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My style is Collaborating

Conflict Management Styles

What’s your approach to managing interpersonal conflict: fight or flight? Do you tackle conflict head-on or seek ways to remove yourself from it? Most of us do not have a single way of dealing with differences, but we do have a tendency to manage conflict by following patterns that we have used before.51 The pattern we choose depends on several factors: our personality, the individuals with whom we are in conflict, the time and place of the confrontation, and other situational factors. For example, if your boss gives you an order, you respond differently from the way you do if your spouse gives you an order. Virginia Satir, author of Peoplemaking, a book about family communication, suggests that we learn conflict response patterns early in life.52 Ample research evidence supports Satir’s conclusion.53

ollaboration

To collaborate is to have a high concern for both yourself and others. People who use a collaboration style of conflict management are more likely to view conflict as a set of problems to be solved rather than a game in which one person wins and another loses. The collaboration conflict style is best used when

collaboration Conflict management style that uses other-oriented strategies to achieve a positive solution for all involved.

• • All sides of the conflict need fresh, new ideas.

• • Enhanced commitment to a solution is important because all are involved in shaping the outcome.

• • It’s important to establish rapport and a positive relational climate.

• • Emotional feelings are intense, and all involved in the conflict need to be listened to.

• • It’s important to affirm the value of the interpersonal relationship.

It may sound as though collaboration is always the best approach to managing conflict. However, there are times when its disadvantages may outweigh the advantages.64 One of the biggest disadvantages is the time, skill, patience, and energy required to manage conflict collaboratively. If a solution is needed quickly, other approaches such as compromise may be best.

So, which style of managing conflict is best? The short answer to this question is “It depends.” It depends on the outcome you seek, the amount of time you have, the quality of the relationship you have with the other people involved, and the amount of perceived power you and others have.67 Each style has advantages and disadvantages; no style has an inherent advantage all of the time. The competent, other-oriented communicator consciously decides whether to compete, avoid, compromise, accommodate, or collaborate. Research suggests that most people find the following most uncomfortable: (1) no clear resolution to a conflict, (2) a conflict management process that is poorly managed, or (3) the avoidance of issues that they would like to discuss.68 There is no single conflict management style that “works” in all situations. We do, however, strongly suggest that when time and other factors permit, a collaborative (win-win) conflict management style is worth exploring.69 The conflict management skills presented in the final section of this chapter are anchored in a collaborative approach to managing conflict.

E-CONNECTIONS Relating to Others: Conflict Happens

Conflict happens not only during our face-to-face interactions but online as well. There are several reasons conflict may be even more likely to occur when we communicate online.

Managing Conflict Online

Reduced Nonverbal Cues

Because we may miss some of the subtle relational cues that exist in face-to-face situations, pseudoconflict in cyberspace can escalate from a mere misunderstanding to substantive differences (simple conflict). And if those differences become personal (ego conflict), the conflict is much more difficult to unravel.

Haste

Sometimes in our haste and informality, we tap out a message that is perfectly clear to us, but not to the recipient. Missed meaning because of a too-cryptic message often occurs online.

Flaming

Flaming occurs when someone sends an overly negative message that personally attacks someone else.65 The flamer can further intensify the negative message by “shouting” the message in ALL CAPITAL LETTERS. People are more likely to use flaming language online than when talking in person.

flaming Sending an overly negative online message that personally attacks another person.

The Disinhibition Effect

The tendency to escalate conflict online is called the disinhibition effect. Without another person physically in front of them, and with emotional tension rising, people tend to lash out—they lose some of their inhibitions; hence the term disinhibition effect.

disinhibition effect The loss of inhibitions when interacting with someone online that leads to the tendency to escalate conflict.

Strategies for Managing Conflict Online

What should you do when you find yourself in an online conflict? Some of the same strategies that you would use when interacting in person can be useful, but there are other specific options to consider in cyberspace.

Avoid Counterflaming; Take Time to Cool Off

Because of the disinhibition effect, your first impulse may be to respond immediately with a reciprocal flaming message. But resist the temptation to fight fire with flaming fire. It may be cathartic to lash out in response to an unfair criticism or hurtful comment, but escalating the conflict makes it more difficult to manage.

Move to a Richer Medium

Consider interacting with the other person in a more media-rich context. If it’s possible, talk to your communication partner in person; if that’s not possible, reach for the phone to talk in real time rather than asynchronously.

Make Sure You Understand the Issues Before Responding

Before you write or say anything further, reread the previous messages. Try to assume the role of an impartial mediator. Rather than looking for ways to justify your actions or feelings, read the messages as if you were looking at the information for the first time.

Paraphrase

Paraphrase what you understand your partner to be communicating. Then give the other person a chance to agree or disagree with your paraphrase. Don’t make any further demands or requests until you’re sure you comprehend the issues that are causing the controversy. Turn the conversation into one about clarification rather than about what you both want.

Increase Redundancy

To enhance clarity and understanding of your message, you may need to repeat key points and summarize what you’d like to have happen during the conflict. Being more redundant when reinforcing what you want to occur in the conflict can be helpful to ensure that your key ideas are being “listened to.” It’s helpful to slow the process down, especially when emotions may be running high; rather than piling on more details, make sure your essential points are clear.66

Use Caution When Trying to Lighten the Tone

In face-to-face contexts, humor can help break the tension. But when you’re with someone physically, you can more accurately read your partner’s nonverbal behavior to know when a joke is helping to reduce the tension and when it’s not. Often what makes something funny is the timing of the joke’s punch line, or the vocal or physical delivery of an intended humorous comment. Online, with limited nonverbal cues, what you think might reduce tension could escalate it.

Self Reflect

Take a “time out” to analyze your emotional reactions. Why are you getting upset and angry? Understanding why you’ve become upset can help you understand how to begin managing the conflict.

Put Yourself In the Other Person’s Position

Use the other-oriented skill of decentering by asking yourself, “What was the other person thinking when he or she wrote that message?” Try to identify the thoughts that may have triggered the negative comments. Then, after considering the other person’s thought process, empathize by asking yourself “What was the other person feeling?”

Conflict occurs both in person and online. Understanding that conflict may occur and rapidly escalate because of the disinhibition effect, and then implementing some of the suggestions presented here, may help you to cool a heated conflict and return your interaction to “room temperature.”

If both people who are involved in a conflict have a secure attachment style (as discussed in Chapter 2, meaning they were raised in a “secure” family that fostered trust, love, and support), then they are likely to use a collaboration or compromise style as apposed to a competing or avoiding style during conflict. If one person is “secure” and the other “insecure” in terms of attachment style, there is likely to be more mutual avoidance and withdrawal from untangling the issues. Researchers have also found that, overall, gay and lesbian couples used more mutual avoidance and withholding communication during conflict than did heterosexual couples.70 Communication researcher Mitchell Hammer suggests that people from highly individualistic cultures (such as the predominant U.S. culture) prefer a conflict management style that is more direct in addressing the conflict-producing issues.71 People in collectivistic cultures—those that emphasize group and team interests over individual interests—typically prefer a more indirect approach to addressing conflict. Hammer also suggests that our cultural preferences for expressing or restraining our emotions have an important influence on our preferred conflict management style.72 People from cultures that emphasize less explicit expression of emotions (Asian cultures, for example) will find intense emotional expressions of anger and frustration distracting and unproductive in managing conflict. Your culture has a strong influence on the degree to which you are direct or indirect when you communicate with others during conflict. Your culture also influences how emotionally expressive or restrained you are when you experience interpersonal conflict.

RECAP Conflict Management Styles