Unbalanced Costs and Rewards

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Your roommate is annoyed that you keep eating her food; you are annoyed that she doesn’t clean the bathroom. Conflict often arises when we are struggling to get a share of some limited resource, such as money, time, or attention. According to some researchers, we treat our interpersonal relationships almost like financial exchanges; we tally up our rewards (what we’re getting from a relationship) and compare these to our costs (what we’re putting into the relationship). If we think our costs are outweighing the rewards, then conflict may likely be triggered.