We like to think of conflict as unusual, an unpleasant exception to the normal routine of our relationships. Each conflict seems freshly painful and unprecedented. “I can’t believe it!” we tweet, text, or post on Facebook, “We had a terrible fight last night!” Friends immediately fire back messages echoing their shock: “OMG, really?!” Observing other couples, we judge their relationships by how much they fight: couples who argue too much are “doomed to fail,” whereas those who rarely disagree must be “blissfully happy.”

But such beliefs are mistaken. Conflict is a normal part of all relationships (Canary, 2003). Dealing with other human beings (and their unique goals, preferences, and opinions) means regularly having your wants and needs run up against theirs, triggering disputes (Malis & Roloff, 2006). On average, people report seven conflicts a week, mostly with relatives, friends, and lovers with whom they’ve argued before (Benoit & Benoit, 1990). Thus the challenge you face is not how to avoid conflict, or how to live a conflict-free life, but how to constructively manage the conflicts that will arise in your interpersonal relationships.

WHAT IS CONFLICT?

Almost any issue can spark conflict—money, time, sex, religion, politics, love, chores, and so on—and almost anyone can get into a conflict: family members, friends, lovers, coworkers, or casual acquaintances. Despite such variations, all conflicts share similar attributes. Conflict is the process that occurs when people perceive that they have incompatible goals or that someone is interfering in their ability to achieve their objectives (Wilmot & Hocker, 2010). Four features characterize most conflicts: they begin with perception, they involve clashes in goals or behaviors, they unfold over time as a process, and they are dynamic.

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Conflict Begins with Perception Conflict occurs when people perceive incompatible goals or actions (Roloff & Soule, 2002). Because conflict begins with perception, perceptual errors (see Chapter 3) shape how our conflicts unfold. As we’ll discuss later in this chapter, we blame others more than ourselves during conflicts, and perceive them as uncooperative and ourselves as helpful. These self-enhancing errors can lead us to manage conflict in ways that create unsatisfying outcomes.

Conflict Involves Clashes in Goals or Behaviors At the heart of conflicts are clashes in goals or behaviors (Zacchilli, Hendrick, & Hendrick, 2009). Some conflicts revolve around incompatible goals, ranging from everyday leisure activity disputes (“I want to go out dancing!” versus “I want to stay home and play video games!”) to serious arguments regarding personal values (“I want our children to be raised Jewish!” versus “I want them to be Catholic!”). Other disputes break out when one person’s actions clash with another’s. A friend texts you repeatedly while you’re studying, and you fire back a nasty message; your manager demands that you work over a holiday weekend, and you refuse.

Conflict Is a Process Although people often describe conflict as a series of unrelated events (“I sent her this carefully crafted e-mail, and for no reason, she blasted me in response!”), conflict is a process that unfolds over time. Its course is determined by the communication choices we make: everything we say and do during a conflict influences everything our partner says and does, and vice versa.

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Moreover, most conflicts proceed through several stages, each involving decisions and actions that affect the conflict’s direction and consequences for the individuals involved. In its most basic form, the process of conflict involves people perceiving that a conflict exists, choosing an approach for how to handle the conflict, and then dealing with the conflict resolutions and outcomes that follow. Conflict is not a one-time-only event: how you handle a conflict with someone will have consequences for your future interactions and relationship with that person.

Conflict Is Dynamic Because conflict typically unfolds over a series of exchanged messages, it is ever changing and unpredictable. Research looking at the dynamic nature of conflict finds that in 66.4 percent of disputes, the focus shifts substantially as the conflict progresses (Keck & Samp, 2007). A fight over your father’s snide remark regarding your job quickly becomes a battle about his chronic disapproval of you. Or a dispute regarding your roommate eating your leftovers becomes an argument about her failure to be a supportive friend. When a conflict shifts topic, it can devolve into kitchen-sinking (from the expression, “throwing everything at them but the kitchen sink”), in which combatants hurl insults and accusations at each other that have little to do with the original disagreement. For example, a couple fighting over whether one of them was flirting with their server at a restaurant may say things like: “What about the time when you completely forgot our anniversary?!” and “Oh yeah?! Well, at least my family is intelligent!”

Since conflict often dynamically branches out into other troublesome topics, managing conflict is extremely challenging—you can never fully anticipate the twists and turns that will occur. But remember: you have total control over what you say and do, and that can influence how someone responds. If you think a conflict is getting completely off track, choose your communication carefully to help bring it back on topic.

CONFLICT IN RELATIONSHIPS

Most conflicts occur between people who know each other and are involved in close relationships, such as romantic partners, friends, family members, and coworkers (Benoit & Benoit, 1990). Unlike people who don’t know each other well, people in close relationships experience prolonged contact and frequent interaction, which set the stage for disagreements over goals and behaviors.

In close relationships, conflicts typically arise from one of three issues (Peterson, 2002): irritating partner behaviors (e.g., a family member has an annoying personal habit, or your partner interrupts you while you’re working), disagreements regarding relationship rules (e.g., you and your partner disagree about texting with ex-partners, or family members disagree about inviting friends on family vacations), and personality clashes (e.g., you have a sunny disposition but your friend is a complainer, or you’re organized and ambitious but your partner is carefree and lazy).

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Relationship partners often develop consistent patterns of communication for dealing with conflict that either promote or undermine their happiness. For example, happily married couples are more likely than unhappily married couples to avoid personal attacks during conflicts and instead focus their discussion on the differences at hand (Peterson, 2002). Such patterns are self-perpetuating: happy couples remain motivated to behave in ways guaranteed to keep them happy, and because they believe they can solve their problems, they are more likely to work together to resolve conflict (Caughlin & Vangelisti, 2000). In contrast, dissatisfied couples often choose to avoid important conflicts. Their failure to deal directly with their problems further fuels their unhappiness (Afifi, McManus, Steuber, & Coho, 2009).

Managing conflicts in close relationships presents unique challenges. We feel connected to our intimate partners, and disputes threaten that sense of connection (Berscheid, 2002). Your conflicts with loved ones are guaranteed to be intense and emotionally draining experiences. Conflicts also powerfully affect your future encounters and relationships. For example, if you and a sibling fight via text message, this conflict will shape not only how the two of you will communicate when you are next face-to-face but how you’ll feel about your relationship moving forward. As scholar Donald Peterson (2002) notes, “Every conflict and every resolution, as well as every failure at resolution, becomes a part of your overall relationship history” (p. 363).