Ch 5: Conflict Styles

preview:

  • Defining conflict styles and how they manifest

  • Contexts that influence one’s conflict style

  • The interactive nature of conflict

  • When conflict turns violent

  • Breaking the conflict style rut

Conflict Styles: Patterns of behavior and communication (responses) people utilize during conflict situations

The Dual Concern Model helps us understand Conflict

The Dual Concern Model suggests that your approach to a conflict is shaped by two independent dimensions: 

  • Concern for Self: The degree to which you try to satisfy your own goals and needs.

  • Concern for Others: The degree to which you try to satisfy the other person's goals and needs.

Combining these two dimensions leads to five conflict management styles:

1. Integrating (Collaborating)

  • Concern Level: High concern for self and high concern for others. 

  • Description: Involves working together to find a solution that fully satisfies both parties' needs. It requires openness, information sharing, and a joint search for mutually beneficial alternatives. This is a win-win strategy. 

  • Advantages: Satisfies both parties, generates new ideas and shows respect, helps create long-term solutions, affirms the importance of the relationship and partnerships

  • Disadvantages: Not useful if investment in the relationship or topic is low, can be used in a manipulative way when person draws out conflict by suggesting ur trying to find a solution for everyone, when really your intention was to stall, and not always possible

2. Obliging (Accommodating)

  • Concern Level: Low concern for self and high concern for others. 

  • Description: The individual yields to the other party's wishes to maintain harmony or support the relationship. They put the needs of the other person first. 

  • Advantages: Can be a reasonable strategy if you are wrong, can be useful if the issue is more important to the other person and u allow them to just act, can promote harmony, can give the lead to someone with more experience on the topic

  • Disadvantages: obliging to manipulate and make urself appear as a martyr, obliged back and forth (no, I’m the better person!), makes it seem like everyone is on the same page, keeps people in a lower position of power, can signal low investment

3. Dominating (Competing)

  • Concern Level: High concern for self and low concern for others. 

  • Description: The individual prioritizes their own goals, often at the other party's expense. This is a win-lose approach where one party "wins" and the other loses. 

  • Advantages: Asserting without being aggressive, useful for quick and decisive action, when the external goal is more important than the relationship, when the goal is to generate ideas

  • Disadvantages: Can harm the relationship, can reduce the conflict to only two options, can cause the other to retreat or become aggressive

  • Tactics:

    • Threats: Use negative communication or behaviors to try to control the outcome of a situation (ex: “If you don’t listen to me, you’re grounded!”)

    • Destructive Domination: Statements that demand the other person give in or that seek to gain an advantage over the other

    • Verbal Aggression and Abuse: Using communication to attack the self-concept of another person, or utilizing violent communication

4. Avoiding

  • Concern Level: Low concern for self and low concern for others. 

  • Description: This involves sidestepping, withdrawing from, or denying the existence of the conflict altogether— it’s avoiding. It's unassertive and uncooperative. 

  • Advantage: Can provide time to think carefully, can keep people safe if they expect a harmful response, can be useful if the relationship is not important

  • Disadvantage: Might suggest you do not care about the other person, might cause conflict to escalate, might lead to a blow-up later

  • Avoidance Criticizing Loop: Person who is avoiding also criticizes the other person (ex: “I’m not going to talk to you unless you stop being so stupid”)

5. Compromising

  • Concern Level: Moderate concern for self and moderate concern for others. 

  • Description: This approach seeks a convenient solution by finding a middle ground that satisfies some of each party's needs, but not necessarily all of them. 

  • In the middle for a reason

  • Advantages: Power balances/shared power, helps both people accomplish important goals, appears reasonable

  • Disadvantages: Can feel like a loss, can become a go-to that seems easy but does not really satisfy either party, requires a willingness to give up something, might lead to avoidance of more creative solutions.

**Please note that Conflict Styles change over time and depend on context, who you’re communicating with

Which Conflict Styles are Avoidant and which are Engaging?

  • Avoidance: the desire or tendency to move away from conflict or act like it does not exist

    • Avoiding

    • Obliging

  • Engagement: The desire or tendency to take part in conflict and discuss issues

    • Integrating

    • Compromising

    • Dominating

What determines your conflict style?

  • Cultural Context

  • Relational Context and History

    • Complimentary Patterns: When conflict styles are different, but reinforce one another

    • Symmetrical Patterns: conflict styles mirror one another

  • Conflict Styles are malleable\

Are you in a conflict style rut?

Chapter Summary: