Conflict is a part of life, but it doesn't need to become contention. President Russell M. Nelson (2023), a modern-day prophet, taught the importance of focusing on creating peace. He said, “My dear brothers and sisters, how we treat each other really matters! How we speak to and about others at home, at church, at work, and online really matters. Today, I am asking us to interact with others in a higher, holier way.”¹ You have control over how you speak to others, and it will influence how you deal with conflict. 

Understanding Conflict

Conflict is a normal and natural part of life. Differences do not need to lead to hurt feelings or heated arguments if handled with skill. Conflict comes from differences in your wants or opinions while contention is caused when those differences are dealt with in anger or frustration. Learning how to manage conflict and prevent contention in your interpersonal relationships is very important for long-term success in those relationships. This chapter is going to look at how conflict functions and provide several strategies for managing interpersonal conflict.

Conflict is an interactive process occurring when conscious beings (individuals or groups) have opposing actions, beliefs, goals, ideas, motives, needs, objectives, resources, or values. Conflict is a normal, inevitable part of life.² Conflict is one of the foundational building blocks of interpersonal relationships. Managing and overcoming conflict actually makes a relationship stronger and healthier. In a perfect world, when people engage in conflict management (or conflict resolution), they will reach a solution that is mutually beneficial for both parties. For these reasons, conflict can help people learn to seek better, healthier outcomes within their interactions.

Ultimately, conflict is neither good nor bad, but a tool that can be used for constructive or destructive purposes. Conflict can be very beneficial and healthy for a relationship. Let’s look at how conflict is beneficial for individuals and relationships:

• Conflict helps people find common ground.
• Conflict helps people learn how to manage conflict more effectively for the future.
• Conflict allows people to learn about each other.
• Conflict can lead to high-quality decisions, creative solutions, and beneficial change.
• Conflict allows people to engage in open and honest discussions, which can build relational trust.
• Conflict encourages people to grow personally and in their communication skills.
• Conflict can help people become more assertive and less aggressive.
• Conflict can strengthen people’s ability to manage their emotions.
• Conflict helps people set limits in their relationships.
• Conflict gives relational partners a chance to show they value one another by their willingness to labor through challenging issues.
• Conflict lets you practice your communication skills.

When you approach conflict knowing all the benefits it can have, conflict can be seen as an amazing resource in interpersonal relationships. However, both parties must be willing to engage in conflict management strategies for them to work effectively.

Interpersonal Conflict

For interpersonal conflict to exist, each of these five factors must be present:

1. Both parties must be aware that a conflict exists.
2. The parties must be interdependent.
3. They each believes their goals are incompatible. 
4. The perceived incompatible goals could negatively affect the relationship if not addressed.
5. There is a sense of urgency about the need to resolve the conflict.³

Let’s look at each of these parts of interpersonal conflict separately.

Mutual Awareness

When only one party is aware of a conflict but has not expressed it to the other party, you might say that inner conflict or intrapersonal conflict exists, but until the conflict has been expressed and both are aware of it, there is no interpersonal conflict. The way a conflict is expressed can have a significant impact on how it is ultimately resolved. Until it is expressed and both parties are aware of it, collaborative resolution is impossible. It is just one person mentally reflecting--possibly in frustration and anger! 

Interdependence 

Interpersonal conflict occurs when you are in some kind of interdependent relationship with another person. For example, it could be a relationship with a parent or guardian and a child, co-workers, a boss and employee, or spouses. You want this relationship to succeed, and people in these relationships need each other to do so. 

Differing Goals

When people in a relationship believe that the other person’s desires interfere with their own, their goals seem incompatible. For example, imagine you and your friend have a free afternoon and want to spend time together. She wants to go for a walk in nature. You want to go shopping. In this case, you may conclude that you have incompatible goals. Note that the perception of incompatible goals is not the same as actual incompatible goals.

Negative Outcomes If Not Addressed 

Interpersonal conflicts can lead to very negative outcomes if the conflicts are not managed effectively. Here are some examples of conflicts that are not managed effectively:

• One partner dominates the conflict, and the other partner caves in.
• One or both partners yell or belittle the other.
• Partners use half-truths or lies to get their way during the conflict.
• Partners want to get their way at all costs.
• One or both partners refuse to engage in conflict, avoiding it at all costs.

When conflict is not managed correctly, partners can start to have less connection with one another, which can lead to a decrease in liking or caring about the relational partner, increased desire to exit the relationship, or even increased revenge-seeking behavior. These negative outcomes could ultimately lead to conflicts becoming increasingly more aggressive or to conflict avoidance.

Urgency 

There must be some sense of urgency to resolve the conflict within the relationship. The conflict gets to the point where it must receive attention, and a decision must be made or an outcome reached. If a conflict reaches the point where it is not solved, then the conflict could become more problematic and negative.

Sometimes people let irritations or underlying conflict grow inside of them until they reach a point when the conflict "explodes" in the form of a sudden, out-of-nowhere conflict. For example, imagine your spouse has a particularly odd habit. For the most part, you ignore this habit and may even make a joke about the habit. Finally, one day you just explode and demand the habit must change. You may let this conflict build for so long that it finally erupts. In this case, even though the conflict has been building for some time, the desire to make this conflict known to the other person causes a sense of urgency for the conflict to be solved.

Conflict Management Strategies

All relationships will have conflict, so it's a good idea to learn how people tend to respond to conflicts, known as conflict management styles. Understanding them will help you prepare your own response strategies. Conflict management styles are the communication strategies that people use to attempt to avoid, address, or resolve a conflict. Some management styles are constructive, and some are not. 

You don’t always consciously choose a style. You may get caught up in emotion and react without thinking. The most effective strategies for managing conflict help you to slow down the reaction process so you can be more aware of the conflict and intervene in the process to improve your communication. 

The five strategies for managing conflict you will learn are competing, avoiding, accommodating, compromising, and collaborating. Each of these conflict styles accounts for the concern you place on yourself versus others.⁴

Competing

The competing style indicates a high concern for yourself and a low concern for others. When you compete, you try to “win” the conflict, potentially at the expense or “loss” of the other person. For this reason, some people call this a “win-lose” conflict style. One way you may justify your win is by granting concessions or agreeing to let the other person do or have something to end a conflict.

Competing style has been linked to aggression and can lead to hostility. There is often a pattern of verbal escalation. It may start with innocent requests that turn into demands that lead to complaints and then become angry statements or threats, which can feel like harassment, and finally become verbal abuse. Although the aggressive person may “win” or get his/her way, the relationship suffers, and, ultimately, both people “lose.”

Avoiding

The avoiding style of conflict management often indicates a low concern for self and a low concern for the other person. Avoiding doesn’t mean that there is no communication about the conflict. Even when you try to avoid conflict, you may give your feelings away through your verbal and nonverbal communication. The avoiding style is either passive or indirect, meaning there is little information exchange, which may make this strategy less effective than others. You may decide to avoid conflict for many different reasons, some of which are better than others. If you view the conflict as having little importance to you, it may be better to ignore it. If the person you’re having conflict with will only be working in your office for a week, you may perceive a conflict to be temporary and choose to avoid it and hope that it will solve itself. If you are not emotionally invested in the conflict, you may be able to reframe your perspective and see the situation differently, therefore resolving the issue. In all these cases, avoiding doesn’t require an investment of time, emotion, or communication skills, so there is not much at stake to lose.

Indirect strategies of hinting and joking also fall under the avoiding style. While these strategies may lead to frustration or even anger, they allow you to vent a little of your built-up emotion and may make a conflict situation more bearable. When you hint, you give clues that you hope your partner will find and piece together to see the problem and hopefully change, thereby solving the problem without any direct communication. You may also overestimate your partner’s ability to understand the jokes you make about a conflict situation. The receiver of the jokes will likely think you’re trying to be funny or feel provoked rather than realize the conflict situation that you are referencing. So more frustration may develop when the hints and jokes are not decoded, which often leads to even more passive-aggressive behavior.

Passive-aggressive behavior is a way of dealing with conflict in which one person indirectly communicates their negative thoughts or feelings through nonverbal behaviors, such as not completing a task. The following graphic shows twelve styles of being passive-aggressive. Are you guilty of using any of these ways of avoiding conflict? 

Although passive-aggressive behavior can feel rewarding in the moment, it is one of the most unproductive ways to deal with conflict. These behaviors may actually create additional conflicts and could lead to a cycle of passive-aggressiveness in which the other partner begins to exhibit these behaviors as well, while never actually addressing the conflict that originated the behavior. 

When you avoid conflict, both parties will likely lose. However, as noted above, avoidance can be the most appropriate strategy in some situations—for example, when people temporarily need time to calm down and collect their thoughts, when the conflict is temporary, when the stakes are low, when there is little personal investment, or when there is the potential for violence or revenge.

Accommodating

The accommodating conflict management style indicates a low concern for self and a high concern for the other person and is often viewed as passive or submissive, in that someone complies with or obliges another without providing personal input. The motivation behind accommodating plays an important role in whether or not it is an appropriate strategy. Generally, you accommodate because you are being generous, you are obeying, or you are yielding.⁵ If you are being generous, you accommodate because you genuinely want to. It could be that you put your partner's happiness over your own. If you are obeying, you might feel you don’t have a choice but to accommodate, like in a job situation. Perhaps you accommodate out of obedience because of the potential for negative consequences or punishment. If you yield, you may have your own views or goals but give up on them due to fatigue, time constraints, or because a better solution has been offered.

Accommodating can be appropriate when there is little chance that your own goals can be achieved, when you don’t have much to lose by accommodating, when you realize you are wrong, or when advocating for your own needs could negatively affect the relationship.⁶ The occasional accommodation can be useful in maintaining a relationship; remember earlier the textbook discussed putting another’s needs before your own as a way to achieve relational goals. 

Research has shown that accommodating is more likely to occur when there are time constraints. For example, if you’re standing outside the movie theater and two movies are starting, you may say, “Let’s just see the movie you want,” so you don’t miss the beginning. Accommodating is less likely to occur when someone does not want to appear weak.⁷ For example, if you’re a new manager, you may say ‘no’ to show other employees that you are in charge. 

Compromising

The compromising style shows some concern for self and the other person and may indicate that there is a low investment in the conflict and/or the relationship. Even though you often hear that the best way to handle a conflict is to compromise, the compromising style isn’t a win-win solution; it is a partial win and a partial loss for both parties. In essence, when you compromise, you give up some or most of what you want. The conflict indeed gets resolved temporarily, but lingering thoughts of what you gave up could lead to a future conflict. Compromising may be a good strategy when there are time limitations or when prolonging a conflict may lead to relationship deterioration. Compromise may also be good when both parties have equal power or when other resolution strategies have not worked.⁸

A negative of compromising is that it may be used as an easy and temporary way out of a conflict. The compromising style is most effective when both parties find the solution agreeable. 

Collaborating

The collaborating style involves a high degree of concern for self and the other person and usually indicates investment in the conflict situation and the relationship. Although the collaborating style takes the most work in terms of communication competence, it ultimately leads to a win-win situation in which neither party has to make concessions because a mutually beneficial solution is discovered or created. The obvious advantage is that both parties are satisfied, which could lead to positive problem-solving in the future and strengthen the overall relationship. The disadvantage is that this style is often time-consuming, and only one person may be willing to use this approach while the other person is eager to choose a different style.

Remember, conflict management strategies are often reciprocated by others. If you start a conflict in a highly competitive way, do not be surprised when your conflicting partner mirrors you and starts using that strategy in return. 

Stop-Think-Listen-Communicate Conflict Model

You cannot control how someone else will respond to conflict, but you can control how you respond. A strategy for responding to conflict is the Conflict Model: stop, think, listen, and then communicate.⁹ This model looks at positive communication behaviors during conflict that you can control to have the best possible outcome, no matter how your partner is responding.  

Stop

In this model, the first thing an individual needs to do during conflict is to take the time to be present within the conflict itself. Too often, people engaged in a conflict say whatever enters their mind before they’ve really had a chance to process the message and think of the best strategies to use to send that message. Others end up talking over one another during a conflict because they simply are not paying attention to each other and the competing needs within the conflict. Communication problems often occur during conflict because people fail to be mindful and present during the conflict itself. For this reason, it’s always important to first stop and take a breath during a conflict.

Sometimes these “time outs” need to be physical. Maybe you need to leave the room and go for a brief walk to calm down, or maybe you just need to get a glass of water. If you need to give yourself some time to be present, it’s important to take this break. This is different from avoiding conflict because you are preparing yourself for the conflict. Be aware that your partner may need this time as well. This break can help you take a proactive stance instead of a reactive one.⁹

Think

Once you’ve stopped, you should take the time to really think through the conflict itself as well as what and how you are communicating. Consider what the conflict is really about. Often people engage in conflicts about superficial things while avoiding the deeper, more significant issues. You also want to consider what possible causes led to the conflict and what courses of action you think are possible to conclude the conflict. Are you hoping to do nothing, change yourself, change the other person, or change the situation? Consider possible ways you can control the conflict as shown in this graphic: 

Listen

Hearing doesn’t mean you are listening. During a conflict, listening is a skill that is desperately needed and often forgotten. When you feel defensive during a conflict, your listening becomes poor because you start to focus on yourself and protecting yourself instead of trying to be empathetic and seeing the conflict through the other person’s eyes.

One mistake some people make is that they think they’re listening, but in reality, they’re listening for flaws in the other person’s argument. People often use this type of selective listening as a way to devalue the other person’s stance. In essence, you will hear one small flaw with what the other person is saying and then use that flaw to demonstrate that obviously everything else must be wrong as well.

The goal of listening should be to stop judgment and really attempt to be present enough to accurately interpret the message being sent by the other person. When you listen in this highly empathetic way, you are often able to see things from the other person’s point of view, which could help you come to a better outcome in the long run.

Communicate

The last step in this method is to communicate with the other person. This is the last step because it’s the hardest one to do effectively during a conflict if the first three are not done correctly. When you communicate during a conflict, be aware of your nonverbal behavior (eye movement, gestures, posture, etc.). Nothing will kill a message faster than when it’s accompanied by incongruent or disrespectful nonverbal behavior. For example, rolling your eyes while another person is speaking is not an effective way to engage in conflict. 

During a conflict, it’s important to be assertive and stand up for your ideas without becoming aggressive. Conversely, it is helpful to learn to be open to someone else’s use of assertiveness without tolerating aggression.

Validating the person with whom you are in conflict can be an effective way to de-escalate conflict. Often validation can be as simple as demonstrating good listening skills discussed earlier in this book by making eye contact and giving verbal and nonverbal back-channel cues like saying “mmm-hmm” or nodding your head.¹⁰ This doesn’t mean that you have to give up your own side in a conflict or that you agree with what the other person is saying; rather, you are hearing the other person out, which validates them and may also give you some more information about the conflict that could maximize the likelihood of an appropriate response.

Often, it only takes one person with conflict management skills to make an interaction more effective. Remember that it’s not the quantity of conflict that determines a relationship’s success; it’s how the conflict is managed. One person’s competent response can de-escalate a conflict.

Here are some tips for collaborating and achieving a win-win outcome:¹¹

• Do not view the conflict as a contest you are trying to win against another person but as a problem, you are trying to solve with their help.
• Remain flexible and patient. Realize there are undiscovered solutions that will just take time and effort to find.
• Distinguish the people from the problem. Don’t make it personal.
• Determine the underlying, unmet needs on both sides that are driving the conflict.
• Identify areas of common ground or shared interests that you can work from to develop solutions.
• Ask questions to allow them to clarify and to help you understand their perspective.
• Listen carefully and provide verbal and nonverbal feedback.

Identifying Conflict Patterns

A key part of developing interpersonal communication competence involves being able to effectively manage the conflicts you will encounter in all your relationships and avoid creating feelings of contention. One key part of handling conflict better is knowing what causes you (and others) to react negatively and avoiding those tactics. Most people respond poorly to criticism, demands, cumulative annoyance, rejection, "one-upping," and mind-reading. ¹²

Criticism

Criticisms are comments that evaluate another person’s personality, behavior, appearance, or life choices and may lead to hurt feelings that create contention instead of resolving conflict. Comments do not have to be meant as criticism to be perceived as such. Think before you speak. In many cases, there are alternative ways to phrase things that may be taken less personally, or you may determine that your comment doesn’t need to be spoken at all. Ask yourself, “What is my motivation for making this comment?” and “Do I have anything to lose by not making this comment?” If your underlying reasons for asking are valid, perhaps there is another way to phrase your observation. 

Demands

Demands are comments that tell another person what to do or how to act. Demands are sometimes met with withdrawal rather than a verbal response. They can create contention, especially if the demand is viewed as unfair or irrelevant. Tone of voice and context are both important. When you were younger, you may have asked a parent, teacher, or elder for something and heard back, “Ask nicely.” Like criticism, think before you speak a demand and also before you respond to a demand. This can help manage demands both made to you and given and also minimize contention.

If you need your partner to do something, remember clear communication about why you are asking for something. This may make your request seem more reasonable to the other person and ensure it doesn't lead to contention. If someone is demanding you do something, respond calmly and express your thoughts and feelings. This is more effective than withdrawing, which may escalate the conflict to contention.

Cumulative Annoyance

Cumulative annoyance is the building of frustration or anger that occurs over time, eventually resulting in a conflict interaction. For example, your friend shows up late to drive you to work three times in a row. You didn’t say anything the previous times, but on the third time, you say, “You’re late again! If you can’t get here on time, I’ll find another way to get to class.”

Cumulative annoyance is like water slowly coming to a boil. As the annoyances increase, the intensity of the conflict also grows. All the other incidents come back to your mind as you confront the other person, which usually intensifies the conflict. You’ve likely been surprised when someone has blown up at you due to cumulative annoyance or when someone you have blown up at didn’t know there was a problem building.

A good strategy for managing cumulative annoyance is to monitor your level of annoyance and occasionally let some steam out by processing through your frustration with a third party or directly addressing what is bothering you with the source.

Rejection

No one likes the feeling of rejection. It hits at the core of your self-esteem (how you feel about who you are). Rejection can lead to conflict because one person’s comments or actions are perceived as invalidating. Rejection from someone you trust is especially hurtful because you are vulnerable with them. 

Vulnerability is a component of any close relationship. When you care about someone, you (verbally or nonverbally) disclose your feelings, dreams, history, secrets, and important aspects of who you are. It takes trust to be vulnerable with someone else. You might be more sensitive to perceived rejection if you have been vulnerable. For example, you may tell your best friend that you miss her, and if she doesn't say it back, you might feel rejected. You might plan a special home-cooked meal to express your love for a partner and he doesn't eat it, which might make you feel personally rejected. Rejection may not be deliberate. You can choose to feel rejected and take offense when none may have been intended. 

When you feel rejected, you might respond with anger to mask your hurt, which can ignite a conflict. Managing your feelings of rejection is difficult because it is so personal. However, you can control the impulse to assume that your partner is rejecting you and engage in communication rather than a reflexive reaction. This can help put things in perspective. If your friend doesn't immediately say she misses you, it could be that she was thinking of something else. If your partner doesn’t get excited about the meal you planned and cooked, it could be because he wasn't hungry. 

On the other hand, if someone verbally or nonverbally expresses feelings of rejection from you, you can use empathy and consider what you can do to help alleviate those feelings, especially to someone who has been vulnerable to you. Each person can take responsibility for managing feelings of rejection by perception checking and engaging in information exchange. 

One-upping

One-upping is a quick reaction to communication from another person that escalates the conflict. For example, if David comes home late from work and Luisa says, “I wish you would call when you’re going to be late,” and David responds, “I wish you wouldn't be so bossy.” His quick reaction escalated the conflict. The conflict is no longer about being late. David has made the conflict personal and deliberately hurtful about Luisa's character. 

One-upping is not a strategy to resolve conflict. It is a strategy where you are trying to get advantage over the other person by being more extreme. It distracts from the real conflict. If you find you are one-upping, consider why. It might be a defensive response to other emotions you don't like to feel. For example, David might feel guilty for being late. Instead of apologizing, he might feel rejected by Luisa's comment and lash out because he doesn't like to think of himself as a late or inconsiderate person. If someone is one-upping you, stop and think why this person is reacting this way, listen for what's really going on, and feel free to communicate your feelings and ask questions.   

Mindreading

Mindreading is communication in which one person attributes something to the other using generalizations. For example, if David says, “You don’t care whether I come home at all or not!” he is presuming to know Luisa’s thoughts and feelings. Luisa is likely to respond defensively, perhaps saying, “You don’t know how I’m feeling!”

Mindreading can lead to conflict because you might feel defensive when someone else tells you how you feel. Instead of assuming, you can ask questions. Taking a moment to respond rather than react can lead to information exchange, which could de-escalate the conflict.

Negotiating

You likely negotiate daily, whether you're at home with a family member or at work with a customer or supervisor. You may negotiate with a professor to make up a missed assignment or with your friends to plan activities for the weekend. Negotiation in interpersonal conflict refers to the process of attempting to change or influence conditions within a relationship. The negotiation skills discussed next can be adapted to all types of relational contexts, from romantic partners to coworkers. The stages of negotiating are prenegotiation, opening, exploration, bargaining, and settlement.¹¹ These are stages you might take to resolve conflicts in your life. 

Prenegotiation

In the prenegotiation stage, you prepare for the encounter. If possible, let the other person know you would like to talk to them and preview the topic, so they will also have the opportunity to prepare. While it may seem awkward to set a date to talk about a conflict, if the other person feels attacked or surprised, the reaction could be negative. Make your preview simple and non-threatening by saying something like, “I've noticed you arrive after our meetings begin, and I want to discuss strategies to make our meetings more effective for you and your schedule. Can we sit down and talk tomorrow?” 

Obviously, it won’t always be feasible to set a date if the conflict needs to be handled immediately because the consequences are immediate or if you or the other person has limited availability. In that case, you can still prepare, but make sure you allow time for the other person to digest and respond. During this stage, you also want to figure out your goals for the interaction by reviewing your goals. Is getting something done, preserving the relationship, or presenting yourself in a certain way the most important?

Your goal analysis may lead you away from negotiation—remember, as discussed earlier, stopping can be an appropriate and effective conflict management strategy. If you decide to proceed with the negotiation, you will want to determine your ideal outcome and your bottom line (the point at which you decide to break off negotiation). You must realize there is a range between your ideal and your bottom line and that remaining flexible is key to a successful negotiation. Collaboration might reveal a new solution you didn’t know existed.

Opening

In the opening stage of the negotiation, you want to set the tone for the interaction because the other person will be likely to reciprocate. Generally, it is good to be cooperative and pleasant, which can help open the door for collaboration. You also want to establish common ground by bringing up overlapping interests and using “we” language. It would not be competent to open the negotiation with “You constantly come late to the meetings we both plan! Don’t you care?” Instead, you may open the negotiation by making small talk and then move into the issue at hand. You could set a good tone and establish common ground by saying, “We both put a lot of work into setting up these meetings, but I’ve noticed that you’ve been really busy and sometimes you arrive late to meetings.” With some planning and a simple opening like that, you can move into the next stage of negotiation.

Exploration

There should be a high level of information exchange in the exploration stage. The overarching goal in this stage is to get an overall view of the conflict by sharing your perspective and listening to the other person. In this stage, you will likely learn how the other person is experiencing the conflict. Your listening skills will be important in this stage. Although you may have been mulling over the many missed meetings for a few days, your co-worker may just now be aware of the conflict. He may also inform you that he has a conflict of which you are not aware. The information that you gather here may clarify the situation enough to end the conflict and cease negotiation. If negotiation continues, the information will be key as you move into the bargaining stage.

Bargaining

The bargaining stage is where you make proposals and concessions. Bargaining in business might involve negotiating for price and product where both sides are satisfied. The seller may lower the original price to make the sale, or perhaps the customer may compromise on price to get exactly what is wanted. Each must know what is most important and be willing to give a little to come up with a solution that satisfies both. 

In relationships, you are informed about what is most important to both parties by what you learned in the exploration stage. Flexibility is important here, because you may have to revise your ideal outcome based on new information. If you planned to hold multiple morning meetings, you may now want to propose to have the meetings moved to the afternoon. You want to make sure your opening proposal is reasonable and not presented as an ultimatum. “I don’t ever want to see you late again” is different from “When you arrive late, it feels unprofessional to our clients. Can we agree to schedule meetings to ensure we are both there on time?” Through the proposals you make, you could end up with a win-win situation. If there are areas of disagreement, however, you may have to make concessions or compromise, which can be a partial win or a partial loss. 

Settlement

In the settlement stage, you want to decide on one of the proposals and then summarize the chosen proposal and any related concessions. It is possible that each party can have a different view of the agreed solution. You’ll need to follow up on the solution to make sure it’s working for both parties. If the result isn’t satisfactory, you may need to go back to the exploration or bargaining stage.

Contention and Conflict

Conflict in interpersonal relationships is inevitable. Relationships grow through conflict. Learning how to manage conflict effectively is essential for successful interpersonal relationships; however, they do not need to escalate into contention, which is strife, arguing, and disputation. President Nelson (2023) taught, “Anger never persuades. Hostility builds no one. Contention never leads to inspired solutions. Make no mistake about it: contention is evil.

“... Contention is a choice. Peacemaking is a choice. You have your agency to choose contention or reconciliation. I urge you to choose to be a peacemaker, now and always.” 

The root of contention is pride (Proverbs 13:10). Pride makes you want to win the conflict, not resolve it for a fulfilling solution for both parties. Alma taught that there should be “no contention one with another, but that they should … have their hearts knit together in unity and in love towards one another” (Mosiah 18:21).  The Lord commanded us to be one, saying that “... if ye are not one ye are not mine” (Doctrine and Covenants 38:27). When you unite to find common solutions to conflict, you eliminate the feelings of strife and focus on collaboration. 

President Nelson taught, “We can literally change the world—one person and one interaction at a time. How? By modeling how to manage honest differences of opinion with mutual respect and dignified dialogue.”¹ 

Consider how you will change the world through your intentional efforts to resolve conflict. Prepare strategies you will implement the next time you have a difference of opinion with someone else.   

Study Tips

• Make flashcards with physical materials.
• Use flashcard apps - quizlet.com is a good example of an application that allows you to make your own flashcards.
• Read the assignments and try to understand what the words mean. The reading assignments for this week include the words you are required to study.

¹ Russell M. Nelson, “Peacemakers Needed.” April General Conference, 2023

² Cahn, D. D., Abigail, R. A. (2014). Managing conflict through communication (5th ed.). Allyn & Bacon.

³ Cahn, D. D., Abigail, R. A. (2011). Managing conflict through communication (4th ed.). Allyn & Bacon; pg. 4.

⁴ Adapted from M. Afzalur Rahim, “A Measure of Styles of Handling Interpersonal Conflict,” Academy of Management Journal 26, no. 2 (1983): 368–76).

⁵ Bobot, L. (2010). Conflict management in buyer-seller relationships. Conflict Resolution Quarterly, 27(3), 291–319.

⁶ Isenhart, M. W., & Spangle, M. (2000). Collaborative approaches to resolving conflict. SAGE Publications, Inc., 

⁷ Cai, D. A., & Fink, E. L. (2002). Conflict style differences between individualists and collectivists. Communication Monographs, 69(1), 67–87.

⁸ Macintosh, G., & Stevens, C.D. (2008). Personality, motives, and conflict strategies in everyday service encounters. International Journal of Conflict Management, 19, 112-131.

⁹ Cahn D. D., & Abigail, R. A. (2014). Managing conflict through communication (5th ed.). Pearson Education.

¹⁰ Gottman, J. M. (1994). What predicts divorce? The relationship between marital processes and marital outcomes. Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, Inc.

¹¹ Hargie, O., Skilled Interpersonal Interaction: Research, Theory, and Practice (London: Routledge, 2011), 261.

¹² Jacobson, N. S., Christensen, A., Prince, S. E., Cordova, J., & Eldridge, K. (2000). Integrative behavioral couple therapy: An acceptance-based, promising new treatment for couple discord. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68(2), 351–355.