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(2) 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.