Everybody in this world has the experience of having conflict with someone else.This is actually inevitable as no one in the world if of the same.Every individual person has his or her own characteristic,belief,value,and way of living.Conflict arises because there is a opposition or clash in one or more of these attributes between two parties.Today I am going to talk about how interpersonal conflicts arises and the possible ways to resolve them.
In order to resolve interpersonal conflict,we have to understand the root of the conflict.I would like to categorize conflict into two types--gentle conflict and violent conflict.Gentle conflict is the kind of conflict that the two individuals are debating or competing in a more friendly manner.They may not want to hurt each other but they want to persuade each other to accept their personal ideas.On the other hand,violent conflict may involve verbal discrimination or even armed conflict.This type of conflict arises because the two people have strong opposition towards each other.For both types of conflicts,one of the main cause would be misunderstanding or miscommunication.
When I was in China,there used to be a conflict between two of my classmates.It was a few days before final examination.At that time,everybody was doing revision in the classroom.Suddenly the two classmates started cursing each other,followed by a violent fight between two of them.After realizing the severity of the case,all the other classmates managed to pull them away and cease the "fire".By asking both of them we knew the reason of the conflict.One of the classmate undeliberately elbowed the other who was writing something.Since everyone was so stressful in preparing examination,it became very hard to control their emotions.The person who was elbowed became very irritated and started shouting to his deskmate.His deskmate,who initially prepared to apologize for his unintentional fault,was irritated by his rude manner as well and shouted back.They then felt so angry that they fighted with each other.
You may think that it is too ridiculous for people to have a conflict just because of such tiny issue,but this is actually true in our daily life.In fact,we may resolve such conflict by avoiding misunderstanding and miscommunication.First of all,we have to listen to the other person's explaination if his or her thoughts or actions oppose our will.Secondly,try to maintain a good attitude in communication.As university students,we should learn to control our emotions.Lastly,always think at the angle of others.This helps us to better understand each other and prevent possible conflict from asring.
On the whole,by conducting effective communication and improving emotion-management skills, we can resolve,or at least mitigate the effects of any possible conflict in our life.
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Hi Li Kai,
ReplyDeleteI concur with you that conflicts are bound to happen in this society today. In particular, conflict of interests is the fundamental reason why conflicts take place. Hence, I feel that it is quite impossible to prevent a conflict from arising. However, we can learn resolving conflicts skills before hand so that we know how to act when nature calls.
The two categories of conflict have made me reflect on several conflicts that I have experienced. Your categorization is true in most of the situations. For example, there are two friends whom are fans of two different soccer clubs. According to your definition of gentle conflict, it can be considered as a gentle conflict when they debate on whose soccer club is more superior.
With respect to the conflict you encountered back in China, I feel that your friend who unintentionally elbowed his classmate could have controlled his emotions better. It was totally unnecessary to use physical means. Your friend might have felt that his pride was in jeopardy if he were to give in. Basically, I feel that sometimes it is better to take a step back in such situations when the opposite party is not controlling his emotions well. He could approach his friend after he is feeling better to clarify and explain his side of the story. However, it is always easier said than done in reality.
Lastly, I hope that you have taken away some insights away from my comments and hope it will help you in dealing with conflicts in the future.
Regards,
Hao Tan
Hi Li Kai,
ReplyDeleteI like the way you bring out how conflicts arises under different circumstances, and it is often due to miscommunication, or the personality differences that resulted in the conflict.
The conflict you brought out is the everyday scenario that happens in our society, such as walking on the streets and accidentally bumping into another person who is in a bad mood. The person being in a bad mood would then lose his temper and start to find faults with you. It is inevitable that our emotions takes over us when we are emotionally unstable and hence resulting a in conflict with other people. I think that your friend who un-deliberately elbowed the other guy should have controlled his emotions well. Knowing that the other guy is in a emotionally unstable condition, he could have curb his emotions since he himself would be facing the same emotions, and thus would be able to understand the situation better. It is often up to the person with the clear mind at the moment to try to salvage the situation.
I hope that my comments have helped you and I wish you the best in your future team projects.
Regards,
Ryan
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteHi Likai,
ReplyDeleteI liked your clear definition of the 2 types of conflict in general. We seldom encounter violent armed conflict in NUS but very often we may encounter “gentle conflict” when doing projects in a group. The scenario you described shows that people working under stress may have a very different approach to resolve conflict which does not yield effective and positive results. Thankfully the people around stepped in to stop the fight and prevented further accidents from happening.
Many people have the misconception that conflict is an all-or-nothing situation so therefore either they avoid it altogether or they end up in an all-out combative mode, regardless of the real severity of the conflict. However that is not true and using effective communication methods to reduce conflict is a much better method as compared to ignoring the conflict altogether or having a total faceoff.
There are a few points which I would like to point out from your post. Firstly, I would recommend you to write your future posts in Microsoft Word because there were numerous grammatical and spelling mistakes that were evident throughout. Secondly, if I remember correctly, it is stated that we were suppose to end this post with a question pertaining to the method used to solve a conflict. In this case there was not a clear method to resolve the conflict, but rather it was settled by pulling the 2 parties apart.
All in all, your post has allowed me to reflect on my past actions and hopefully my comments will be of help to you in the future when such conflicts occur again.
Regards,
Jay
Hi Likai,
ReplyDeleteYour definition for conflict was very interesting and intriguing.It is true that as a part of human nature conflicts are unavoidable.
Your situation is very common among the teenagers today. Aggression and Temper in a conflict can actually result in violence. As we see around the world most of the violence like terrorist attack, wars etc are all due to difference in thinking and belief system. And most of the time the other countries also get involved in such scenarios. Your situation was very similar however as a small scale. In such situations I feel that some people should step up as a neutral party and try to get people talking to resolve the problem.
It is very vital to have a neutral party when there are many conflicts going on, so that one can come to a sane conclusion. Or else world war 3 wont be far!
Hope to read more of your post.
Regards
Ayushi Sisodiya
Hi Likai,
ReplyDeleteYou have put it rightly that nobody in the world can ever say that they were never subjected to conflict, which arises mainly because each individual has his or her own perception, ideas, belief and characteristics. Every problem which needs a solution has to be analysed from the root and conflict resolution is no different.
I personally feel that you have categorised the conflict based on the experience which you have shared in your blog otherwise such categorisation in my view is not very much relevant. Depending on the magnitude of the conflict, the resolution mechanism needs to be framed . Your own experience clearly depicts that the classmates managed to pull the fighting students but this in my view is not a conflict resolution and it would have been better if you had indicated how a permanent truce was brought-in between two of them which would have given us a better idea of how the conflict was resolved.
I endorse your view that avoiding of misunderstanding and miscommunication, listing to others view points and controlling emotion are key to avoid conflict.
Regards
Abbinayaa