Conflict Instigation

Conflict instigation refers to the start of the problem in the actor’s experience. Not all conflicts emerge in a clear and clean manner. As Sillars and Weisberg (1987) noted, conflicts often “hitchhike” on other events.

The emotion most people associate with conflict is anger. Anger is a common response to situations during which we per­ceive people as interfering with our goals. Conflicts often occur when one person is seen as frustrating another person’s goal in a blameworthy fashion (e.g., not return­ing e-mail or mistreating another person’s possessions). Indeed, these two elements— frustrating another person and doing so in a blameworthy manner—constitute causes for “pure” anger (Clore, Ortony, Dienes, & Fujita, 1993). According to Clore et al. (1993) pure anger involves rage, exaspera­tion, and indignation.

Although anger is a legitimate emotion in response to a blameworthy action, too frequently anger increases beyond reason as conflict escalates. When people behave mind­lessly during anger, they can quickly escalate to rage (Retzinger, 1991) and emotional flood­ing (Gottman, 1994). As with alcohol, but in a very different way, anger overrides the execu­tive functions of the brain, usually leading to intense direct conflict confrontation (Martin, Anderson, & Horvath, 1996).

Uncontrolled anger often leads to impul­sive comments and behaviors during which people might have no awareness of the con­sequences of their communication choices. However, people can learn to manage their anger and exercise episode control, or con­trol over situations where people can become more mindful in advance.

Another common event that precipitates negative interactions with others is stress. Repetti (1994) and Repetti and Wood (1997) found support for the hypothesis that daily stressors on the job lead to withdrawal from family life. Repetti and Wood found that objective ratings of mothers’ interactions with their preschoolers indicated that the mothers paid less attention to their children, spoke infrequently, and offered less care and love on days when these mothers reported high work load (vs. low). Repetti’s (1994) research on air traffic controllers found similar results.

Ironically, interpersonal interactions con­stitute a primary source of stress. Bolger, Delongis, Kessler, and Schilling (1989) found that job stress was directly linked to interper­sonal interaction. When Bolger et al. asked romantic partners to report daily work and nonwork stressors and mood, they found that interpersonal conflict was the most upsetting of all daily stressors. Also, Smith and Sulsky (1995) surveyed morethan 600 people from three organizations and found that approxi­mately 25% of the respondents selected interpersonal issues as their most bothersome job stressor.

The point of this discussion is to antici­pate conflict situations to exercise episode control. Research has shown that anticipating one’s negative reactions to potential conflicts can help people limit them when they arise (Zillmann, 1993). So, for example, people often arrive to work in a negative state primed for conflict because they have spent the past hour in traffic. Anticipating such negative reactions would help increase the likelihood of responding to other people in a mindful, competent manner. Taking a moment to think about a rude and stress-producing comment before they go into the office or their homes can help people become more mindful so they will not vent their frustrations on people who had nothing to do with the initial stressful event. They will be more aware of the imme­diate context and process information more mindfully.

Three Factors Affecting Strategy Choice

Conflicts do not simply emerge and then lead directly to communicative behavior. Instead, people must process the emergence of conflict and decide how to manage it. The model in Figure 10.1 specifies that three factors filter the link between the onset of conflict and a person’s communication behavior: (1) indi­vidual differences, (2) interpretation of the conflict, and (3) goal assessment.