6.3 Conflict and Interpersonal Communication

Who do you have the most conflict with right now? Your answer to this question probably depends on the various contexts in your life. If you still live at home with a parent or parents, you may have daily conflicts with your family as you try to balance your autonomy, or desire for independence, with the practicalities of living under your family’s roof. If you’ve recently moved away to go to college, you may be negotiating roommate conflicts as you adjust to living with someone you may not know at all. You probably also have experiences managing conflict in romantic relationships and in the workplace. So think back and ask yourself, “How well do I handle conflict?” As with all areas of communication, we can improve if we have the background knowledge to identify relevant communication phenomena and the motivation to reflect on and enhance our communication skills.

Interpersonal conflict often occurs in interactions where there are real or perceived incompatible goals, scarce resources, or opposing viewpoints. Interpersonal conflict may be expressed verbally or nonverbally along a continuum ranging from a nearly imperceptible cold shoulder to a very obvious blowout.

Conflict is an inevitable part of close relationships and can take a negative emotional toll. It takes effort to ignore someone or to be passive-aggressive, and the anger or guilt we may feel after blowing up at someone is a valid negative feeling. However, conflict isn’t always negative or unproductive. In fact, numerous research studies have shown that the quantity of conflict in a relationship is not as important as how the conflict is handled (Markman et al., 1993). Additionally, when conflict is well managed, it has the potential to lead to more rewarding and satisfactory relationships (Canary & Messman, 2000).

Improving your competence in dealing with conflict can yield positive effects in the real world. Since conflict is present in our personal and professional lives, the ability to manage conflict and negotiate desirable outcomes can help us be more successful at both. Whether you and your partner are trying to decide what brand of flat-screen television to buy or you are discussing the upcoming political election with your mother, the potential for conflict is present. In professional settings, the ability to engage in conflict management, sometimes called conflict resolution, is a necessary and valued skill. However, many professionals do not receive training in conflict management even though they are expected to do it as part of their job (Gates, 2006).

Lack of training and lack of competence could be a recipe for disaster. Many colleges and universities now offer undergraduate degrees, graduate degrees, or certificates in conflict resolution. Being able to manage conflict situations can make life more pleasant rather than letting a situation stagnate or escalate. The negative effects of poorly handled conflict could range from an awkward last few weeks of the semester with a college roommate to violence or divorce in a romantic relationship. However, there is no absolute right or wrong way to handle a conflict. Remember that being a competent communicator doesn’t mean that you follow a set of absolute rules. Rather, a competent communicator assesses multiple contexts and applies or adapts communication tools and skills to fit the dynamic situation.

Causes of Conflict

There are many potential causes of conflict, and many theories concerning them. A few potential causes of conflict were mentioned above and include real or perceived incompatible goals, scarce resources, or opposing viewpoints. Relational transgressions are another common cause, and they occur when people violate implicit or explicit relational rules. These rule violations can be events, actions, or behaviours that violate relationship norms or rules. Explicit rules tend to be relationship specific, such as those prompted by the bad habits of a partner (e.g., excessive drinking or drug abuse) or those that emerge from attempts to manage conflict (e.g., rules that prohibit spending excess time with a friends or talking about a former girlfriend or boyfriend). Implicit rules tend to be those that are accepted as cultural standards for proper relationship conduct (e.g.,  secrets should be kept private).

Conflict Management Styles

Would you describe yourself as someone who prefers to avoid conflict? Do you like to get your way? Are you good at working with someone to reach a solution that is mutually beneficial? Odds are that you have been in situations where you could answer yes to each of these questions, which underscores the important role that context plays in conflict and in conflict management styles in particular. The way we view and deal with conflict is learned and contextual. Is the way you handle conflict similar to the way your parents handle conflict? As children, we test out the different conflict resolution styles we observe in our families with our parents and siblings. Later, as we enter adolescence and begin developing platonic and romantic relationships outside the family, we begin testing what we’ve learned from our parents in other settings. If a child has observed and used negative conflict management styles with siblings or parents, they are likely to exhibit those behaviours with non–family members (Reese-Weber & Bartle-Haring, 1998).

Much research has been done on different conflict management styles, which are communication strategies that attempt to avoid, address, or resolve a conflict. Keep in mind that we don’t always consciously choose a style. We may instead be caught up in emotion and become reactionary. The strategies for more effectively managing conflict that will be discussed later may allow you to slow down the reaction process, become more aware of it, and intervene in the process to improve your communication.

A powerful tool for mitigating conflict is information exchange. Asking for more information before you react to a conflict-triggering event is a good way to add a buffer between the trigger and your reaction. Another key element is whether or not a communicator is oriented toward self-centred or other-centred goals. For example, if your goal is to “win” or make the other person “lose,” you show a high concern for self and a low concern for others. If your goal is to facilitate a “win-win” resolution or outcome, you show a high concern for both self and others. In general, strategies that facilitate information exchange and include concern for mutual goals will be more successful for managing conflict (Sillars, 1980). The five strategies for managing conflict that we will discuss are competing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating. Each of these conflict styles accounts for the concern we place on self versus others.

Watch this video as an introduction to conflict management styles that will be discussed in the next section.

(Study Hall, 2022)

Competing Style

The competing style of conflict management indicates a high concern for self and a low concern for others. When we compete, we are striving to “win” the conflict, potentially at the expense or “loss” of the other person. One way we may gauge our win is by being granted or taking concessions from the other person. For example, if D’Shaun gives Casey extra money behind Rosa’s back, he is taking an indirect competitive route, resulting in a “win” for him because he got his way. The competing style also involves the use of power, which can be either noncoercive or coercive (Sillars, 1980). Noncoercive strategies include requesting and persuading. When requesting, we suggest that the conflict partner change a behaviour. Requesting doesn’t require a high level of information exchange. When we persuade, however, we give our conflict partner reasons to support our request or suggestion, meaning that there is more information exchange, which may make persuading more effective than requesting. Rosa could try to persuade D’Shaun to stop giving Casey extra allowance money by bringing up their fixed budget or reminding him that they are saving for a summer vacation. Coercive strategies violate standard guidelines for ethical communication and may include aggressive communication directed at rousing your partner’s emotions through insults, profanity, and shouting, or through threats of punishment if you do not get your way. If Rosa is the primary income earner in the family, she could use that power to threaten to take D’Shaun’s ATM card away if he continues giving Casey money. In all these scenarios, the “win” that could result would only be short-term and could lead to conflict escalation. Interpersonal conflict is rarely isolated—there can be ripple effects that connect the current conflict to previous and future conflicts. D’Shaun’s behind-the-scenes money giving or Rosa’s confiscation of the ATM card could lead to built-up negative emotions that could further test their relationship.

Competing has been linked to aggression, though the two are not always paired. If assertiveness does not work, there is a chance the conflict could escalate to hostility. There is a pattern to verbal escalation: requests, demands, complaints, angry statements, threats, harassment, and verbal abuse (Johnson & Roloff, 2000). Aggressive communication can become patterned, which can create a volatile and hostile environment.

The competing style of conflict management is not the same thing as having a competitive personality. Competition in relationships isn’t always negative, and people who enjoy engaging in competition may not always do so at the expense of another person’s goals. In fact, research has shown that some couples engage in competitive shared activities like sports or games to maintain and enrich their relationship (Dindia & Baxter, 1987).

Avoiding Style

The avoiding style of conflict management often indicates a low concern for self and a low concern for others, and no direct communication about the conflict takes place. However, in cultures that emphasize group harmony over individual interests, and even in some situations in Canada, avoiding a conflict can indicate a high level of concern for others. In general, avoiding doesn’t mean that there is no communication about the conflict. Remember that you cannot not communicate. Even when we try to avoid conflict, we may intentionally or unintentionally give our feelings away through our verbal and nonverbal communication. Rosa’s sarcastic tone as she tells D’Shaun that he’s “Soooo good with money!” and his subsequent eyeroll both bring the conflict to the surface without specifically addressing it. The avoiding style is either passive or indirect, meaning that there is little information exchange, which may make this strategy less effective than others. We may decide to avoid conflict for many different reasons, some of which are better than others. If you view the conflict as having little importance to you, it may be better to ignore it. If the person you’re having conflict with will only be working in your office for a week, you may perceive a conflict to be temporary and choose to avoid it and hope that it will solve itself. If you are not emotionally invested in the conflict, you may be able to reframe your perspective and see the situation in a different way, therefore resolving the issue. In all these cases, avoiding doesn’t really require an investment of time, emotion, or communication skill, so there is not much at stake to lose.

Avoidance is not always an easy conflict management choice because sometimes the person we have a conflict with isn’t a temporary employee in our office or a weekend houseguest. Although it may be easy to tolerate a problem when you’re not personally invested in it or view it as temporary when faced with a situation like Rosa and D’Shaun’s, avoidance would just make the problem worse. For example, avoidance could first manifest as changing the subject, then progress from avoiding the issue to avoiding the person altogether, to even ending the relationship.

Indirect strategies of hinting and joking also fall under the avoiding style. While these indirect avoidance strategies may lead to a buildup of frustration or even anger, they allow us to vent a little of our built-up steam and may make a conflict situation more bearable. When we hint, we drop clues that we hope our partner will find and piece together to see the problem and hopefully change, thereby solving the problem without any direct communication. In almost all the cases of hinting, the person dropping the hints overestimates their partner’s detective abilities. For example, when Rosa leaves the bank statement on the kitchen table in the hope that D’Shaun will realize how much extra money he is giving Casey, D’Shaun may simply ignore it or even get irritated with Rosa for not putting the statement with all the other mail. We also tend to overestimate our partner’s ability to decode the jokes we make about a conflict situation. It is more likely that the receiver of the jokes will think you’re genuinely trying to be funny or feel provoked or insulted rather than realizing that you are referencing the conflict situation. So, more frustration may develop when the hints and jokes are not decoded, which often leads to a more extreme form of hinting or joking—passive-aggressive behaviour.

Passive-aggressive behaviour is a way of dealing with conflict in which one person indirectly communicates their negative thoughts or feelings through nonverbal behaviours, such as not completing a task. For example, Rosa may wait a few days to deposit money into the bank so D’Shaun can’t withdraw it to give to Casey, or D’Shaun may cancel plans for a romantic dinner because he feels like Rosa is questioning his responsibility with money. Although passive-aggressive behaviour can feel rewarding in the moment, it is one of the most unproductive ways to deal with conflict. These behaviours may create additional conflicts and may lead to a cycle of passive-aggressiveness in which the other partner begins to exhibit these behaviours as well, while never actually addressing the conflict that originated the behaviour. In most avoidance situations, both parties lose. However, as noted above, avoidance can be the most appropriate strategy in some situations—for example, when the conflict is temporary, when the stakes are low, when there is little personal investment, or when there is the potential for violence or retaliation.

Accommodating Style

The accommodating style of conflict management indicates a low concern for self and a high concern for others and is often viewed as passive or submissive in that someone complies with or obliges another without providing personal input. The context for and motivation behind accommodating play an important role in whether or not it is an appropriate strategy. Generally, we accommodate because we are being generous, we are obeying, or we are yielding (Bobot, 2010). If we are being generous, we accommodate because we genuinely want to; if we are obeying, we don’t have a choice except to accommodate, perhaps because of the potential for negative consequences or punishment; and if we yield, we may have our own views or goals but give up on them owing to fatigue, time constraints, or because a better solution has been offered. Accommodating can be appropriate when there is little chance that our own goals can be achieved, when we don’t have much to lose by accommodating, when we feel we are wrong, or when advocating for our own needs could negatively affect the relationship (Isenhart & Spangle, 2000). The occasional accommodation can be useful in maintaining a relationship—remember that earlier we discussed putting another’s needs before your own as a way of achieving relational goals. For example, Rosa may say, “It’s okay that you gave Casey some extra money. She had to spend more on gas this week because the prices went up.” However, being a team player can slip into being a pushover, which people generally do not appreciate. If Rosa keeps telling D’Shaun, “It’s okay this time,” they may find themselves short on spending money at the end of the month. At that point, Rosa and D’Shaun’s conflict may escalate as they question each other’s motives, or the conflict may spread if they direct their frustration at Casey and blame it on her irresponsibility.

Research has shown that the accommodating style is more likely to occur when there are time constraints and less likely to occur when someone does not want to appear weak (Cai & Fink, 2002). If you’re standing outside the movie theatre and two movies are starting, you may say, “Let’s just have it your way,” so you don’t miss the beginning of the film. If you’re a new manager at an electronics store and an employee wants to take Sunday off to watch a football game, you may say no to set an example for the other employees. As with avoiding, there are certain cultural influences we will discuss later that make accommodating an effective strategy.

Compromising Style

The compromising style of conflict management shows a moderate concern for self and others and may indicate that there is a low investment in the conflict and/or the relationship. Even though we often hear that the best way to handle a conflict is to compromise, the compromising style isn’t a win-win solution—it is a partial win-lose. In essence, when we compromise, we give up some or most of what we want. It’s true that the conflict is resolved temporarily, but lingering thoughts of what you gave up could lead to a future conflict. Compromising may be a good strategy when there are time limitations or when prolonging a conflict may lead to relationship deterioration. Compromise may also be good when both parties have equal power or when other resolution strategies have not worked (Macintosh & Stevens, 2008).

A negative aspect of compromising is that it may be used as an easy way out of a conflict. The compromising style is most effective when both parties find the solution agreeable. Rosa and D’Shaun could decide that Casey’s allowance needs to be increased, and they could each give her $10 more a week by committing to taking their lunch to work twice a week instead of eating out. In this situation, they are both giving up something, and if neither of them has a problem with taking their lunch to work, then the compromise was equitable. If the couple agrees that the extra $20 a week should come out of D’Shaun’s golf budget, the compromise isn’t as equitable, and D’Shaun, though he agreed to the compromise, may end up with feelings of resentment. Wouldn’t it be better to both win?

Collaborating Style

The collaborating style of conflict management involves a high degree of concern for self and others and usually indicates investment in both the conflict situation and the relationship. Although the collaborating style takes the most work in terms of communication competence, it ultimately leads to a win-win situation in which neither party has to make concessions because a mutually beneficial solution is discovered or created. The obvious advantage is that both parties are satisfied, which could lead to positive problem solving in the future and strengthen the overall relationship. For example, Rosa and D’Shaun may agree that Casey’s allowance needs to be increased and may decide to give her $20 more a week in exchange for her babysitting her little brother one night a week. In this case, they didn’t make the conflict personal but focused on the situation and came up with a solution that may end up saving them money. The disadvantage is that this style is often time consuming, and only one person may be willing to use this approach while the other person is eager to compete to meet their goals or is willing to accommodate.

Here are some tips for collaborating to achieve a win-win outcome:

• Do not view the conflict as a contest you are trying to win.
• Remain flexible and realize that there are solutions yet to be discovered.
• Distinguish the people from the problem—don’t make it personal.
• Determine what the underlying needs are that are driving the other person’s demands; needs can still be met through different demands.
• Identify areas of common ground or shared interests that you can work from to develop solutions.
• Ask questions to allow the other person to clarify their point of view and to help you understand their perspective.
• Listen carefully, and provide verbal and nonverbal feedback.

(Hargie, 2011)

Common Conflict Behaviours

It is important to be aware common conflict behaviours. Some help to resolve conflict, whereas others increase the chance of both causing and perpetuating conflict. Increasing your awareness of these behaviours can help to reduce negative conflict spirals, identify these behaviours in your interactions with others, and promote awareness of alternative and more collaborative and peaceful responses.

One form of behaviour is a type of passive aggression referred to as crazymaking (Bach & Goldberg, 1974). Often crazymaking behaviours are unconsciously done and are indirect attacks. However, they result in upsetting others or “driving others crazy,” hence the name. This is a subtle conflict style in which a person expresses hostility or resistance to others through stubbornness, resentment, procrastination, jokes with ambiguous meanings, petty annoyances, or persistent failure to fully meet expectations or responsibilities. Someone who displays this style of conflict may disavow any negative intent if confronted or questioned about their behaviour. Examples of crazymaking and some other forms of unproductive conflict behaviours are discussed below.

Crazymaking Behaviours

The Contract Tyrannizer: This person refuses to allow the relationship to change from the way it was. Roles, expectations, and beliefs about the relationship are set in stone and cannot ever be allowed to change (Schinstock, 2013).

The Withholder: This person is unwilling to be open and honest about something that is upsetting them (Schinstock, 2013). They instead punish the other person by withholding something. This could be in the form of withholding affection, humour, or courtesy or respect, which eventually results in increasing resentment within the relationship (Schinstock, 2013).

The Goat-Getter: This individual does not share underlying resentments, but instead does little things to irritate others. This can take the form of behaviours such as not putting things away or playing music loudly, and when they are asked about the behaviour, they deny it (Schinstock, 2013).

The Joker: Instead of talking about conflict, this person will make jokes and avoid the topic when someone wants to discuss it. As a result, it is not possible to have a serious conversation, and when pushed, the behaviour becomes worse and the joker act similarly to the goat-getter (Schinstock, 2013).

The Benedict Arnold: This form of crazymaking involves using sabotage to get back at someone else. It can even take the form of encouraging ridicule from others outside the situation and failing to defend someone from attack (Schinstock, 2013).

Beltlining: This refers to a boxing move that means to hit below the belt (ASCCC OERI, 2023). In terms of conflict, this metaphor refers to using intimate information against another person to cause hurt and anger. For example, Annabelle and Ariana are having a conflict over their friendship, and Ariana beltlines Annabelle with this comment: “You have often wondered why you don’t have more friends. Based on how you are acting right now, I don’t need to wonder any more” (ASCCC OERI, 2023).

Gunnysacking: This is an imaginary bag (a gunnysack) that we all carry into which we place unresolved conflicts or grievances over time. Holding onto the way things used to be can be like a stone in your gunnysack and influence how you interpret your current context. Gunnysacking may be expressed by bringing up previous behaviours the other person has engaged in or previous arguments you felt were unresolved.

Silencers: This type of behaviour, which includes crying, yelling, or heavy breathing, can stifle and silence the conflict (ASCCC OERI, 2023). When conflict escalates quickly, parties may use silencers to deflect attention away from the conflict issue and instead make the conflict about the silencers. For example, let’s say that friends Jasmine and Sam are having a conflict over money. Jasmine assertively tells Sam that she expects to be repaid for the money she lent him. Rather than responding to Jasmine’s request, Sam begins crying and suggests that Jasmine is a bully for bringing up the topic. The conflict now becomes about Jasmine’s approach and Sam’s crying, and the money problem not addressed addressed (ASCCC OERI, 2023).

Kitchen Sinking: With gunnysacking, people store up their grievances to unload at a later date, whereas kitchen sinking refers to bringing up past conflicts, even those that have been resolved, to gain leverage in the conflict. The challenge created by kitchen sinking is that it can distract from the conflict at hand by bringing up the past (ASCCC OERI, 2023).

Counterpunch: This is a defensive response to conflict in which rather than responding to the initial topic of conflict, the other person reacts by sharing their own, often unrelated criticism (ASCCC OERI, 2023). For example, Sunita asks Ethan to make a better effort cleaning up after himself in the kitchen. Rather than responding to Sunita’s request, Ethan responds with, “If you were a better cook, it might motivate me to clean up my dishes.”

Culture and Conflict

Culture is an important context to consider when studying conflict, and recent research has called into question some of the assumptions of the five conflict management styles discussed so far, which were formulated with a Western bias (Oetzel et al., 2008). For example, although the avoiding style of conflict has been cast as negative, with a low concern for self and others or as a lose-lose outcome, research has found that participants in Canada, the United States, Germany, China, and Japan all viewed avoiding strategies as demonstrating a concern for others. While there are some generalizations we can make about culture and conflict, it is better to look at more specific patterns of how interpersonal communication and conflict management are related. We can better understand some of the cultural differences in conflict management by further examining the concept of face.

What does it mean to “save face”? This saying generally refers to preventing embarrassment or preserving our reputation or image, which is similar to the concept of face in interpersonal and intercultural communication. You may remember that our face is a reflection of the self that we desire to put out into the world, and facework refers to the communicative strategies we employ to project, maintain, or repair our face or to maintain, repair, or challenge another’s face. Face negotiation theory argues that people in all cultures negotiate face through communication encounters and that cultural factors influence how we engage in facework, especially in conflict situations (Oetzel et al., 2003). These cultural factors influence whether we are more concerned with self-face or other-face and what conflict management strategies we might use. One key cultural influence on face negotiation is the distinction between individualistic and collectivistic cultures.

The distinction between individualistic and collectivistic cultures is an important dimension across which all cultures vary. Individualistic cultures such as Canada, the United States, and most of Europe emphasize individual identity over group identity and encourage competition and self-reliance. Collectivistic cultures like Taiwan, Colombia, China, Japan, Vietnam, and Peru value in-group identity over individual identity and conformity to social norms of the in-group (Dsilva & Whyte, 1998). However, within the larger cultures, individuals will vary in the degree to which they view themselves as part of a group or as a separate individual, which is called self-construal. Independent self-construal indicates a perception of the self as an individual with unique feelings, thoughts, and motivations. Interdependent self-construal indicates a perception of the self as interrelated with others (Oetzel et al., 2003). Not surprisingly, people from individualistic cultures are more likely to have higher levels of independent self-construal, and people from collectivistic cultures are more likely to have higher levels of interdependent self-construal. Self-construal and individualistic or collectivistic cultural orientations affect how people engage in facework and the conflict management styles they employ.

Self-construal alone does not have a direct effect on conflict style, but it does affect face concerns, with independent self-construal favouring self-face concerns and interdependent self-construal favouring other-face concerns. There are specific facework strategies for different conflict management styles, and these strategies correspond to self-face concerns or other-face concerns:

• Accommodating: Giving in (self-face concern)
• Avoiding: Pretending that conflict does not exist (other-face concern)
• Competing: Defending your position, persuading (self-face concern)
• Collaborating: Apologizing, having a private discussion, and remaining calm (other-face concern)

(Oetzel et al., 2008)

Research done on college students in Germany, Japan, China, Canada, and the United States found that those with independent self-construal were more likely to engage in competing, and those with interdependent self-construal were more likely to engage in avoiding or collaborating (Oetzel et al., 2003). In general, this research found that members of collectivistic cultures were more likely to use the avoiding style of conflict management and less likely to use the integrating or competing styles of conflict management than were members of individualistic cultures.

The following examples bring together facework strategies, cultural orientations, and conflict management styles:

• A person from an individualistic culture may be more likely to engage in competing as a conflict management strategy if they are directly confronted, which may be an attempt to defend their reputation (self-face concern).
• A person in a collectivistic culture may be more likely to engage in avoiding or accommodating in order not to embarrass or anger the person confronting them (other-face concern) or out of concern that their reaction could reflect negatively on their family or cultural group (other-face concern).

Although these distinctions are useful for categorizing large-scale cultural patterns, it is important not to essentialize or arbitrarily group countries together because there are measurable differences within cultures. For example, expressing one’s emotions was seen as demonstrating a low concern for other-face in Japan, but this was not so in China, which shows there is variety between similarly collectivistic cultures. Culture always adds layers of complexity to any communication phenomenon, but experiencing and learning from other cultures also enriches our lives.

References

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Schinstock, J. (2013, December 2). Several forms of the ‘Crazymakers.’ The Hutchinson News. https://www.hutchnews.com/story/news/2013/12/03/several-forms-crazymakers/20868082007/

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Study Hall. (2022, October 5). What is your conflict style? | Intro to human communication | Study Hall. [Video]. YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QxD1fgljmYc&list=PLID58IQe16nFcsed5sqo0VfQUZ7EF8rqY

Image Credits (images are listed in order of appearance)

Argument-3894006 960 720 by unknown author, CC BY-SA 4.0

Face Off by Aaron, CC BY 2.0

Autism Aspect Self Advocacy Struggles 1 by MissLunaRose12, CC BY-SA 4.0