Conflict

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Conflict Conflict Resolution

• Chapter 10

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Conflict

• What it does to relationships makes it
  significant.
• It is also emotional.

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Interpersonal Conflict

• A situation in which
• Two or more people in
• An interdependent relationship
• Perceive themselves to have different viewpoints
• Or goals which are incompatible.

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Myths about Conflict

• 1 Healthy relationships have little or no
  conflict.
• Virtually all relationships have conflict.
• Conflicts can be large or small.
• John Gottman found no relationship between the
  amount of conflict and the health of the
  relationship.

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Myths about Conflict

• 2 Conflict is always destructive.
• Research has shown this to be untrue.
• Conflict can be constructive.
• First Big Fight (FBF) has benefits.
• Sense of mutual commitment
• Clarifying needs values
• Increasing conflict-resolution skills
• Increases trust

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Myths about Conflict

• In any conflict, there can only be one winner.
• can become a self-fulfilling prophecy
• makes us fight harder for our own viewpoint

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Overcoming the Myths

• Recognize whether we believe them
• FBF survivors were recognized by their attitudes,
  recognizing need for joint effort, and
  willingness to adjust
• Myths may be unconscious assumptions

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Individuals typical method of responding to
  conflict.
• Consistent across time and situations
• May be influenced by personality
• May be influenced by family learning
• May be influenced by culture.

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Dual-concern model
• Assertiveness the degree to which we are
  interested in pursuing our own goals and
  interests
• Cooperativeness the degree to which we are
  interested in maintaining the relationship or
  supporting the goals of the other person.

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Accommodating
• High degree of interest in the relationship
• Low degree of concern about ones own interests

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Accommodating
• Prefer harmony to conflict
• Want to liked
• Perceive confict to damage relationships
• Result
• Sacrifice own needs to preserve relationship
• End up feeling used
• Creates a destructive imbalance of power

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Dominating
• High degree of interest in own goals
• Low degree of interest in relationship or goals
  of the other person

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Dominating
• Most confrontational style
• Aggressive tactics such as threats and insults,
  blaming, stonewalling
• Goal-oriented, competitive
• See conflict as a win-lose situation

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Avoiding
• Low degree of interest in pursuing own goals,
  relationship, or others goals
• May have bad experiences in the past or low
  biological tolerance for conflict

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Avoiding
• Downplay the significance of the issue
• Distract leave the scene
• Deny the existence of the conflict
• May be suppressing negative emotions, or avoiding
  negative emotions.

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Avoiding
• Dont learn resolution skills
• May be good if risk of conflict is too high.
• May be OK for a temporary issue

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Compromising
• Moderate degree of interest in own goals
• Equally moderate degree of interest in the
  relationship and/or goals of the other person.
• Value harmony individual satisfaction and
  pursue solutions that are agreeable to both
  parties.

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Compromising
• Compromising would be the most effective style
  except for the required sacrifice
• meets in the middle
• Values equality

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Integrating
• Strong interest in pursuing own goals, the
  relationship, and in supporting the others
  goals.
• Attempts to resolve without sacrifice
• Assumes conflict is normal

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Personal Conflict Styles

• Integrating
• Openly disclose viewpoints
• Carefully listen to other persons viewpoints
• Strive to develop a creative solution that meets
  both parties needs completely.
• win-win conflict resolution method.
• Not always the best choice because of time and
  effort involved.

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Passive-Aggressive Behavior

• A person acts passive on the outside, but
  secretly commits some type of aggression against
  the other person.
• Dont get mad, get even.
• Neither solves problems nor maintains
  relationships.
• May be unrealistic expectations of being
  understood
• May be social-cultural demands to be nice
  (gender-role expectation).

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Personality Cultural Influences

• Personality (Big 5 Traits)
• Extraversion the extent to which we enjoy
  gain energy from social interaction
• Neuroticism the tendency to experience negative
  emotions
• Agreeableness the tendency to go with the flow
  and cooperate

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Personality Cultural Influences

• Personality (Big 5 Traits)
• Conscientiousness being reliable, dependable,
  careful to follow-through on commitments
• Openness to Experience a high level of interest
  in trying new things preferring change to
  stability

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Personality Conflict Style

• Compromisers
• High on agreeableness
• High on openness to experience
• High on neuroticism
• Integrators
• High on extraversion
• High on conscientiousness
• High on openness to experience
• Low on neuroticism

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Personality Conflict Style

• Avoiders
• Low on extraversion
• Low on conscientiousness
• High on neuroticism
• Dominators
• Low on agreeableness

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Culture and Conflict Style

• Accommodating avoiding are seen negatively in
  Western culture, probably because we value
  assertiveness speaking our mind.
• In a number of cultures avoiding may be seen as
  reflecting a high degree of concern for others.

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Culture and Conflict Style

• Possibly concern for self (individualism) and
  concern for others (collectivism) should not be
  seen as the same dimension
• By seeing I-C as two dimensions, four different
  identities or self-construals can be created.

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Culture and Conflict Style

• Interdependent Self-construal
• High collectivist, low individualist values
• Independent Self-construal
• High individualist, low collectivist values
• Bi-construal Identity
• Value own goals, but equal value on connection to
  group
• Ambivalent Identity
• Little sense of individuality, and little sense
  of connection to the group.

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Reducing Defensiveness Conflict Resolution

• The more you can reduce defensiveness, the better
  your chances of solving the conflict in a manner
  that satisfies all parties.
• This is another aspect of creating and
  maintaining a supportive relationship climate.
  It goes with supportive listening and responsible
  feedback (I-language) to make the other feel
  respected and cared about.

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Reducing Defensiveness in Others

• Defensiveness is extremely destructive to
  relationships.
• Defensive spiral - one negative comment tends to
  be reciprocated, and then each provokes another
• Gibb (1961) identified six types of
  defense-arousing comments.

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Reducing Defensiveness in Others

• Evaluation vs. Description
• Evaluation is judgmental you-language. The
  cure is description, which is fact-based and
  non-judgmental.
• Certainty vs. Provisionalism
• Certainty is having the last word. It is
  closed-minded. Provisionalism is more tentative
  and open-minded.

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Reducing Defensiveness in Others

• Control vs. Problem Orientation
• Control is making decisions for other people. It
  sends the signal that you think you are the
  smartest and will make all the decisions.
  Problem- orientation shares decisions and
  collaborates.
• Strategy vs. Spontaneity
• Strategy is manipulating, not being entirely
  truthful. It may be revealed more by what is not
  said or by a pattern.

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Reducing Defensiveness in Others

• Neutrality vs. Empathy
• Neutrality is apparent lack of concern or
  feeling, signaling that the other person is
  unimportant.
• Superiority vs. Equality
• Superiority signals that the speaker is smarter,
  knows more, or is in some way better than the
  listener.
• Each of the six creates an imbalance of power in
  the relationship and resentment.

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Reducing Our Own Defensiveness

• If the criticism is accurate . . .
• Agree (and apologize)
• If the criticism is not accurate . . .
• Try to recognize how they came to see it that
  way.

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Reducing Our Own Defensiveness

• If the criticism is not clear . . .
• Ask for clarification (sincerely).
• Guess about the specifics.
• Ask what they would like you to do about it.

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Reducing Our Own Defensiveness

• When you dont know why the critic is bringing
  this up . . .
• Ask about the consequences of your behavior.
• Ask if something else is wrong.
• Multipurpose, non-defensive response
• paraphrase

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Resolving Conflict An Integrative Approach

• Step 1 Identify the Problem
• Step 2 Set a time and place to discuss the
  issue.
• Step 3 Exchange viewpoints.
• Step 4 Brainstorm and analyze options.
• Step 5 Set a time to follow up.