Gender-related differences in attitudinal disposition of university workers to resolving conflict through mediation

Human beings have innate tendencies to work in groups or relate with objects and people in their environment. The intra and inter relationships with people, at times, generate conflict which negatively affect psychosocial functioning. Conflicts can be resolved through diverse methods of which mediation occupies central position. The attitudinal disposition of an individual towards mediation tends to dictate whether an individual would mediate to resolve conflicts. Consequently, this paper examined the attitudinal disposition of two hundred and fifty-five (males=152 and females=103) universities workers randomly selected from two private universities in Ota, Ogun State, Nigeria towards using mediation to resolve conflict. An attitudinal scale tagged “Attitude towards Mediation Scale” (α =0.88) developed by the researchers was used to generate data. Two research hypotheses were posed and tested using t-test statistic. The results indicated that there were no significant gender differences in the participants‟ attitudinal disposition to using mediation process to resolving conflict (t-cal =2.76; t-cri =1.96; df =253, P>0.05) and in their preference to resolving only conflict within their gender type (t-cal =.273; t-cri =1.96; df =253, P>0.05). It is therefore recommended that university workers should be adequately trained in the procedures of using mediation so as to build their capacity in resolving conflict at home and workplace. Key Words: Gender, differences, attitudinal disposition, university workers, conflict resolution, mediation.