The Positive Spiral Between Problem-Solving Management and Trust: A Study in Organizations for Individuals With Intellectual Disability

To achieve their goals, organizations for individuals with intellectual disability have to stimulate high-quality relationships between professionals and family members. Therefore, achieving professionals' trust in family members has become a challenge. One relevant factor in explaining professional's trust in families is the degree to which family members use the "problem-solving" conflict management strategy (high concern for oneself but also for the other party) in their disputes-disagreements with professionals. It is reasonable to argue that when family members use problem-solving conflict management, professionals' trust increases. Professionals' trust, in turn, stimulates the use of problem-solving strategies by family members. However, it is also plausible that professionals are the initiators of this positive spiral (professionals' trust-problem-solving conflict management by family members-professionals' trust). To examine this relationship between problem solving and trust over time, we conducted a longitudinal survey study in which 329 professionals reported on these two constructs three times (with 4 weeks between the measurements). Using structural equation modeling, we compared four nested models: (a) stability, (b) causality (where the problem-solving strategy by familiar members is the initiator of the spiral), (c) reversed causation (where the professional's trust is the initiator of the spiral), and (d) reciprocal (where problem-solving conflict management and trust reinforce each other). The results of the χ difference tests, regarding the comparison of the models, showed that the reciprocal model was significantly superior to the alternative proposals. Our findings supported a complex view of the relationships between problem-solving conflict management and trust, based on dynamic reciprocal relationships over time.