Self-construal, Face Concerns, and Conflict Management Strategies: A Meta-Analysis

This meta-analysis aimed to investigate the relationship between cultural self-construal and conflict management strategies and the mediating role of face concerns. We used the method of Meta-Analytic Structural Equation Modeling (MASEM) to test the aforementioned relationships in one single model. Two hundred fifty-four effect sizes based on thirty-three studies were pooled in the current MASEM. The findings of this study showed that individuals with an independent self‐construal use more forcing, whereas individuals with an interdependent self-construal employ problem-solving and yielding. Moreover, self-face concerns were related to more forcing, while other-face concerns were related to the use of problem-solving, avoiding, compromising, and yielding. Finally, self-face concerns mediated the relationship between independent self-construal and forcing, and other-face concerns mediated the relationship between interdependent self-construal and problem-solving, yielding, avoiding and compromising. These findings are in line with the assumptions of the Face negotiation theory and shed light on the effects of self-construal on conflict management strategies.