The Danger of Reciprocating or Complementing Negative Tactics

Tactical reciprocation during conflict occurs when the partner mirrors the actor’s conflict behavior (Burggraf & Sillars, 1987). Parties to conflict can also continue the pattern of their exchange by complementing each other’s behavior.

TABLE 2.5 Examples of Negative Reciprocation Patterns

1. Demand-withdraw: one person attempts to discuss an issue, often negatively; the other person refuses or otherwise denies the problem or deflects the issue.

2. Complaint-counter-complaint: a complaint by one person is followed by a counter-complaint by the other (Gottman, 1982).

3. Proposal-counter-proposal: a proposal by one partner is met immedi­ately by a proposal by the other partner (Gottman, 1982).

4. Disagreement-disagreement: disagreement is reciprocated and/or develops refutations against another person's points (Canary, Weger, & Stafford, 1991).

5. Defensiveness-defensiveness (indifference): behaviors that are threaten­ing or punishing to others and reciprocally invite and produce defensive behaviors in return (Alexander, 1973).

6. Attack-counter-attack: one person's criticism, showing contempt and so forth are countered by the second person doing the same.

7. Metacommunication-metacommunication (with negative feelings): statements about the process of communication are continuous (Gott- man, 1982).

8. Mind-reading (negative affect): making attributions of emotions, opin­ions, states of mind, etc., to a spouse, delivered with negative affect, it is responded to as if it were a criticism; it is disagreed with and elaborated upon, usually with negative affect (Gottman, 1982).

9. Summarizing self: a statement by one spouse, followed by a statement from the other spouse that evaluates the speaker's previous statements (Gottman, 1979).

10. Complain-Justiflcation: individual-oriented blaming that discloses dis­contentment and resentment indirectly, followed by the other's individ­ual-oriented act which persists in clarifying one's own position regard­less of other's feelings/idea (Ting-Toomey, 1983).

Note: Reprinted by permission of Wavelanad Press, Inc. from Cupach, Canary, and Spitzberg with the assistance of Melissa Marks, Competence in Interpersonal Conflict, 2nd edn (Long Grove, IL: Waveland Press, Inc. 2010). All rights reserved.

Reciprocating or complementing negative, competitive behavior can destroy people’s social and personal relationships. The reciprocity of negative message behavior confounds the clear separation of one person’s conflict messages from the partner’s conflict messages. People who reciprocate each other’s behavior only need to look at the other person to gain insight into their own conflict com­munication. When negative reciprocation occurs, then the sheer amount of that behavior rises. For dissatisfied partners, the reciprocation of negative behavior

TABLE 2.6 Examples of Positive Reciprocation Patterns

1. Validation (argument exchange): comment followed by the other with "assent codes” (Gottman, 1982).

2. Contracting: direct modification of one's own point of view (Gottman, 1982).

3. Convergence: understanding and/or agreement with one another's arguables, the convergence is either explained and/or leads to new ideas (Canary, Weger, & Stafford, 1991).

4. Supportiveness-supportiveness: genuine information seeking and infor­mation giving are reciprocated (Alexander, 1973).

5. Cajoling (coaxing-coaxing): mutual-oriented act that attempts to make the partner feel good about himself/herself before making explicit any other motivation behind the act (e.g., flattering other, gentle appeal­ing., jokes) (Ting-Toomey, 1983).

6. Metacommunication-metacommunication (with positive feelings): brief statements about the constructive process of communication (Gottman, 1979).

7. Socioemotional (description-question): descriptive statements concern­ing one's feelings, followed by statements that inquire about the affec­tive state of the partner (Ting-Toomey, 1983).

8. Task-oriented (question-question): statements that ask for factual infor­mation or request further elaboration of task-oriented points, followed by asking for information or further elaboration from the other spouse criterion (Ting-Toomey, 1983).

9. Task-oriented (question-description): statements that ask for factual information or request further elaboration of task-oriented points, fol­lowed by issue-oriented factual statements concerning the past, present, or future (Ting-Toomey, 1983).

10. Mind-reading (neutral, positive affect): making attributions of emotions, opinions, states of mind, etc., to a spouse with neutral or positive affect, it is then responded to as if it were a question about feelings; it is agreed with and elaborated (Gottman, 1982).

11. Summarizing (spouse or both): any statement by the other speaker that summarizes the previous statements of the other person and/or a state­ment that prevents a review of the conversation (Gottman, 1979).

12. Confirm-agree: reveals one's understanding of the situation and openly conveys acknowledgement, empathy and/or acceptance of partner's feelings/ideas, followed by the spouse's assent, explicit agreement, and/ or compliance which indicates one's concurrence and support for the other's ideas (Ting-Toomey, 1983).

increases within the episode of conflict (Billings, 1979; Gottman, 1994). The urge to respond in kind can be all-consuming. People in conflict can reciprocate or complement each other’s behavior for an extraordinary amount of time.

Why do people reciprocate/complement each other’s negative tactics? The truth is that several factors promote reciprocation and complementarity.

Second, people will engage in reciprocation of negative messages when they believe their identity is being questioned. Indeed, Spitzberg (2010) argues that refusing someone’s account, or explanation, for a negative behavior escalates con­flict because not believing what someone says suggests that the person is a liar or a coward, or worse. The notion that someone else disrespects you is implied in this hostile question: “Who the do you think you are?!”

Third, people implicitly use the other person’s behavior as a barometer for how much pressure the conversation can hold. Responding politely to your part­ner’s claim that she or he is right is difficult. Responding politely to your partner’s ugly stare and twisted face in anger can be almost impossible.

Given the above material we offer:

Conclusion 2.4: People tend to reciprocate or complement conflict strategies and tactics.

Suggestion 2.4: Do not reciprocate or complement negative messages! Do reciprocate or complement positive messages.