Fist Fights in the Kitchen, Harmony in the Hall, Part II: Differentiating Structural and Emotional Harmony

Studies of Asian cultures treat harmony as structural: harmony is preserved by avoiding open confrontations, protecting the other party’s face, and, if necessary, walking away rather than engaging directly in an argument with the other person. We previously tested whether another view of harmony is driven more by individual emotional needs: Emotional harmony places greater emphasis on restoring harmony with the other party, because conflict creates discord and discomfort that the individual feels must be resolved.

The proposed study uses Hage and Marwell’s (1968) role theory, Nisbett and Cohen’s culture of honor theory (1996), and Dillard’s (1990) goals-plan-action theory to predict differences in structural and emotional harmony across three phases of conflict interaction: anticipation, interaction, and post-conflict. Different harmony concerns are expected to result in the pursuit of different interaction goals (i.e., instrumental, relational, identity, or emotional) during each phase (Wilson & Putnam, 1990; Rogan & Hammer, 2006).