Conflict and Mediation

Conflict is something that has become familiar and inevitable in daily lives. Most people think of it as a quarrel or even physical violence. Conflict is an expressed struggle between or among parties, differing in goals, scare resources, and interference from others in achieving their objectives (Dana, 2001). It is common to find people talking about handling a conflict, avoiding it or resolving it. Conflict can be either good or worse, and the response matters a lot. There are ways that an individual can choose to respond to a conflict. One can decide to suppress or ignore its existence, exert pressure or blame others, find a compromise or choose to resolve the issue.  Conflicts can be managed effectively through communication. Interpersonal conflicts depend on interpersonal communication when coming up with a resolution. Conflicting parties should be ready and willing to communicate to accomplish social goals. Effective conflict management occurs when communication behavior produces mutual understanding and common ground to the parties involved (Cahn & Abigail, 2014). Conflict is the interaction of people, and their personal and professional objectives or goals.

Wilmot and Hocker (2013) stipulate that interpersonal conflict can relate to family relationships, love relationship or workplace. The former contribute in either a destructive or a constructive way of dealing with conflicts. Parental conflict has a direct negative impact on children. Research shows that when a child experiences or witnesses child physical abuse or domestic violence, he or she often develops posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Most of these children face difficulties in dealing with their later conflicts. Their family greatly influences children’s attitude and ideology about marriage. Many love relationships are faced with conflicts and test parties’ ability in managing problems. People in an intimate relationship need to understand each other and establish a way of handling conflicts. They should agree on a common ground dealing with issues (Dana, 2001). People should also try not to repeat the same dispute again. The way couples can manage their conflicts determines how long they can hold onto their relationships. For marriages to work, couples working together should not be an option but a necessity.

Conflicts at a workplace can affect someone’s career development either negatively or positively. There is a need for conflict intervention to formulate ways of handling conflicts in such setting. Many unresolved cases of conflicts in workplaces do not only affect the parties involved but also the organization itself. The suppressing conflict in the workplace reduces the productivity of workers. Training on a constructive way of handling conflict should be introduced in workplaces to mitigate conflicts. The best strategy to deal with disagreements is to ensure open communication (Cahn & Abigail, 2014). Human beings learn best from their experience or others. Conflict can be managed effectively from the meta-conflict perspective. One should aim at analyzing his or her experience with conflict and making a correct choice of a behavior pattern necessary to deal with it amicably.

Conflict can be a danger or an opportunity. Some people treat it as a heroic adventure. There is a need for better principles for resolving conflicts and promoting harmony within ourselves and others. Emotional intelligence gives one an ability to deal with disputes effectively. A destructive conflict is known to weaken or destroy a good relationship between parties. A response to a conflict is greatly influenced by the person’s past life (Eunson, 2007). One’s origin clearly defines an approach to managing conflicts. The perception of the latter determines if an individual opts to suppress disagreements, avoid them or resolve.  The way someone narrates a conflict will tell his/her view of it. During the narration, an individual will try to use a metaphor that contains an imaginative description of emotional expression. One’s way of thinking depends on the metaphoric language. People tend to compare things or situation with the things they already know. A conflict metaphor is a particular kind of communication in expressing one’s perception of the conflict itself. Gender affects approaches to conflict that depend on how one strongly identifies himself/herself with gender roles. Men are raised to be comfortable with either losing or winning a battle, but many women always want nothing less than winning. Lens models depict how both culture and gender shape human behavior and influence the perception of other’s communicative behavior (Wilmot & Hocker, 2013). One should analyze a conflict from the meta-conflict perspective.

It is not an easy thing to understand people’s goals and ideas. Incompatible or competing goals cause some conflicts. There are four main types of goals, namely, relational, topic or content, identity and process. These objectives usually overlap and shift during disputes. Topic goals are verifiable issues in which people express their interest. Relationship goals are those involving the parties that influence each other. The goal usually changes in the course of a conflict. Unlike retrospective objectives, transactive goals always shift from the original aim to a desire to harm the other party. It always results in a destructive conflict. The clarification of the goal helps in coming up with a real plan to solve the conflict. Communication competence helps understand the way conflict works, skills used during resolving it and its practice (Cahn & Abigail, 2014).

To define conflict, I focused on relationship conflict that can occur in family relationships, love relationship or at a workplace. The conflict results from miscommunication, negative emotion, misperception or negative behavior within a relationship. Almost all conflicts cause anger, argument and quarrel. For example, relationship conflict and interest conflict are directly related since the interest of one party in a relationship may lead to a conflict.

This assignment is very important for my professional life. I learned that there are such types of conflicts as relationship, data, interest, structural and value conflicts. These are related either directly or indirectly to each other. Effective conflict management can be achieved through communication. There is a need for better principles for resolving conflicts and promoting harmony in society.

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