Interpersonal Conflict Analysis

Submission Type: Word document (brief essay)

For this paper, you will analyze how your family’s conflict climate has impacted the way you approach conflict. Specifically, this paper encourages you to reflect on your family’s conversation and conformity orientations while you were growing up and consider how those orientations may have shaped your conflict behaviors today.  

In your brief 1-2 page essay, please do the following:

1. Use the Family Conflict Climates from the text (pp. 145-146) and in the Chapter 8 Module to describe your own family’s conflict climates while you were growing up. Was your family high or low in conversation?  High or low in conformity? 

• Next, discuss which specific conflict climate type (pluralistic, consensual, protective, or laissez-faire) best describes your family’s conflict orientation. If your family’s conflict climate type changed over the years or varied based on the situation/context, please discuss that as well. Provide specific examples of experiences or specific interactions with family members growing up that illustrate your points. 

2. Discuss how your family’s conflict climate has influenced how you approach conflict in your relationships today. Which conflict approach (indirect and competitive, direct and competitive, indirect and cooperative, or direct and cooperative) best describes how you handle conflict most of the time? What particular behaviors within each approach do you typically engage in during a conflict (see chart on p. 144)?

• Support your answer by briefly discussing your approach and behaviors during a recent conflict (within the last year or so) with a friend, family member, roommate, or other significant person in your life. Be sure to emphasize how your family’s conflict climate might have impacted how you handled this particular conflict. 

Page requirement: 1-2 double-spaced pages