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The present study examines the relation of individual differences in personality to one's preferences for approaching and managing conflict in work settings. This investigation offers a conceptual foundation for relating the Five‐Factor Model (FFM) of personality to strategy preference, tests strategy‐FFM dimension hypotheses, and explores strategy relations with narrower FFM midlevel traits. Managers and supervisors (N = 249) from public, governmental, and private sector organizations completed the Organizational Communication and Conflict Instrument and the Revised NEO Personality Inventory. Preferences for conflict strategies were found to relate to distinct patterns of FFM dimensions, while narrower midlevel traits provided meaningful insights into the nature of the observed relations.

Research examining the relation of personality to conflict resolution strategy has yet to incorporate the dominant, contemporary view of personality, the five‐factor model (FFM). The use of broad traits (domains), to represent personality, although parsimonious, ignores information contained in narrow personality facets, masks important conceptual relations with various strategies, and has produced inconsistent results. The present study demonstrates that narrow, rather than broad, FFM traits consistently explain greater variance in strategy, and account for significant variance when FFM domain scores appear unrelated to the criterion. These effects are shown to result from the unbinding of criterion‐related from criterion‐unrelated facet scores that are otherwise aggregated into broad domains.