Page 179 - Essentials of Human Communication

158 ChaPter 8 Managing Interpersonal Conflict

or undesirable by the other (e.g., disagreement over one
person’s flirting or drinking or not working as hard on the
relationship).
Another approach, based on surveys of gay, lesbian, and hetero-
sexual couples, found six major issues that virtually all couples share
(Kurdek, 1994). These issues are arranged here in order, with the first
being the most commonly cited. As you read this list, ask yourself
how many of these issues you argue about.
● Intimacy issues, such as affection and sex
● Power issues, where one person makes excessive demands on the
other or makes decisions unilaterally concerning mutual friends or
how you’ll spend your leisure time
● Personal flaws involving, for example, drinking or smoking,
personal grooming, and driving style
ViewpOints ● Personal distance issues, such as frequent absence and heavy
Conflict issues school or job commitments
What issues do television characters fight about? Are the issues ● Social issues, such as politics and social policies, parents, and
fought over in situation comedies different from those in real life?
personal values
● Distrust involving, for example, previous lovers and lying
In the workplace, conflicts are especially important because of their potential negative
effects, such as personnel leaving the job (necessitating new recruitment and retraining), low
morale, and a lessening desire to perform at top efficiency. Workplace conflicts, according to
Explore the Concept “Conflict” one study (Psychometrics, 2010), center on such issues as these :
at MyCommunicationLab
● Personality differences and resulting clashes, 86%
● Ineffective leadership, 73%
● Lack of openness, 67%
● Physical and emotional stress, 64%
● Differences in values and resulting clashes, 59%
Using concepts developed in Chapter 1, you can distinguish between content conflict
and relationship conflict. Content conflict centers on objects, events, and persons that are
usually, though not always, external to the parties involved in the conflict. Content conflicts
have to do with the millions of issues that people argue and fight about every day: the merit
of a particular movie, what to watch on television, the fairness of the last examination or job
promotion, the way to spend accumulated savings.
Relationship conflicts are equally numerous and are those that center on the nature and
meaning of a particular relationship. Examples include clashes that arise when a younger
brother refuses to obey his older brother, two partners both want their say in making vacation
plans, or a mother and daughter each want to have the final word concerning the daughter’s
lifestyle. Here the conflicts are concerned not so much with external objects as with the rela-
tionships between the individuals—with issues such as who is in charge, whether there is
equal say in decision making, and who has the right to set down rules of behavior.
Communication Of course, content and relationship dimensions are always easier to separate in a
Choice Point textbook than they are in real life, where many conflicts contain elements of both. For
escalating to example, you can probably imagine both content and relationship dimensions in each
relationship Conflict of the “content” issues mentioned. Yet certain issues seem oriented more toward one
Your own interpersonal conflicts often start dimension than the other. For example, disagreements on political and social issues
out as content conflicts but quickly degen- are largely content focused, whereas intimacy and power issues are largely relational.
erate into relationship conflicts, and that’s
when things get ugly. What types of things
might you say or do to keep conflicts and their Myths abOut interpersOnal COnfliCt
resolution focused on content and not on the Many people have problems dealing with conflict because they hold false assump-
relationship?
tions about what conflict is and what it means. Think about your own assumptions