Conflict resolution styles, self-efficacy, self-control, and future orientation of urban adolescents.

This study examined the correlates and predictors of conflict resolution styles in a sample of urban seventh and eighth graders. Girls were found to rely on verbal assertion more frequently and aggressiveness less frequently than boys in the sample. Self-efficacy and self-control were found to be significant predictors of conflict resolution styles. Implications for school-based preventive interventions are discussed.

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During adolescence, physical and cognitive changes occur that have dramatic implications for physiological maturation, intellectual, social, and emotional development. In terms of social and emotional development, skills associated with social competence are learned. Social competence refers to the range of interpersonal skills that help children integrate feelings, thinking, and action in order to achieve specific social and interpersonal goals (Caplan et al., 1992; Catalano, Berglund, Ryan, Lonczak, & Hawkins, 1998). Examples of such skills include encoding and interpreting relevant social cues, anticipating consequences to one's actions, and generating effective solutions to interpersonal problems (Elias, Gara, Schuyler, Branden-Muller, & Sayette, 1994).

Promoting social competencies has been demonstrated as primary means of preventing psychosocial problems such as delinquency and drug use (Catalano et al., 1998; Chung & Elias, 1996; Durlak, 1980) and increasing academic achievement (Johnson, Johnson, & Dudley, 1992). Additionally, research on youth violence has revealed that violent adolescents often have deficits in social problem-solving skills (Dodge & Frame, 1982; Farrington, 1991) and hold beliefs and attitudes supportive of aggression (Guerra, Huesmann, & Hanish, 1995). In fact, teaching conflict resolution skills has been a major component of a variety of violence reduction programs in schools (Guiliano, 1994; Johnson, Johnson, Dudley, & Acikgoz, 1994; Tolan & Guerra, 1994). Thus, since the majority of homicides and violent injuries involving adolescents occur among friends and acquaintances rather than strangers (Hammond & Yung, 1993), it is critical to understand the development of conflict resolution skills in youth.

Studies of conflict resolution skills and styles in youth are few. However, most have examined conflict within school settings. For example, DeCecco and Richards (1974) interviewed junior high and high school students about their perceptions of common social conflicts. They found that negotiation approaches to conflict were rare and, instead, avoidant or aggressive approaches to conflict were most commonly utilized. Interestingly, students estimated that over 90% of their conflicts remained unresolved or were resolved destructively regardless of the style utilized. Johnson et al. (1994) assessed children and adolescents' conflict resolution styles within the school context and found that telling teachers about the conflict was most common and both avoidant (i.e., passivity) and a request for change (i.e., assertiveness) were the next most frequently utilized styles. Verbal and physical force were rarely used. However, the samples studied in the aforementioned projects were predominantly middle class with no report of the ethnicity of their samples. Hence, it is difficult to know how relevant these findings are to diverse youth.

How do youth develop conflict resolution skills? Conflict resolution skills, like all social competencies, are influenced by individual traits such as temperament, family traits such as parenting styles, peer factors such as pressures to adhere to group norms, and cultural factors such as gender and ethnic socialization (Brofenbrenner, 1986; Lind, Huo, & Tyler, 1994; Turner, Norman, & Zunz, 1995). Research has suggested that a child's sociocultural context is critically connected to preferred conflict resolution styles. For example, Lind et al. found that both gender and ethnicity influenced adolescents' preferences for conflict resolution styles such as persuasion and negotiation. They found that such differences manifested in preferences for which resolution procedures were perceived as most fair, even though fairness was an important criterion in resolution for the entire sample.

Turner et al. (1995) investigated the extent to which conflict resolution and social competency promotion programming would be differentially effective based on gender of the participant. Girls, who indicated a decreased reliance on direct communication, seemed to be in greater need of interventions that taught assertive communication skills than did males. Their male counterparts had less of a problem with direct communication, but were more inclined to experience problems with conflicts becoming aggressive or violent than were girls. Thus, gender socialization differences in communication styles appear to make girls and boys vulnerable to certain conflict resolution problems.

There is also a need to understand the impact of sociocultural factors such as urban residence and socioeconomic status on the development of social competency skills. For example, in cultures that promote a respect for authority from children to the point of deference, assertive communication between children and adults may be culturally inappropriate (Zinn & Eitzen, 1986). Similarly, in collectivist cultures which value the needs of the group over the individual, engaging in self-sacrificing behavior with peers may be adaptive (Triandis, 1993). In urban environments where there is a chronic threat of community violence, adolescents may need to be more open to using aggression in conflict resolution as a means of survival (Dodge & Frame, 1982). Thus, there is growing consensus that issues of context must be taken into account in efforts to understand and promote appropriate conflict resolution skills with adolescents.

In addition to understanding contextual factors in the development of conflict resolution skills, there is also a need to understand the psychological factors that are involved in or related to their emergence. Self-efficacy has been identified as an important psychological component in the development of social competencies and adolescent risk behavior (Bandura 1986; 1991; Chung & Elias, 1996). According to the theory, self-efficacy, or one's confidence in the ability to be successful in a specific context (e.g., academically, athletically, or socially), is the critical link between having knowledge or skills and engaging in relevant behavior. Self-efficacy is acquired via direct experience, vicarious experience, verbal persuasion (i.e., encouragement), and emotional arousal. Thus, if an adolescent has the knowledge to resolve social problems without the use of violence or passivity, he or she is only likely to act accordingly if the confidence to do so exists (Bandura, 1986).

For example, Chung and Elias (1996) explored the linkages between problem behavior involvement, self-efficacy, social competence, and life events. Their data revealed a strong co-occurrence of adolescent problem behaviors along with the presence of low academic self-efficacy and negative life events. In other words, low academic self-efficacy, poor social competence, and stressful life events are all significant predictors of problem behavior. However, the role of social self-efficacy had a different relationship to problem behaviors. Youth who reported higher problematic behavior also reported higher social self-efficacy than their peers who reported fewer problematic behaviors. The researchers concluded that this counterintuitive finding supports contentions that normative peer standards promote at least low levels of adolescent problem behaviors (e.g., alcohol experimentation). However, the way in which social self-efficacy was measured may have tapped into friendship formation and communication skills versus the more socially risky aspects of social competency such as conflict resolution. Since the sample in this study consisted of white, suburban youth, it is difficult to generalize the findings to racially and ethnically diverse, urban youth.

One group of researchers who examined urban youth is Orpinas, Parcel, McAlister, and Frankowski (1995). Orpinas et al. developed and evaluated the outcome of a violence prevention program with a diverse group of urban middle school children. The program demonstrated that decreased aggressive behaviors and improved conflict resolution skills result from increasing self-efficacy and changing attitudes toward aggressive provocation. The success of their program showed that social self-efficacy and conflict resolution are connected for urban youth. However, since the focus of this research was program evaluation, there was not a clear examination of the relationship between the individual psychological variables. Clearly additional research is necessary to clarify the relationship between social self-efficacy and conflict resolution in youth.

PURPOSE OF STUDY

In the current study, the purpose was to investigate the ways in which conflict resolution and self-efficacy might be related for seventh and eighth graders attending an urban public school. The impact of other psychological variables such as perceptions of future orientation and self-control was also considered in this study given the population of interest. Specifically, much has been made of the extent to which urban youth feel victimized by their environments, which are often characterized by higher crime rates, the presence of gangs and drugs, and less access to resources such as high quality schools and recreation opportunities (Guerra, Huesman, Tolan, & Van Acker, 1995; Black & Krishnakumar, 1998; Wandersman & Nation, 1998). While we did not measure the environment ideographicaUy in this study, we did select a group of early adolescents who lived in an economically depressed urban environment. Thus, to study the potential importance of psychological variables often associated with urban residence, perceptions of self-control and future orientation were assessed in the course of the present study. If these psychological variables were related to conflict resolution styles of urban youth, the implications for school counselors working with such populations would be of importance.

Research Questions

1. Can urban adolescents' conflict resolution styles be predicted by social self-efficacy, future orientation, and/or self-control?

2. Are there significant gender and/or ethnic group differences in preferred conflict resolution styles and reported levels of social self-efficacy, future orientation, and self-control?

METHOD

Participants

The participants were 178 seventh and eighth grade students (48% girls and 52% boys) from an inner-city, public elementary school in a large Midwestern city. The average age of the participants was 13.14 years (SD = .087) with a range from 11 to 15. Fifty-five percent of the sample identified themselves as Latino (n = 98), 9% as Asian American (n = 16), 7% as African American (n = 12), and 4% as White (n = 7). The remaining 10% (n = 18) identified themselves as members of racial/ethnic groups other than those mentioned above (e.g., Native American, multiracial). Fifteen percent (n = 27) failed to identify themselves ethnically or racially. The racial/ethnic make-up of the sample was consistent with that of the school. Regarding socioeconomic status, 90% of the children qualified for free breakfast/lunch programs indicating that their families live below the poverty, level.

Measures

Risky Situation Self-Efficacy Scale (RSSES; Vera & Reese, 1995). The RSSES was developed to assess social self-efficacy beliefs when presented with risky peer situations, specifically situations involving conflict and peer pressure. The scale is a 10-item, 5-point scale with response options ranging from always true to always false. Scores on the RSSES range from 10 to 50 with lower scores reflecting higher self-efficacy or a greater belief in one's ability to effectively manage such situations. The scale yielded an internal consistency estimate of .72 (Vera & Reese). The internal consistency reliability for this sample was .77.

Social Problem Solving Measure (SPSM; Lenhart & Rabiner, 1995). The SPSM is an activity that assesses children's preferred ways of solving problems. The task involves presenting the participants with three vignettes involving peer conflict (e.g., a peer will not return your basketball). The participants are then asked to write what they think the child in each vignette should do to solve his or her problem. The participants are also instructed to answer as quickly as possible and write down the first thing that comes to mind. Responses to the vignettes are categorized as being either (a) verbally assertive, (b) help seeking, (c) non-confrontational, or (d) conflict escalating/aggressive.

Participants' conflict resolution style was determined by whether a majority (at least 2/3) of their responses to the conflict vignettes was categorized by one of the four specific resolution styles (i.e., verbal assertion, help seeking, non-confrontational, or conflict escalating response). If participants' responses were inconsistent and no preferred style could be coded, then they were categorized as having no dominant style (and were excluded from subsequent analyses involving this dependent variable). Thirty percent of the sample had no dominant style of conflict resolution. Seventy percent of the sample was categorized as having a dominant style since two or more of their responses were identically categorized. Verbal assertion (e.g., confronting someone) was the dominant style of 27.5% of the sample, 29.8% stated they would use non-confrontational responses (e.g., walking away), 10.1% would respond with aggressive/conflict-escalating responses (e.g., pushing someone out of a line), and 2.8% relied on help-seeking responses (e.g., telling a teacher).

Hopelessness Scale for Children (HSC; Kazdin, Rodgers, & Colbus, 1986). The HSC is a 17-item, dichotomous (true/false) scale which measures attitude or outlook toward the future. Scores on the scale range from 0 to 17 with higher scores indicating greater hopelessness or negative expectations. Kazdin and his colleagues report an alpha coefficient of .97 and a Spearman-Brown split-half reliability of .96. Additionally, a test-retest estimate of .52 was found using Pearson's product-moment correlation coefficient. This psychometric data suggests the HSC has high internal consistency, and moderate stability. In our sample, the internal consistency reliability was estimated to be .70.

Children's Perceived Self-Control Scale (CPSCS; Humphrey, 1984). The CPSCS is an 11-item instrument which measures children's impressions of their self-control. The scale uses a dichotomous (usually yes/usually no) response format. The CPSCS has three subscales which measure varying aspects of self-control: interpersonal self-control (ISC), personal self-control (PSC), and self-evaluation (SE). Scores on the subscales range from 0 to 4, 0 to 3, and 0 to 2 for the ISC, PSC, and SE respectively. Total scores on the CPSCS range from 0 to 11 with higher scores indicating greater self-control. Reliability estimates, using the test-retest method, yielded a correlation of .71 for the total scale with subscale correlations of .63 for ISC, .63 for PSC, and .56 for SE. The internal consistency reliability estimate for this sample was .52.

Procedure

Participants and their parents were given consent forms and informed of their right to refuse participation in the program without consequence. A survey was then administered to each child during the school day, in the classrooms, with research assistants reading the items aloud. The surveys were given at the beginning of a Conflict Resolution Training Intervention in 6 classrooms, and none of the children refused to participate.

Data Analyses

In order to address the first research question regarding the prediction of conflict resolution styles by social self-efficacy, future orientation, and self-control, discriminant analysis was used. To investigate the existence of gender and ethnic group differences in conflict resolution styles, a chi-square analysis was used. To explore gender and ethnic group differences on social self-efficacy, future orientation, and self-control, MANOVA was used.

RESULTS

Preliminary analysis

According to the norms from the CPSCS (Humphrey, 1984), the participants scored in the average range on the self-control measure. The mean score for the sample on the CPSCS was 5.63 (SD = 2.19). The range of possible scores on the scale is 0 to 11 (larger numbers correspond to higher levels of self-control). The range of possible scores on the RSSES (Reese & Vera, 1995) is 10 to 50 (lower scores correspond to higher levels of self-efficacy). The mean score for the sample on the RSSES was 18.04 (SD = 6.73). The range of possible scores on the HSC is 0 to 17 (higher scores indicate high hopelessness; Kazdin et al., 1986). The sample's mean score on the HSC was 3.86 (SD = 2.86), with scores ranging from 0 to 15. Overall, the mean level of hopelessness was fairly low. Table 1 contains a summary of means, standard deviations, and sample ranges on the instruments.

Correlations between the scores on the various measures were examined in order to ascertain the relationships that existed between self-efficacy, helplessness, self-control, and age of the participants. Table 2 displays the correlation matrix for the entire sample. As can be seen from the table, there was a significant positive correlation between age and scores on the hopelessness scale (p < .05). Higher scores on the hopelessness scale (indicating higher levels of hopelessness) were associated with the older adolescents in the study. Significant positive correlations were also found between scores on the self-efficacy and the hopelessness scales (p < .02). Lower levels of self-efficacy (reflected in higher scores) were associated with higher hopelessness scores. There were also significant positive correlations between scores on the self-control scale and (p < .001) scores on the self-efficacy scale and scores on the hopelessness scale (p < .02). Higher levels of self-control were related to lower self-efficacy scores and higher scores on the hopelessness scale.

Research Question 1

Discriminant Analysis was used to determine whether participants' conflict resolution style was predicted by the variables of self-efficacy, self-control, or hopelessness. It was revealed that the predictors of self-efficacy (Wilks' [lambda] = .92, p < .05) and self-control (Wilks' [lambda] = .84, p <.05) were significant variables in discriminating between the participants on the construct of conflict resolution style. Specifically, children who had passive styles of conflict resolution had lower self-control scores than those who had aggressive styles (F(3, 121) = 4.41, p < .05). Children who had verbal assertiveness styles had higher self-efficacy than their peers who had aggressive styles (F(3, 120) = 3.47, p < .05). Thus, knowing to what degree a participant feels in control of oneself and his or her level of confidence in protecting oneself in risky situations reveals what type of dominant conflict resolution style is likely to be observed.

Research Question 2

Gender and ethnic/racial differences in self-efficacy, self-control, and hopelessness were also examined. A 2 x 5 (Gender x Race) between-subjects Multivariate Analysis of Variance (MANOVA) was performed to evaluate the relationship between gender and ethnicity and the main variables. There was a significant main effect of gender, F(5, 118) = 2.82, p < .02, suggesting that boys and girls differed significantly on at least one of the dependent measures. The results from the univariate tests revealed a main effect of gender on hopelessness, F (1,132) = 4.48, p < .05, and self-efficacy, F(1,132) = 6.81, p < .01. Girls rated themselves as having significantly higher levels of hopelessness (M = 4.20, SD = 2.94) compared to boys (M = 3.22, SD = 2.64). The girls also reported significantly higher levels of self-efficacy (M = 15.81, SD = 4.41) than did the boys (M = 19.32, SD = 6.53). The univariate analyses did not indicate a significant main effect of gender on self-control, F (1, 132) = .297, p > .05, or self-esteem, F (1, 132) = 2.53, p > .10. No significant differences were found across ethnic groups although the small sample sizes for ethnic groups (i.e., other than Latino) might have prevented existing differences from emerging.

Chi-square analyses were used to examine gender and ethnic group differences in conflict resolution styles of the sample. Gender differences were revealed in two of the four conflict resolution style groups. Significantly more boys (i.e., five times as many) than girls used aggressive/conflict-escalating styles ([chi square] (1) = 10.52, p < .01). More girls (i.e., two times as many) than boys chose verbal assertion as a dominant style ([chi square] (1) = 11.23, p < .01). No other gender differences were found. No ethnic group differences in conflict resolution styles were revealed in the chi-square analyses.

DISCUSSION

The data obtained in this study shed an interesting light on conflict resolution styles among racially and ethnically diverse urban youth. Discriminant analysis findings indicated that self-control and self-efficacy play a significant role in predicting conflict resolution styles, which suggests that they are quite relevant to understanding whether an adolescent chooses a "productive" (i.e., non-aggressive) way of solving conflicts. This result particularly highlights the importance of Bandura's (1991) emphasis on the role of cognitions (i.e., self-beliefs) in the manifestation of behaviors. Believing in one's ability to engage in a behavior effectively is related to the use of such actions. This suggests that to the extent school counselors can intervene with children in ways that build their self-efficacy and self-control around social conflicts, the use of productive conflict resolution may be more likely.

The findings related to dominant conflict resolution styles are especially interesting given the school context in which these responses were measured. Students are socialized to follow the rules of their school setting, which typically includes avoidance of fighting and violence. Only 10% of our entire sample relied on aggression as a dominant style, suggesting the majority of youth adhere to the behavioral expectations at school. When considering gender differences, 3% of the girls relied on aggression as compared to 14% of their male counterparts. What accounts for this gender difference is debatable (and will be discussed momentarily). But what can be said about other conflict resolution styles?

In a school setting, teachers may direct students to seek the help of adults in the face of conflict instead of trying to handle the situation themselves which could escalate into arguments or fights. However, participants relied on adult intervention as a dominant style only 3% of the time (when a dominant style was discernable). These findings are in direct contrast to those of Johnson et al. (1994) who found that telling teachers about conflict was the overwhelming choice of students. In this sample, approximately equal percentages (28%) of students used verbal assertiveness and non-confrontational styles (e.g., walking away) as dominant conflict resolution strategies. This may suggest that despite school expectations, students overwhelmingly choose to address conflict on their own either verbally or by avoiding confrontation with their peers. While these findings are developmentally consistent with the emerging autonomy of early adolescents, the pattern also reflects actions that adhere to school rules against fighting and minimize problems with peers which could result from involving teachers or other school personnel. At this age, adolescents are vulnerable to peer teasing and/or rejection for "telling on" their peers to authority figures in the midst of a problem. So, the most prominent styles of this sample might be seen as the most "adaptive" responses of the four possibilities in a school setting.

Additionally, one's immediate response to a conflict is not always the last response. While many youth would not risk the consequences of behaving aggressively in school, it is not uncommon for school-related conflicts to be settled outside of school. This is not to doubt the authenticity of the data or the credibility of the participants. Rather, it is important to understand that conflict is not always resolved in the moment, as is suggested by Johnson et al. (1994), who found that most conflicts go unresolved. In this study, the measure of conflict resolution style did not allow for "follow-up" responses to conflict situations.

Gender differences found in the conflict resolution styles were both consistent and inconsistent with previous literature which found that across ethnic groups, females prefer less direct, less confrontational styles than males (Lind et al., 1994). The over-representation of boys with conflict-escalating styles is consistent, but in this sample, girls were more verbally confrontational than boys. Why might girls have reported more of this conflict resolution style than previous research would suggest? Perhaps it could be the effect of residing in an urban environment that requires girls to be more assertive than their suburban counterparts. Additionally, boys and girls were equally likely to use more passive resolution styles, which could be viewed as going against the norms of male socialization. However, it is possible that the school-based nature of this research greatly influenced the reported strategies of the participants. As has been alluded to, future research should investigate whether conflict resolution style is influenced by the setting of the conflict (e.g., in-school versus out-of-school conflict).

The involvement of feelings of hopelessness and self-control in conflict resolution is less clear. On the one hand, hopelessness was not found to be predictive of resolution style, even though if one has few hopes for the future, the consequences of behavior in the present may be seen as less relevant. However, it is probable that since adolescents are not very oriented toward long-term consequences such an influence may be developmentally appropriate. It would be interesting to see if older youth or young adults make conflict resolution decisions based on perceived risks to the future. Self-control operated in an unpredictable way in this study. On the one hand, self-control differentiated youth with varying conflict resolution styles. On the other hand, the correlational analyses revealed that kids with higher self-efficacy also reported lower self-control. This could be a function of the way in which self-control (and locus of control) manifests in ethnic minority children.

Moreover, the self-control construct was perhaps not well assessed by the CPSCS measure in this sample. The reliability of the measure in this sample was considerably lower than it has been in past research (Humphrey, 1984). Because the original scale was normed on a predominantly White sample, it may be that this multi-ethnic, urban sample was qualitatively different enough that the psychometrics are not generalizable. Thus, the lower reliability observed for this measure would result in the overall underestimation of the magnitude of the relationships between self-control and other relevant variables, not an obfuscation of the direction of the relationships.

However, past literature has suggested that locus of control (i.e., internality vs. externality) operates differently for individuals with a primarily non-Western view of the world (Gurin, Gurin, Lao & Beattie, 1969). Rather than reflecting low self-determination, external locus of control can reflect religious beliefs, collectivist orientations (Triandis, 1993), or an acknowledgment of societal barriers (Ziun & Eitzen, 1986). It may also be the case that external locus of control in children reflects their relative power status in a society controlled by adults (Prilleltensky, Nelson, & Peirson, 2001). For these reasons, it is unclear how self-control might function in ethnic minority samples.

Some interesting gender and age differences were revealed in this investigation. First, female participants reported higher levels of hopelessness than their male counterparts. This may indicate that urban girls have more pessimistic views of their futures, perhaps based on perceptions of opportunities they see for women in their community. Alternatively, it may be that hopelessness, one correlate of depressive ideation, is more commonly reported in girls as are depressive symptoms in general (Nolen-Hoeksema & Girgus, 1994; Roberts, Roberts, & Chen, 1997).

Interestingly, girls also reported higher levels of social self-efficacy (e.g., in situations that might involve interpersonal conflict and/or peer pressure). Since Bandura (1991) posits that there are four sources of self-efficacy, it could be that girls have had more direct experience and therefore more performance accomplishment in risky situations involving peer interactions. If not direct experience, perhaps girls have been better prepared via verbal persuasion by their families or educators who may perceive them as more vulnerable than boys to the negative effects of peer pressure and violent conflict.

Age had a positive relationship to hopelessness, suggesting that older children have more pessimistic expectations about their future. This finding should be interpreted with caution since the age range of participants was restricted. However, it is not inconceivable that older children have lowered expectations about the future since they have had more exposure to risk situations and may have observed more negative outcomes in their peers and/or family members. For example, among Latinos in this Midwestern city, there is an elevated high school drop-out rate, only 56% graduate high school, and within the community, 40% of freshmen leave school and do not return for sophomore year. Additionally, within this particular community, attending high school is often viewed with mixed emotions due to the poor reputation of the neighborhood high schools and the presence of gang conflicts. Eighth grade participants in this study were approximately 3 months from their graduation date when these surveys were taken. Thus, some of the pessimism may have been a reflection of negative feelings surrounding leaving their grade school for high school.

Implications for Practice

So, what can be concluded from these data about conflict resolution in urban youth? First, an aggressive style of conflict resolution seems to be more typical of boys than girls, but it is not the only or the most popular style used by either group. Verbal assertiveness and a non-confrontational response were more popular types of responses for participants in our sample. This suggests that youth, and especially girls, have a wider repertoire of behaviors available to them in dealing with interpersonal conflict. Girls were also more verbally assertive than prior research has shown. This could reflect the effects of living in an urban environment where not backing away from conflicts may be adaptive and protective. Feeling confident in one's ability to handle conflict situations and feelings of self-control also play a role in determining what styles are utilized. For school counselors, it may be important to design skill-building interventions that enhance youth's self-efficacy in dealing with conflict non-aggressively and their sense of personal control. Such interventions could be based on the work of Bandura (1991), who suggests that self-efficacy can be enhanced through direct experience (e.g., role playing) or vicarious experience (e.g., role modeling). Such interventions could result in a reduction of aggressive behavior and an expansion of social problem-solving skills. Attention to this issue is consistent with the ASCA National Model's (2003) emphasis on developing personal/social competencies (e.g., Standard 7 Respecting Self and Others, Competency 2: Skills to interact with others).

This study's findings would also suggest that boys may be in greater need for such interventions than girls. However, the issue of what constitutes "productive" conflict resolution in urban youth is open for debate. Is it appropriate to teach urban youth that all aggressive responses to conflict are ineffective or inappropriate? Does encouraging youth to go to adults for help reduce violence or result in "losing face" with peers as a consequence? These questions remain unanswered in the current body of literature on conflict resolution.

Limitations

Limitations of this study are found primarily within the area of measurement of constructs and conceptual links between variables. The self-control measure was not found to be as reliable as it has in past research, and a more reliable way of measuring the construct might clarify the relationships among self-control, self-efficacy and conflict resolution in urban youth. However, it has also been suggested that self-control may need to be reconceptualized in non-White, non-middle class populations (Gurin et al., 1969). The reliance on self-report, paper and pencil measures is another clear limitation of the study. There was no attempt to measure actual conflict resolution behaviors of participants which might have been a valuable way to validate the connection between self-efficacy beliefs, dominant styles, and conflict resolution behavior.

Suggestions for Future Research

Future research must extend this line of inquiry by including samples of children and adolescents of various ages to explore a wider developmental range. Also needed is an exploration of how environmental influences such as family, peer, and neighborhood may be related to individual decisions adolescents make about conflicts and their confidence in handling such situations (Reese, Vera, Reyes, & Thompson, 2001). Finally, urban children and adolescents must not be our only target population. Whether geographical residence differences exist in the phenomena of conflict resolution styles is a question for future studies.

Promoting adaptive conflict resolution and social competencies is of great importance to professionals who work with youth in the schools and their communities. School counselors can greatly benefit from information that helps to guide prevention and remediation interventions in school settings.

CONCLUSIONS

This investigation examined the relationship between conflict resolution, social self-efficacy, future orientation, and self-control in a sample of seventh and eighth graders in an urban public school. Conflict resolution style was significantly predicted by self-efficacy and self-control. However, significant gender differences emerged in conflict resolution styles. Girls used verbal assertiveness more frequently than did boys and boys used aggressive styles more so than did girls. Girls were also more self-efficacious and had less hope about their futures than did boys. School counselors can promote productive conflict resolution styles in students by designing interventions that build self-efficacy and perceptions of self-control. However, such programs should incorporate important gender differences that exist in the use of conflict resolution styles.

Table 1. Means and Standard Deviations for
Sample on Dependent Measures

Variables           N      Mean     SD     Range

Age               163.00   13.14    .087   11-15
Self-Control      159.00    5.63   2.19     0-11
Sell-Efficacy     158.00   18.04   6.73    10-50
Hopelessness      159.00    3.86   2.86     0-17

Table 2. Correlations of Measures

Variables          Age     Control    Self-Efficacy   Hope-
                                                      less-
Age                                                   ness
Control          .1189
Self-Efficacy    .1283     .3091 **
Hopelessness     .1878 *   .1944 *    .1873 *

* p < .05 ** p < .01

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Elizabeth M. Vera, Ph.D., is an associate professor, Loyola University Chicago, IL E-mail: [e-mail].

Richard Q. Shin is multicultural liaison, Washington State University, Pullman. Gloria P. Montgomery is a graduate student, Loyola University Chicago, IL.

Carolyn Mildner, Ph.D., is adjunct faculty Loyola University Chicago.

Suzette L. Speight Ph.D., is an associate professor, Loyola University Chicago.