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Summary and Conclusion

When people are engaged in conflict, their communication is as much a function of the emotion they are experiencing as the argu­ments they are hearing or the situation they are facing.

Research on hostile, vulnerable, flat, positive, self-conscious, and fearful emo­tions provides a foundation for understand­ing the types of emotions that influence the conflict process. Gottman’s (1994) cascade model and Burgoon’s (1993) EVT also provide invaluable starting points for explaining how emotions function in conflict interactions. Including emotion in theories on conflict com­munication will give scholars more explana­tory power. Indeed, emotion acts as both a cause and consequence of conflict communi­cation and may ultimately guide behavior and determine outcomes. During conflict, rela­tional partners need to do more than manage their conflict behavior; they must also be able to deal effectively with the many emotions they are experiencing.

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Source: Oetzel John, Ting-Toomey Stella. The SAGE Handbook of Conflict Communication: Integrating Theory, Research and Practice. SAGE Publications,2013. — 912 p.. 2013

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