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Handling conflicts constructively is one of the greatest challenges in the modern world. Despite maturing societies, growth in scientific knowledge, and a more educated population, we still face damaging conflicts. Conflicts escalate, we reach impasses, and we hurt each other in the conflict process. Individuals get psychological problems, interpersonal relations break down, groups fight, and nations and societies are at war. Notwithstanding all this, conflict management researchers still insist that many - and even most - conflicts have an integrative potential. That is, parties can get a mutual satisfactory agreement if they persistently search for it. Therefore, many of the harmful conflicts that we face today have the potential of being handled constructively ([2] Bazerman and Neale, 1992). So why has, as [19] Menkel-Meadow (2006) asks, "the world not been more successful at getting to yes?" (p. 497).
A key issue may be the need for more systematic knowledge about the integrative approach to conflict management. The integrative approach (see [26] Pruitt and Carnevale, 1993) is about the search for information about facts and interests, and the creative use of that information to generate mutually satisfactory agreements. The concept of integration is used in relation to various aspects of the conflict management process - e.g. integrative potential, integrative outcome, integrative process and integrative intention/style and behaviour - and is largely synonymous with the term problem solving in conflict research, and with the "win-win" notion in the negotiation literature. Given the very broad use of the concept and the importance of understanding integration in conflict management ([20] Moffitt, 2005), the purpose of this paper is to illuminate the integrative approach in conflict management, and illustrate how the concept is related to some important predictors and outcome measures.
More specifically, the aim of this paper is to extend on previous research by first explore how the integrative approach relate to several types of outcome measures; agreement quality, perceived fairness, satisfaction, and trust, in two different contexts; a real life dispute resolution (Study 1), and a simulated deal making simulation (Study 2). Second, we examine potential predictors of an integrative approach that have - despite their intuitive appeal - received somewhat scant attention in previous research. We examine both demographic factors (gender and education - Study 3), individual...