Chapter Two

How People Approach Conflict

No two people approach conflict in exactly the same way. Furthermore, each of us handles conflict differently at different times, and our approach to conflict evolves over our lifetime. This seems obvious. What is less obvious, however, is how to characterize the complex and changing ways in which we respond to conflict and how each pair of people, or each group, develop their own style or pattern of conflict interaction—how they learn their conflict dance.

How we handle conflict is basic to our sense of ourselves, to how we try to make our way in life, and to how we relate to others. Our approach to conflict derives from what we have been taught about conflict, our experiences in conflict, our personality, culture, the nature of the conflicts we find ourselves in, and the roles we are playing. At any given time we tend to have very different approaches to how we handle conflict in our family, social life, and work life. We handle conflict differently when we are under stress, tired, anxious, or scared. Certain people evoke particular kinds of conflict responses from us, and we from them. Characterizing conflict styles is not so simple, and it is important to remember that system dynamics can....