miller intimate relationships, 6/e chapter 11 conflict copyright (c) 2012 by the mcgraw-hill...

Miller Intimate Relationships, 6/e

Chapter 11

Conflict

Copyright (c) 2012 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved.McGraw-Hill/Irwin

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The Nature of Conflict

What is Conflict?

Interpersonal conflict occurs whenever one person’s motives, goals, beliefs, opinions, or behavior interfere with, or are incompatible with, those of another.

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What is Conflict?

Conflict occurs when one’s wishes or actions actually impede those of someone else, that is, when one partner has to give up getting or doing something that he or she wants because of the other partner’s influence.

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What is Conflict?

Conflict is inescapable in close relationships, for two reasons.

• First, any two people will occasionally differ in their moods and preferences.

• Second, there are certain tensions that are woven into the fabric of close relationships that will, sooner or later, always cause some strain.These are opposing motivations, or dialectics, that can never be completely satisfied because they contradict each other.

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What is Conflict?

There’s dialectical tension between:

(a) personal autonomy and close connection to others.

Do you pursue intimacy or freedom? Independence or

belonging?

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What is Conflict?

(b) openness versus closedness.

On the one hand, there’s honesty, candor, and authenticity, and on the other hand, there’s privacy, discretion, and restraint.

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What is Conflict?

(c) stability versus change.

We relish both novelty and excitement, and familiarity and constancy.

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What is Conflict?

…and

(d) integration with, versus separation from, a social network.

The motive to stay involved with other people is sometimes at odds with the wish to devote oneself to a romantic partnership.

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What is Conflict?

These four dialectics typically continue to some degree throughout the entire life of a relationship.

The dilemmas posed by fluctuating, opposing motives in close relationships never end.

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The Frequency of Conflict

Conflicts occur often.

Dating couples report 2.3 conflicts per week, and spouses experience one or two unpleasant disagreements each month.

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The amount of conflict people encounter is linked to:

– Personality – people high in neuroticism have more conflicts, people high in agreeableness have fewer

– Attachment style – anxiety over abandonment makes conflict more threatening and more frequent

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– Stage of life – older couples have fewer conflicts than younger couples do

– Similarity – the less similar partners are to each other, the more conflict they experience

– Alcohol – intoxication exacerbates conflict; adding alcohol to a frustrating disagreement is a bit like adding fuel to a fire.

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The Course of Conflict

Instigating Events

Couples may disagree about almost any issue.

The high levels of interdependency that characterize an intimate relationship provide abundant opportunities for dispute.

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Instigating Events

Four different types of events cause most conflicts:

– Criticism is behavior that seems unjustly critical, being perceived as demeaning or derogatory

– Illegitimate demands are requests that are excessive and that seem unjust

– Rebuffs occur when one’s appeals for help or support are rejected

– Cumulative annoyances are relatively trivial events that become irritating with repetition

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Attributions

Two partners’ explanations for events are often somewhat different, and conflict can result:

– Misunderstanding may occur if partners fail to appreciate that each of them has his or her own point of view.

– Attributional conflict can occur, with partners arguing over whose explanation is right, and whose is wrong.

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Attributions

When conflict occurs, the explanations with which intimate partners account for the frustrations they encounter have a huge influence on how distressed they feel and how angrily they respond.

Happy couples are less likely than unhappy couples to regard their partners as selfishly motivated and as behaving with negative intent.

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Engagement and Escalation

When an instigating event occurs, the partners may avoid the issue and let it drop.

If the issue is engaged and conflict begins, negotiation and rational problem-solving may follow.

However, in other cases, escalation occurs and the conflict heats up.

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In the midst of conflict, unpleasant behavior may occur.

Direct actions explicitly challenge one’s partner:– Accusations

– Hostile commands and threats

– Surly and sarcastic putdowns

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Indirect actions are more veiled and implicit:– Condescension

– Whining

– Evasion

All of these behaviors – both direct and indirect – are obnoxious to some degree, and satisfied partners engage in these behaviors less often than discontented, disgruntled partners do.

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The Demand/Withdraw Pattern

This obnoxious cycle occurs when one partner criticizes and nags the other, and the other retreats from the confrontation and becomes defensive.

The demander tends to become more insistent while the withdrawer becomes more resistant.

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The Demand/Withdraw Pattern

In heterosexual couples, women tend to be the demanders and men the withdrawers more often than not.

Why? Men are often more powerful, and if they’re getting their way, they may resist change.

Gender roles that encourage men to be autonomous and independent may also be influential.

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Negotiation and Accommodation

When things settle down, negotiation may also be:

Direct

– Offering concessions

– Engaging in active listening

– Providing approval and affection

or

Indirect

– Using friendly, non-sarcastic humor

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Thus, responses to conflict may either active or passive, and either constructive or destructive.

When these two different dimensions are combined, four different responses to conflict and dissatisfaction result.

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• Voice – actively, constructively working to improve the situation

• Loyalty – passively waiting and hoping for things to get better

• Exit – active but destructive responses such as leaving the partner

• Neglect – passively allowing things to get worse

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Voice is more likely when a relationship has been satisfying in the past, and it is most likely to be used by people with secure attachment styles.

Tempting alternatives, avoidance of intimacy, and masculine gender roles are associated with more destructive responses to dissatisfaction.

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Relationships are at risk when both partners choose destructive responses to conflict, so accommodation, the ability to remain constructive in the face of a lover’s temporary disregard, is advantageous.

Accommodation occurs when partners respond to provocation by inhibiting the impulse to fight fire with fire. Indeed, couples who are able to swallow occasional frustration from each other without responding in kind are happier than those who are less tolerant.

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Dealing with Conflict: Four Types of Couples

Arguments need not be avoided altogether.

Indeed, even heated arguments can be constructive…

…but it’s helpful if both partners fight the same way, and both fight fairly.

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• Volatile couples have frequent and passionate arguments, but they temper their fights with plenty of wit and evident fondness for each other.

• Validators fight more politely and calmly, behaving more like collaborators than antagonists.

• Avoiders rarely argue; they duck confrontation and often just try to fix problems on their own.

In these three types, the positive elements of the interaction substantially outnumber the frustrating costs….

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• …In contrast, hostiles are more nasty to each other.

Hostiles fight with criticism, contempt, defensiveness, and withdrawal, and their marriages are more fragile than those of the other three groups.

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The Outcomes of Conflict

Ending ConflictThere are five ways that conflict can end:

– Separation occurs when one or both partners withdraw without resolving the conflict.

– In domination, one partner gets his or her way when the other capitulates.

– Compromise occurs when both parties reduce their aspirations so that a mutually acceptable alternative can be reached.

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Ending Conflict

– Integrative agreements satisfy both partners’ original goals and aspirations, usually through inventiveness, creativity and flexibility.

– Structural improvement occurs when the partners not only get what they want, they make desirable changes to their relationship.

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Can Fighting be Good for a Relationship?

The more unexpressed nuisances and irritants partners have, the less satisfied with their relationships they tend to be.

So, the prevailing view among conflict researchers is that conflict is an essential tool with which to promote intimacy.

It is the deft management of conflict—and not its absence—that allows relationships to grow and prosper.

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Self-Control

Gottman’s (1994b) list of “don’ts” for successful conflict:

• Don’t withdraw

• Don’t go negative

• Don’t get caught in a loop of negative affect reciprocity

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The Speaker-Listener Technique:

Rules:• The speaker has the floor

• Share the floor

• No problem solving

• Speaker: Speak for yourself (don’t try to be a mind reader)

• Speaker: Stop and let the listener paraphrase

• Listener: Paraphrase what you hear

• Listener: Focus on the speaker’s message. Don’t rebut.

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Can Fighting be Good for a Relationship?The “Fight Effects Profile” (Bach & Wyden, 1983)

A scorecard to grade your collaboration in a conflict based on:

• Hurt

• Information

• Resolution

• Control

• Fear

• Trust• Revenge• Reconciliation• Relational Evaluation• Self-Evaluation• Cohesion-Affection

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For Your Consideration

John’s wife, Tina, is a bit hot -headed. When something bothers her, she wants to drop everything else and work on the problem, but she tends to do so with high emotion. She has a volatile temper; she gets angry easily, but she cools off just as fast. John is more placid, and he dislikes conflict. When he gets angry, he does so slowly, and he simmers rather than erupts. When there’s something bothering him, he prefers to just go off by himself and engage in distracting entertainments instead of beginning a discussion that could turn into a fight.

Lately, Tina has become very frustrated because John is close lipped and unresponsive when she brings up a complaint. His reluctance to discuss her grievances is just making her annoyance and dissatisfaction worse.

What do you think the future holds for Tina and John? Why?

miller intimate relationships, 6/e chapter 11 conflict copyright (c) 2012 by the mcgraw-hill...

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