You probably also have experiences managing conflict in romantic relationships, friendships, and in the workplace. In this module, we will introduce some introductory concepts and explore why understanding conflict is important for your career success and interpersonal relationships. When making a final decision, your strategies and behaviors may differ when approaching approach-approach and avoidance-avoidance conflict.
Types of Motivation Conflicts + Solutions. [Approach-Approach] [Avoidance-Avoidance] [Approach-Avoidance]
“Avoiding conflict can compromise our resilience, mental health, and productivity in the long term,” writes Andrew Reiner for NBC News. By contrast, one study of over 2,000 people aged 33 to 84 found that those who intentionally resolved daily conflicts reported that their stress diminished. They also experienced fewer negative emotions than others in the study, and their positive emotions remained stable for longer periods of time. Of course, people may experience positive utility from avoiding conflict, and zero-sum aversion may reflect an attempt at maximize one's overall utility even at the expense of narrower, economic utility.
What Your Conflict Resolution Style Says About You and Is It Healthy?
With each breath of air you blow into the balloon, you are bottling up more and more emotions. Eventually, that balloon will get to a point where it cannot handle any more air in it before it explodes. Humans can be the same way with emotions when we bottle them up inside. The final breath of air in our emotional balloon doesn’t have how to deal with someone who avoids conflict to be big or intense. However, it can still cause tremendous emotional outpouring that is often very damaging to the person and their interpersonal relationships with others. Finally, as a result of efforts to resolve the conflict, both sides determine the extent to which a satisfactory resolution or outcome has been achieved.
Find how to avoid such conflicts in the future
- Unlike before, participants imagined they were managers at a company who were looking for new ways to evaluate their employees and were asked to consider the review process as a way of evaluating other people (i.e., their supervisees).
- Later on, Parker Follett (1941) explored the constructive side of conflict and defined conflict as the appearance of difference, difference of opinions or difference of interests.
- In happy marriages, instead of always responding to anger with anger, the couples found a way to lighten the tension and to de-escalate the conflict.
- Finally, as a result of efforts to resolve the conflict, both sides determine the extent to which a satisfactory resolution or outcome has been achieved.
- This is different from how authorities resolve conflict.
You can be motivated and influenced by awareness, immediate environment, thoughts, feelings, beliefs, and past experiences. When it comes to conflict, most of us we either tend to avoid it or seek it out. Neither style is better or worse, but it’s useful to know what your natural tendency is and, when you get into a conflict with someone else, to put some thought into the other person’s style. Knowing how the other person typically reacts in a tense situation is useful information. Assess the other person’s style and be aware of how your two styles interact.
Avoidance-Avoidance Conflict Is Intrapersonal
- Although conflict is a typical (and inevitable) part of our human experience, we often don’t give any critical thought to how we approach conflict, whether good or bad.
- Deutsch (1949) developed this line of thought and analyzed the relation between the way group members believe their goals are related and their interactions and relationships.
Unconscious conflicts occur more often in mentally ill people. Firstly, it is important to establish the fact of such a conflict and determine its type as well as the cause (main contradiction). Next, you need either to apply an appropriate resolution method or to ask for psychological assistance if you don’t know how to do this. For example, spending money on an expensive prestigious purchase or an exciting trip. A man may think about whether to go on a date with this attractive girl or with another.
Types Of Conflict Psychology: Approach-Approach
Experiencing this moment of indecision is a form of approach-approach conflict. Both holidays are fun and rewarding, but you can only choose one. When you approach conflict with flexibility, respect, and the willingness to listen and consider others’ perspectives, you’ll have a better chance of successfully collaborating to find the best solution for everyone.
Why Do We Avoid Conflict?
So, there is attraction towards the goal, but avoidance too. Here, an example could be - You want to go to your job because you enjoy your colleague’s company, but also don't want to since there is no job security. As with most areas of interpersonal communication, no single perspective exists in the field related to interpersonal conflict.
- Developing a mental stance of curiosity will help revert your attention away from fears, perceived judgments, and insecurities.
- Approach-avoidance conflict occurs when one needs to make a decision about a situation that has both positive and negative consequences.
- First, trust-breaking events are often more visible and noticeable than positive trust-building actions (Kramer, 1999).
