Chapter 12. Manage Conflict - Interpersonal Communication

Chapter 12. Manage Conflict

4 December 2012

Conflict is an expressed struggle between at least two interdependent parties. All conflicts possess the same characteristics of perceived incompatible goals, expressed struggle, perceived scarce rewards, interdependence, and inevitability.

Conflicts can be constructive, yet most people view conflict as something to be avoided whenever possible.

Communication scholars usually describe harmful conflicts as dysfunctional and beneficial ones as functional.

In dysfunctional conflicts, outcomes fall short and have damaging effects on the relationship, and functional conflicts achieve the best possible outcomes even possibly strengthening the relationship. This dichotomy forms various sub-dichotomies:

Integration versus polarization, cooperation versus opposition, confirmation versus disconfirmation, agreement versus coercion, de-escalation versus escalation, foresight versus shortsightedness, focusing versus drifting, positive versus negative results.

Default styles of handling conflict are characteristic approaches people take when their needs appear incompatible with what others want.

Conflict styles include avoidance, accommodation, competition, compromise, and collaboration.

Avoidance occurs when people nonassertively ignore or stay away from conflict. Avoidance can be physical or conversational, and reflects a pessimistic attitude about conflict.

Accommodation occurs when we allow others to have their own way rather than asserting our own point-of-view.

Competition is a win-lose approach to conflict that involves high self concern, and low concern for others.

Compromise gives both people at least some of what they want although both sacrifice part of their goals. Some compromises leave everyone satisfied.

Collaboration seeks win-win solutions to conflict in which the goal is to find a solution that satisfies the needs of everyone involved. It is often the ideal outcome.

Passive aggression occurs when a communicator expresses dissatisfaction in a disguised manner, whereas, direct aggressors lash out to attack the source of displeasure.

In determining the best style to use when resolving conflict, consider: the situation, the other person(s) involved, and your own goals.

When two or more people are in a long-term relationship, they develop their own relational conflict style which is a pattern of managing disagreements that repeats itself over a matter of time.

3 styles to manage conflicts include: complimentary conflict style, symmetrical conflict style, and parallel conflict style.

Another way to examine conflict styles is to examine the interaction between emotional closeness and aggression which can include: Nonintimate-aggressive, Intimate-aggressive, Nonintimate-nonaggressive, Intimate-nonagressive.

When people have been in a relationship for some time, their communication often develops into conflict rituals which are unacknowledged, yet real repeating patterns of interlocking behavior.

Conflict management in practice requires that you define your needs, share your needs with the other person(s), listen to the others’ needs, generate possible solutions, evaluate the solution options and choose the best one, implement the solution, and follow-up/reinforce the solution.

Chapter 10. Communication Climate - Interpersonal Communication

Chapter 10. Communication Climate

27 November 2012

Intimacy comes in many forms including physical, emotional, intellectual, and shared activities.

The most common strategies for creating distance are withdrawal and avoidance. Other common avoidance tactics include being reserved, shortening, interaction, restricting topics, restraint, and deception.

The notion of intimacy varies from one culture to another. An important determinant of intimacy although not the only determinant is self-disclosure.

Self-disclosure consists of honestly revealing messages about the self that are intentionally directed toward others.

Disclosing  communication contains information that is generally unavailable via other sources.

The social penetration model describes two dimensions of self-disclosure: breadth and depth.

In a casual relationship, the breadth may be great, but not the depth.

Gender and culture exerts a strong influence on both the amount of intimacy in a relationship and how that intimacy is communicated.

Communicators disclose personal information for a variety of reasons. Benefits include catharsis, self-clarification, self-validation, reciprocity, impression formation, relationship maintenance and enhancement, moral obligation, social influence, and self-defense.

Four alternatives to revealing self-disclosure are silence, lies, equivocations, and hints.

Silence, lies, equivocations, and hints may be ethical alternatives to self-disclosure, however, whether they are or not depends on the speaker’s motives and the effects of the deception.

Reasons people cite for lying include: to save face, to avoid tension or conflict, to guide social interaction, to manage relationships, to gain power, and to protect other relationships.

Risks of self-disclosure include: rejection, negative impression, decrease in relational satisfaction, loss of influence, loss of control, hurt the other person, and increased awareness.

In order for an act of communication to be considered self-disclosing, it must meet the following criteria:

1. It must contain personal information about the sender.

2. The sender must communicate this information verbally.

3. Another person must be the target.

The subject of self-disclosing communication is the self, and information about the self is purposefully communicated to another person.

We can summarize the self-disclosure concept by saying that it:

1. Has the self as subject

2. Is intentional

3. Is directed at another person.

4. Is honest.

5. Is revealing.

6. Contains information generally unavailable from other sources, and

7. Gains much of its intimate nature from the context and culture in which is it expressed.

Self-disclosing messages must contain information that the other person is not likely to know at the time or be able to obtain from another source without a great deal of effort.