Study on Alexithymia and Conflict Resolution Styles in Workplace

Abstract

Conflicts in a workplace are quite common to happen and individuals respond differently to conflict situations. Personality traits of an individual can affect their conflict resolution styles and one such trait is alexithymia, which is characterized by the difficulty to identify, understand and express emotions. The present paper is aimed at understanding the relationship between alexithymia and different conflict resolution styles in workplace. Conflict resolution styles was measured through conflict resolution styles inventory (Kurdek, 1994) and alexithymia was measured through Perth alexithymia questionnaire (Preece et al., 2023). The data was collected from 130 working males and 100 working females with the help of Google forms. The data was analyzed using Jamovi. Spearman’s correlation coefficient was used to test correlation and Mann Whitney U test was used to assess comparison. The finding showed a positive relationship between alexithymia and conflict engagement, self protection and acceptance dimensions of conflict resolution styles inventory. The study also found a significant difference between males and females in the level of alexithymia with males having higher mean indicating comparatively higher alexithymia. However, no significant difference was found between males and females among the different dimensions of conflict resolution styles. The results of the study can be applied in a workplace to understand and predict the behaviour of employees. It can also be applied in organization to improve their productivity by understanding how managers and subordinates resolve conflict.