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Preliminaries to Interpersonal Conflict 157

f all your interpersonal interactions, those involving conflict are among your most important.
OInterpersonal conflict often creates ill will, anxiety, and problems for relationships. But
as you’ll soon see, conflict can also create opportunities for improving and strengthening
relationships.

Preliminaries to Interpersonal Conflict

Before considering the stages and strategies of conflict management, it is necessary to define Listen to the audio clip
exactly what is meant by interpersonal conflict, the issues around which interpersonal conflict “Managing Conflict” at
often centers, and some of the myths surrounding conflict. MyCommunicationLab

DefinitiOn Of interpersOnal COnfliCt
You want to go to the movies with your partner. Your partner wants to stay home. Your in-
sisting on going to the movies interferes with your partner’s staying home, and your partner’s
determination to stay home interferes with your going to the movies. You can’t both achieve
your goals, so there will be conflict.
As this example illustrates, interpersonal conflict is disagreement between or among
connected individuals (e.g., close friends, lovers, family members) who perceive their goals as
incompatible (Hocker & Wilmot, 2007; Folger, Poole, & Stutman, 2013; Cahn & Abigail,
2007). More specifically, conflict occurs when people:
● are interdependent (they’re connected in some significant way); what one person does
has an impact or an effect on the other person.
● are mutually aware that their goals are incompatible; if one person’s goal is achieved,
then the other person’s goal cannot be achieved. For example, if one person wants to buy
a new car and the other person wants to pay down the mortgage, and there is not enough
money to do both, there is conflict.
● perceive each other as interfering with the attainment of their own goals. For example,
you may want to study but your roommate may want to party; the attainment of either
goal would interfere with the attainment of the other goal.
An important implication of this concept of interdepen-
dency is that, the greater the interdependency, the greater High
High
(1) the number of issues around which conflict can center
and (2) the impact of the conflict and the conflict manage-
ment interaction on the individuals and on the relationship
(see Figure 8.1). Looked at in this way, it’s easy to appreciate
the importance to your relationships of understanding inter-
personal conflict and learning strategies for effective conflict
management. Breadth and Depth of Conflict

interpersOnal COnfliCt issues
Interpersonal conflicts cover a wide range of issues and
have been categorized differently by different researchers.
One system, for example, classifies conflicts into four Lo High
Low www
categories (Canary, 2003): (1) goals to be pursued (e.g.,
d
d
disagreement between parent and child on what college to Interdependency
attend or what romantic partner to get involved with); figure 8.1
(2) the allocation of resources, such as money or time (e.g., Conflict and interdependency
partners’ differing on how to spend their money); This figure illustrates that, as interdependency increases, so do the
(3) decisions to be made (e.g., whether to save or splurge potential for and the importance of conflict. Does this diagram effectively
the recent bonus); and (4) behaviors that are considered depict the likelihood and the significance of your own interpersonal
appropriate or desirable by one person but inappropriate conflicts?