This research combined data from 116 studies published between 1990 and 2010, in order to capture overall trends in group conflict research. The findings paint a more complex picture of the impact of these types of conflict:

• Overall, conflict tends to have a stronger impact on team satisfaction and cohesion than on performance.
• Process and relationship conflicts are more strongly related to decreases in team member satisfaction than task conflicts.
• Cohesion suffers in the presence of relationship, but not task conflicts.
• Both process and relationship conflicts are associated with decreased team performance. In fact, when there is both increased relationship and process conflict, performance is further diminished.
• Task conflicts can actually enhance performance. Only when relationship conflicts are high do task conflicts have a negative impact on cohesion and member satisfaction.
• Management teams, as compared to lower-level teams, are better able to prevent task conflicts from escalating into relationship conflicts.

This research builds on past assumptions about conflict that leaders and consultants should heed: effective teams are not devoid of conflict, but make use of conflict in constructive ways. Conflicts over the task at hand can result in innovations, with members sharing and debating competing ideas. When conflicts get personal, destructive dynamics develop. Process conflicts form when the approach to completing a task leaves out certain team members, or fails to recognize individual team member needs to contribute in ways that match their skills, abilities and ambitions. When this happens, relationships suffer, and team members struggle to maintain cohesion and work effectively together – further escalating the destructive dynamic.
  de Wit, F. R., Greer, L. L., & Jehn, K. A. (2012). The paradox of intragroup conflict: A meta-analysis. Journal of Applied Psychology, 97(2), 360-390.