertise, leadership, team-building, networking, conflict mediation, facework, and problem-solving skills
- Moral-need for others to respect our sense of integrity, dignity, honor, propriety, and morality
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