Adolescence has been characterized by G. Stanley Hall, the first psychologist to advance a scientific theory of adolescence, as a period of storm and stress (Muuss, 1996: 16-17). Studies in the west indicate that adolescence is a time when conflict with parents increases sharply (Paikoff and Brooks-Gunn, 1991; Arnett, 1999). Several studies of adolescents' violent reactions towards their peers and elders in Taiwan also support this observation. A survey of junior high school students showed that 44% of adolescents regularly argued with their siblings (Kao, 1990). A study of adolescents' violent behaviors at junior high schools in Taipei reported that about 64% of male students had fights with their schoolmates and a study done in Kaoshiung indicated that 22% of students had verbally abused their teachers, while 5% had actually attacked or physically assaulted their teachers (reviewed in Wu and Hung, 1996). A Taiwan central government investigation of 44 cases of serious violence arising in students' interpersonal conflicts found that rather trivial matters such as pranks or quarrels in competitive games precipitated most of the violent acts among adolescents (Disciplinary Committee, 1994,1995).Obviously, employing violence in handling interpersonal conflicts is not the only way to maintain social order in the world of adolescents. It may not even be the normal or most prevalent means adopted by adolescents. What are the conditions that influence adolescents to adopt one strategy of conflict management rather than another? The present study addresses this question, with focus on Taiwan adolescents' conflicts with their elders.In order to answer this question, the present study draws from the theoretical insights and empirical findings of two disciplines: sociology and developmental psychology. Developmental psychologists interested in adolescents' interpersonal conflicts have researched & wide range of topics, including conflict issues, initiation, rate, intensity, resolution, and outcomes (reviewed in Collins and Laursen, 1992; Laursen and Collins, 1994). Most of the theoretical attention in developmental studies has been given to the impact of biological factors such as pubertal status or timing (Steinberg, 1987; Paikoff and Brooks-Gunn, 1991), or cognitive factors (Selman, 1980; Smetana, 1988, 1989), without much attention to the impact of sociological variables. This can be attributed in part to the small sample sizes and fairly homogenous backgrounds of subjects in most psychological studies (Laursen et al,, 1998). And psychologists tend to study adolescents' dyadic conflicts in experimental settings or in micro-level social settings. Hence, the research focus and methodology of developmental psychology often preclude examining factors of sociological concern.Even though sociologists are very much interested in issues of social conflict and conflict management, they have generally left research on adolescents' interpersonal conflicts to the psychologists. The present study applies a particular sociological approach, developed by Donald Black (1976, 1993).and Allan Horwitz (1990), to study social conditions that affect adolescents' conflict management. Those studies, however, included no psychological factors and provided no psychological explanation. The present study enlarges the approach of Black and Horwitz to include developmental factors of interest to psychologists, to discover whether the developmental factors are mediated by, or rather complement, sociological factors in their impact on adolescents' conflict management. Specifically, a research model organizing insights from both sociological and psychological perspectives is used in this study to examine factors that lead adolescents in Taiwan to manage their intergenerational conflicts by non-confrontational means.SOCIAL RELATIONALAPPROACHES TO CONFLICT MANAGEMENTWhile both sociological and psychological studies on forms and means employed in conflict management have developed approaches emphasizing the impact of social relationships between disputants, these two approaches have been formulated independently and are here reviewed separately, beginning with the sociological approach. …