CONFLICT STYLES

WHAT ARE CONFLICT STYLES?

• Conflict styles are patterned responses, or clusters of behavior, that people use in conflict.
• Style preferences develop over a person’s lifetime based on a complicated blend of
personal characteristics, life experiences, and family background (Hamilton and Tafoya
2012; Roloff 2009; Siffert and Schwarz 2011).
• Your style can change with an introduction to other approaches.
TAKE A MOMENT AND RECALL AN
INTENSELY EMOTIONAL CONFLICT.
What was your first impulse—to engage the conflict or avoid it?
AVOIDANCE AS A CHOICE

• Sometimes, helps a relationship.

• Serves as a defense against engagement, or confrontation, with others when it serves no
useful purpose
• Benefits unimportant relationships or trivial issues to conserve energy.
• In the workplace, your colleague may dislike any conflict, so avoiding touchy topics may
be best for you, once you can determine how to bring up new ideas.
AVOIDANCE AS A STYLE

• Characterized by denial of the conflict, changing and avoiding topics, being

noncommittal, and joking rather than dealing with the conflict at hand.
• Nuances of motivation, skill, and context determine when and how people avoid.
• It is an alternative mode of conflict expression.
 AVOIDANT COMMUNICATION STRATEGIES
∙ Not speaking and remaining quiet.
∙ Refusing to answer or talk saying “I don’t have an opinion” or “Whatever you think is fine with me” or “We will
not have that discussion in this house.”
∙ Deflecting or changing the topic: “What do you think about this storm forecast?” or “I don’t want to talk about it.”
∙ Talking in abstract terms (when someone is attacking your lack of commitment), saying, “What do you think about
the effects of long engagements?”
∙ Leave the scene—to physically exit a situation.
∙ Joking. Making a joke that diffuses the anger, changes the topic, or alters the mood to impact the conflict.
∙ Smiling or laughing to change the mood.
∙ Asking questions—“Gee John, tell me again what was it like growing up in Iowa?”
∙ Supplying conflict irrelevant information.
AVOIDANCE STYLE

ADVANTAGE

• “Avoidance can supply time to think of some other

response to the conflict, as some people cannot “think on
their feet.”
• It is useful if the issue is trivial or if other important issues
demand oneʼs attention.
• If the relationship itself is unimportant to one person.
• Avoidance can also keep one from harm if he or she is in
a relationship in which anything other than avoidance will
bring a negative response from the other party.
• If oneʼs goal is to keep the other party from influencing
him or her, then avoidance helps to accomplish that goal.”
DISADVANTAGE
• “Avoidance may signal to others that you do not “care enough
to confront” them. It also gives the impression that you cannot
change.
• Avoidance allows conflict to simmer and heat up unnecessarily
rather than providing an avenue for reducing it. It keeps one
from working through a conflict and reinforces the notion that
conflict is best avoided. It allows partners each to follow their
own course and pretend there is no mutual influence when, in
fact, each influences the other. It usually preserves the conflict
and sets the stage for a later explosion or backlash.”
SUMMARY: AVOIDANCE

• Avoidance can be useful and appropriate when

(1) open communication is not an integral part of the system (family or organization);
(2) one does not want to invest the energy to “work through” the conflict to reach
agreement with the other—he or she wants to stay at arm’s length and not get close;
(3) the costs of confrontation are too high; or
(4) one simply hasn’t learned how to engage in collaborative conflict management.
DOMINATING

• Also known as competitive or “power over”

• Characterized by aggressive and uncooperative behavior—pursuing your own concerns at the expense of another.
• Power is gained by direct confrontation, by trying to “win” the argument without adjusting to the other’s goals
and desires.
• Commonly facilitated via threats.
• A threat is credible only if:
(1) the source is in a position to administer the punishment,
(2) the source appears willing to invoke the punishment, and
(3) the punishment is something to be avoided.
 DOMINATING
ADVANTAGES
• Can be appropriate and useful when one has to take quick,
decisive action, such as in an emergency. Such verbal strength
can generate creative ideas when others respond well to it or
when one is in a situation in which the best performance or
ideas are rewarded. It is useful if the external goal is more
important than the relationship with the other person, such as in
a shortterm, nonrepeating relationship.
• Informs the other of oneʼs degree of commitment to the issue
and can be used to demonstrate to the importance of the issue.
When everyone agrees that dominating behavior is a sign of
strength and when the behavior is treated as a natural response,
such as in games, sports, or in a court battle, the style serves
good purposes. In these cases, other styles may not bring the
expected closure.
DISADVANTAGES
• Can harm the relationship between the parties
because of the focus on external goals. Competition
can be harmful if one party is unable or unwilling to
deal with conflict in a head-on manner. Conflict
waged competitively can encourage one party to go
underground and use covert means to make the
other pay.
• Tends to reduce all conflicts to two options—“either
you are against me or with me,” which limits oneʼs
role to “winning” or “losing.”
COMPROMISE

• An intermediate style resulting in some gains and some losses for each party.
• It is moderately assertive and cooperative.
• Involves parties giving up some important goals to gain others.
• Requires trade-offs and exchanges.
• Dependent on shared power because if the other party is perceived as powerless, no
compelling reason to compromise exists.
 COMPROMISE
ADVANTAGES
• Sometimes lets conflict parties accomplish
important goals with less time expenditure than
integrating requires. It also reinforces a power
balance that can be used to achieve temporary or
expedient settlements in time-pressured
situations. It can be used as a backup method for
decision making when other styles fail. Further,
it has the advantage of external moral force;
therefore, it appears reasonable to most parties.
Works best when other styles have failed or are
clearly unsuitable.
DISADVANTAGES
• Can become an easy way out—a “formula” solution not
based on the demands of a particular situation. For some
people, compromise always seems to be a form of “loss”
rather than a form of “win.” It prevents creative new
options because it is easy and handy to use. Flipping a coin
or “splitting the difference” can be a sophisticated form of
avoidance of issues that need to be discussed. These
chance measures, such as drawing straws or picking a
number, are not really compromise. They are arbitration,
with the “arbiter” being chance. Requires each side giving
something in order to get an agreement; she is selling a
bike and I pay more than I want to and she gets less than
she wants for the bike.
 OBLIGING/ACCOMMODATING
ADVANTAGES
• When one finds that he or she is wrong, it can be best
to accommodate the other to demonstrate
reasonableness. If an issue is important to one person
and not important to the other, the latter can give a little
to gain a lot. In addition, obliging can prevent one party
from harming the other—one can minimize losses
when he or she will probably lose anyway. If harmony
or maintenance of the relationship is currently the most
crucial goal, obliging allows the relationship to
continue without overt conflict. Obliging to a senior or
seasoned person can be a way of managing conflict by
betting on the most experienced personʼs judgment.
DISADVANTAGES
• Obliging can foster an undertone of competitiveness if
people develop a pattern of showing each other how nice
they can be. People can one-up others by showing how
eminently reasonable they are. Obliging of this type tends to
reduce creative options. Further, if partners overuse obliging,
their commitment to the relationship is never tested, since
one or the other always gives in. This pattern can result in a
pseudo-solution, especially if one or both parties resent the
obliging; it will almost surely boomerang later. Obliging can
further one personʼs lack of power. It may signal to that
person that the other is not invested enough in the conflict to
struggle through, thus encouraging the low-power party to
withhold energy and caring.
INTEGRATING

• Also known as collaborating and mutual problem solving.

• demands the most constructive, engaged engagement of any of the conflict styles.
• Shows a high level of concern for one’s own goals, the goals of others, the successful solution of the problem, and
the enhancement of the relationship.
• Is cooperative, effective, and focused on team effort, partnership, or shared personal goals.
• Requires your best communication skills.
• Involves making descriptive and disclosing statements and soliciting reactions from the other party.
• Requires for parties to work creatively to find new solutions that will maximize goals for them both.
• Associated with successful conflict management.
 INTEGRATING
ADVANTAGES
• Works well to find a collaborative solution that will satisfy all
parties. It generates new ideas, shows respect for the other
parties, and gains commitment to the solution from everyone.
Because integrating incorporates the feelings of the
concerned parties, they both feel the solutions are reality
based. Integrating is a high-energy style that fits people in
long-term, committed relationships, whether personal or
professional. Integrating actively affirms the importance of
relationship and content goals and thus builds a team or
partnership approach to conflict management. When
integrating works, it prevents one from using destructive
means such as violence. It demonstrates to the parties that
conflict can be productive.
DISADVANTAGES
• As with any style, if integrating is the only style used, one
can become imprisoned in it. If investment in the relationship
or issue is low, integrating may not be worth the time and
energy consumed. Further, people who are more verbally
skilled than others can use integrating in manipulative ways,
which results in a continued power discrepancy between the
parties. For example, if one party uses integrating, he or she
may accuse the other of being uncaring by choosing a
different style, such as avoidance. Often, high-power persons
use pseudo-integrating to maintain the power imbalance.
Pseudo-integrating is when you say all the right things, but
ultimately you always gain at the otherʼs expense.
 GUIDELINES TO USING AN INTEGRATIVE STYLE
• Describe without interpretation. Describe what you feel, see, hear, touch, and smell instead of your
guesses about the behavior.
Eg: “You’re so quiet. Ever since I said I didn’t want to go out tonight and would rather stay home
and read, you haven’t spoken to me,”
not “You never understand when I want to spend some time alone!”
• Focus on what is, instead of what should be.
Eg: “You look angry. Are you?” not “You shouldn’t be angry just because I want to stay home.”
• Describe your own experience instead of attributing things to the other person.
Eg: “I’m finding myself not wanting to bring up any ideas because I’m afraid you will ignore
them,” not “You are getting more critical all the time.”
DO YOU USE THE SAME STYLE IN ALL THESE RELATIONSHIPS?

• Best Friend/ Childhood Friend/ New Friend

• Mother/Father/Stepparent
• Roommate
• Brother or sister (or both)
• President of student body
• Uncle or aunt
• Former romantic partner/ Current romantic partner
• Supervisor at work/ Peers at work
• Classmate you like/ Classmate you dislike
• Classroom instructor
 HOW CAN YOU TELL IF YOU ARE STUCK IN A
CONFLICT STYLE?

1. Does your current conflict response feel like the only natural one?
2. Does your conflict style remain constant across a number of conflicts that have similar
characteristics?
3. Do you have a set of responses that follow a preset pattern?
4. Do others seem to do the same thing with you?
5. Do you carry a label that is used to describe you?