Our browseable glossary of terms related to conflict resolution in education provides quick access to terms you may hear used in the field.

Another useful tool for understanding more general education-related terms is the ERIC thesaurus.

• Fundamental attribution error

  Definition: A perceptual bias where we tend to blame the person rather than the situation for an event

• Gender

  Definition: the socially prescribed expectations or roles for people of a particular sex, usually discussed in terms of masculinity, femininity, or androgyny

• Generating Options

  Definition: In principled negotiation and/or mediation, the process of generating ideas or options for solution

  Related term(s): brainstorming

• Generative conflict

  Definition: creating conflicts that are functional in order to enhance creativity and constructive change

  Related term(s): Creative conflict

• Giving face

  Definition: Doing something to restore or give back someone's identity or face after it has been attacked

  Related term(s): Protective behavior

• Goal-congruent emotions

  Definition: In Lazarus's theory, positive emotions: compassion, happiness, hope, love pride, relief

  Related term(s): Positive emotions

• Goal-incongruent emotions

  Definition: in Lazarus' theory, negative emotions: anger, anxiety, disgust, envy, fright, guilt, jealousy, sadness, shame

  Related term(s): Negative emotions

• Halo effect

  Definition: a perceptual bias where we assume that a person has many positive qualities if they have one positive quality

• Haptics

  Definition: the study of nonverbal touch

  Related term(s): Touch behavior

• High context (HC) communication

  Definition: a message in which most of the information is either in the physical context or internalized in the person, a concept used to distinguish cultures

• Hostile attribution

  Definition: negative assumptions you make about others

• Hostile climates

  Definition: created through hostile attributions about the other and a belief that aggression is acceptable in conflict interaction

• Illustrators

  Definition: gesticulations that help us get our messages across

  Related term(s): Gestures, talking with our hands

• Immediacy

  Definition: the communication of interest in the other through nonverbal behaviors of proximity, gazing, and touching

  Related term(s): Liking behavior

• Impasse

  Definition: When people cannot solve their own conflicts and need to have someone else intervene

  Related term(s): blockage