What words do you

associate with
‘CONFLICT’??
Conflict is an expressed struggle between at
least two interdependent parties who perceive
incompatible goals, scarce rewards, and
interference from the other party in achieving
their goals.
 What do you do now?
 You go Christmas shopping. You have been
waiting to get help for quite a while and you are
frustrated. When the clerk asks who is next, a
person who just came says that they are and the
clerk begins to wait on them.

 You tell your parents that you plan to go to

your boy/girlfriend’s home for Spring break.
Your dad informs you that a family reunion is
being planned for that time and they expect you
to be there.
 FIVE CONFLICT STYLES

#1: COMPETING #2: COLLABORATING

Win-Lose Win-Win
Increasing concern for
personal goals

#3: COMPROMISING
Win some- Lose some

#4: AVOIDING #5: ACCOMODATING

Lose-Lose Lose-Win

Increasing concern for relationship/harmony

 Foundational Dynamics
 Healthy people do not seek conflict

 Conflicts are an inevitable part of relationships

 No one style of managing conflict is always right

or always wrong

 How you handle conflict is correlated with the

style of listening that you use

 Some conflicts will not be resolved, no matter how

much effort is invested
 Conflict is a potential pathway to intimacy
 Conflict & Intimate Relationships
 Style & amount of conflict that occur in a premarital
relationship are good predictors of conflict & distress
in subsequent marriage (Kelly, 1985)
 Unhappy & poorly adjusted couples do not
understand one another but think that they do
 In terms of gender differences (Acitelli. 1996)
 Husbands tend to see a need to talk about their
relationship as a sign that things are wrong or
going badly
 Women, on the other hand, like to talk about a
relationship for its own sake, celebrating and
enjoying it
 Conflict & Intimate Relationships

 Three most common sources of conflict/problems in

marriage:
• Money
• Sex
• Communication

 Approximately 60% of conflicts in a marriage are

never resolved (Gottman, 1999), but healthy
marriages learn to accept and live with that fact
In your groups….
 Review and talk about the conflict styles as
presented on the handout
 Discuss your scores from the conflict survey
 What are the sources or issues that create
conflict in your relationships?
 How satisfied are you with the way that you
most often handle conflict?
 Unless you are completely satisfied, what
would you like to change about the way you
deal with conflict?
 Conflict Management Tactics
Canary & Cupach, 1988

 Use of integrative tactics produce satisfaction

 Looking for areas of common ground rather than points of
disagreement
 Expressing trust & liking for the other person even in times of
crisis/argument
 Looking out for interests of both rather than oneself alone
 Use of distributive tactics produce distance/breakup
 Climate of competitiveness
 Attempts to impose one’s goals on the other
 Use of threats, shouting, sarcasm
 Mild conflicts often follow a predictable pattern of
communication; in serious conflicts communication rules are
often disregarded, and tend to be intense, chaotic, less
controllable, and confusing (Sillars & Weisberg)