Styles and Tactics

Styles and Tactics Chapter Five

Style Preferences • Develop over a person’s lifetime based on a complicated blend of genetics, life experiences, family background, and personal philosophy

Conflict Styles • Are patterned responses, or clusters of behavior, that people use in conflict

Application 5.1 and 2

Metaconflict

Application 5.4

When One Avoids Conflict • We think of conflict as bad • We get nervous about a conflict we are experiencing • We avoid the conflict as long as possible • The conflict gets out of control and must be confronted • We handle it badly

Avoidance as a Style • The use of avoidance as a style does not mean that the avoider will be ineffective • Avoiding a conflict does not prevent it

Avoidance as a Style • Avoidance can be useful and appropriate when • Open communication is not an integral part of the system • One does not want to invest the energy to “work through” the conflict to reach accommodation with the other—he or she wants to stay at arm’s length and not get close • The costs of confrontation are too high, or • One simply hasn’t learned how to engage in collaborative conflict management

Avoidance and Culture • In collectivistic cultures, such as Japan, one is more concerned with the group’s needs, goals and interests than with individualistic-oriented interest • Avoidance represents “indirect working through”, but in individualistic cultures, avoidance represents “indirect escalation”

Avoid/Criticize • You avoid bringing up an issue to people directly but spend a lot of time talking about them to others

Postponement • Works when • The emotional content of the conflict needs to be acknowledged while other issues are deferred until later • All parties have to agree on a time that is soon and realistic

Competition • Competitive or “power over” style is characterized by aggressive and uncooperative behavior • Competitive tactics can be employed in an assertive rather than an aggressive manner • The assertive person can be competitive without berating, ridiculing, or damaging the other • The aggressive person is competitive primarily by trying to destroy the opponent’s options

Destructive Competition • These tactics focus of a win/lose orientation and often reflect a belief that what one person gets, the other loses

Threats • A threat has to meet two criteria: • The source of the threat must control the outcome and • The threat must be seen as negative by the recipient

Credible Threat • The source is in a position to administer the punishment • The source appears willing to invoke the punishment • The punishment is something to be avoided

Compromise • Is an intermediate style resulting in some gains and some losses for each party • It is moderately assertive and cooperative • Compromise can become an easy way out – a formula solution not based on the demands of a particular situation

Accommodation • Does not assert individual needs and prefers a cooperative and harmonizing approach • Accommodation may be linked to codependence • Codependence is what one person does, thinks, or feels is dependent on what someone else does, thinks, or feels

Collaboration • 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 • A collaborative conflict does not conclude until both parties are reasonably satisfied and can jointly support a solution • Collaboration calls for a willingness to move with rather than against the other – a willingness to explore and struggle precisely when you may not feel like it

Harmful Approaches to Conflict • Verbal Aggressiveness • A form of communication violence • Character attacks, insults, rough teasing, ridicule, and profanity all are forms of verbal aggression • Aggressive talk attacks the other’s character, background, abilities, physical appearance, and the like • Bullying • “ongoing, persistent badgering, harassment, and psychological terrorizing . . . that demoralizes, dehumanizes, and isolates those targeted

Harmful Approaches to Conflict, cont. • Violence • Consists of any verbal or physical strategy that attempts to convince, control, or compel others to your point of view • Attacks lead to destruction or revenge and further the cycle of violence

Interaction Dynamics • Complementary patterns are tactics or styles that are different from one another but mutually reinforcing • Can be recurring • Ex.: Avoider and Engager • Symmetrical sequences occur in conflicts when the participants mirror one another – both parties escalating, for example • Both avoid a conflict, anger

Collaboration • To preserve a good relationship while pursuing an incompatible goal • Usually necessary even if you begin the conflict as an accommodator, compromiser or escalator • Involves supporting a positive, autonomous identity for the other while working toward your own goals

Application 5.8

Styles and Tactics