What is conflict? Why does it occur? What can be done to prevent it, and—perhaps more importantly—what can we learn from conflict? How can we transform conflict situations from negative to positive?
Conflict arises due to varied perspectives, belief systems, and values. It is natural and common to disagree and to experience conflict. However, there are important differences between constructive and destructive conflict. One tool for examining destructive conflict is what Hocker and Wilmot (2018) describe as “the four horsemen” of destructive conflict—criticizing, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt (p. 22).
Communication behaviors also play a critical role in conflict. Krauss and Morsella describe four paradigms of communication (as cited in Coleman, Deutsch, & Marcus, 2014). These paradigms are encoding/decoding, intentionalist, perspective-talking, and dialogic.
Coleman, P., Deutsch, M., & Marcus, E. C. (Eds.). (2014). The handbook of conflict resolution: Theory and practice (3rd ed.). San Francisco, CA: Jossey-Bass.
Hocker, J. L., & Wilmot, W. W. (2018). Interpersonal conflict (10th ed.). New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
Conflict is part of our daily lives. Preparing yourself with the needed skills to handle conflict enhances your interpersonal skills and relationships. To understand conflict, you must begin by knowing what it is and how it affects your life.
By successfully completing this assessment, you will demonstrate your proficiency in the following course competencies and assessment criteria:
Search the Capella library and the Internet for scholarly, professional, or other appropriate resources that address the topic of interpersonal conflict. Keep in mind that Wikipedia is not considered an appropriate resource. You will need at least two resources to support your work in this assessment.
This assessment will be scored on the following criteria:
Suppose you have been asked to write an article on interpersonal conflict for a local organization with which you are affiliated. You may choose any type of interpersonal conflict, such as between spouses, among family members, between members of a social group, or other, but your focus must be interpersonal conflict.
Complete the following:
Because this is an article for publication, format your assessment following APA guidelines.