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Conflicts: Productive and Destructive *
Author(s) -
Deutsch Morton
Publication year - 1969
Publication title -
journal of social issues
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.618
H-Index - 122
eISSN - 1540-4560
pISSN - 0022-4537
DOI - 10.1111/j.1540-4560.1969.tb02576.x
Subject(s) - citation , library science , columbia university , sociology , psychology , political science , media studies , computer science
It is a great honor and delight for me to receive the Kurt Lewin Memorial Award. As you know, Kurt Lewin has had a profound influence on my life and work. I have been influenced by his value orientations as well as his theoretical orientations. He believed than an intellectually significant social science has to be concerned with the problems of social action and social change and that intelligent social action has to be informed by theory and research. He rejected both a heartless science and a mindless social action. I am proud to have had this remarkable man as a teacher and as a guide. I wish to discuss the characteristics of productive and destructive conflict and to consider the conditions which give rise to one or another type. Although actual conflicts are rarely purely benign or malign, it is useful for analytic purposes to consider the simple cases. Doing so highlights not only the differences in theoutcomes of conflict but also the differences in types of processes by which the outcomes are derived. Let me start with the dull but necessary chore of defining Some of the key terms that I shall be using. A conflict exists whenever incompatible activities occur. The incompatible actions may