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Leonardo

Jones, Jodie

COMM 1080 – Conflict Management

Wednesday, August 4, 2021

Conflict Management: Final Paper

Every person has been in a conflict situation in which we felt many emotions

accompanied with physical changes in our bodies that reflect our stand in the situation which

lead to different sorts of outcomes but at the end, we tend to either reach an agreement with the

person we are discussing with or a loop of anger and shame which does not solve the problem,

but also damages the relationship between the people in the conflict (Jones, p.4, 2021). Going a

bit further about conflict management, we can also include some experiences from the person,

such as their culture, race, sex, age, and many other demographics in which can lead the person

to react different in every situation that might cause different reactions from them. In the Article

Impact of rational and experiential thinking styles on interpersonal conflict resolution among

young adults they talk more about people in the age of 18-40 and of course they are focused on

rational and experiential thinking styles which is basically the background of a person, but they

are a bit more focused on their culture on that age range, which are individualistic and

collectivistic; “In contrast to an individualistic society, Pakistani young adults are not socially

obligated to move out from their parents’ houses and live on their own, and thus they remain

shielded from many responsibilities, hurdles, and conflictual experiences that an independent life

would provide. This situation then might provide a unique opportunity to explore the relationship

between thinking styles and conflict resolution in young adult developmental stages, specifically
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examining how different thinking styles of young adults in a collectivistic society help them in

resolving interpersonal conflict effectively” (Rafique, Habib, Rehman, & Arsi, p.2, 2020). In this

paper I’m more inclined to write about the background that I have and the reactions that I had in

the past because I do not consider myself a good conflict manager because in many cases the

outcomes were not so great and I have upset people in the past, so that is why I researched and

discovered relationships about our attitude with our background that would help or be less of

some help in any conflictive situation.

About 3 years ago, I was used to live in Lima, Peru; a city where there was a rare mix of

collectivism and individualism because of the different traits on the people depending on the

zone where you live. In my case, I was in a collectivist family, where we collaborated for the

entire home in where we lived although it was not like that always. We were used to live in my

grandma’s house for a time, then to my grandpa’s house for another time before staying in our

home; it was more individualistic because although we lived in the same house, we had to make

our own to be there like paying rent and helping, but not for a common goal. Going back to how

we lived in collectivism, my father was never with us most of the time in the childhood of my

brother and me, so my mother had to take care of us while my father worked out of the country,

we would see him sometimes in a while, but not too often to be used to him. Me, my mother, and

brother had to take care of the house and we were hoping to increase the construction size by the

time me and my brother had a job in Peru which would have helped us build more floors in our

home, because that is how it was before me and my mother coming here to the US.

Being in a collectivist culture coming from Peru helped me create strong relationships

with family members and friends which were there for me almost all the times, we rarely now

discuss about something and we often resolve them in simple terms which satisfies us, but I had
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no experience being on my own as how I am often doing it here in the US, because being alone

in Peru was not a thing unless you were about 40 years old because at around that age, the

parents die and you have to adapt to an individualistic life on your own unless you find someone

to be with and create a family with them in contrast of the individualistic life which is looking

for more individual growth than collective growth; “During emerging adulthood (age range 18 to

25), which falls neither in pubescence nor in early adulthood yet is hypothetically and factually

different from the former stages of development, an individual has surpassed the age of

dependency of childhood and adolescence but is not mature enough to handle the obligatory

responsibilities of adulthood. During this stage, individuals seek various opportunities in their

personal and professional lives, including a well-paid job and having a strong enduring

relationship” (Rafique, Habib, Rehman, & Arsi, p.1, 2020).

This conflict on individualism when I got here to the US made me and my mother have

conflicts with my stepfather which was living an individualistic life because of being single for

20+ years. Most of the conflicts would have been easier to solve if we were on the same page of

the book but we were a bit rude sometimes with him I’ll have to admit as how he was rude to us.

Our background differences were taking a crucial role with the management of conflict we had

because it was hard and it was not nice to cope with him as well he might thought of us not being

nice to discuss, sometimes we agree and sometimes we were defensive about our beliefs

-culturally talking about customs and plans- and this made the relationship harder, but more

difficult for my mother because they are married still to this day, just that we moved out and we

rarely see him.

On the times we were discussing about a situation or a simple idea that I thought could be

easily solved, he always denied it or proposed another pathway but me and my mother knew
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what the best option for us because of our cultural background was collective, meaning the best

for us as a group. Another thing that was a mistake from us is that we did not correctly discussed

with my stepfather and this was mostly because he isolated himself in his view, something that

would not help the discussion at all because he always requested us to see his point of view but

denied to see ours as a group, then now I realized he grew in a completely different society

culture from us and this may have lead his drastic discussion tactics when having a conflict with

us.

I see differences in people, how they have been raised, what they’re used to and this class

helped me to have more calm discussions with people with different views. I will use what I have

learned in this class in my career of Architecture because most of the projects are in group which

I really like, but as any other group, there may be some miscommunications and

misunderstandings and having the skills learned in this class would help me cooperate,

understand and reach an agreement with future co-workers that are more experienced than me. I

would consider that every person has different background and thus their communication when

we discuss would be easier for me to understand them and reach a mutual agreement because

that is something that I’m looking forward to when having a conflict with someone.
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Works Cited

Jones, J. (2021). Communication & Conflict. Taylorsville: Salt Lake Community College.

Rafique, A., Habib, H., Rehman, F., & Arsi, S. (2020). Impact of rational and experiential

thinking styles on interpersonal conflict resolution among young adults. Journal of Mind

& Medical Sciences.