This summary is organized around the questions found at the beginning of the chapter. See if you can answer them before reading the summary paragraphs.

1. How can conflict be valuable?

Conflict can be a way to establish relationship boundaries and norms, express feelings, identify individual needs, balance power, and build a history of survival within relationships.

2. What are some common sources of conflict?

Conflict is a condition of disharmony and disagreement that exists whenever people who depend on one another see their needs, beliefs and values, or goals as incompatible. Competing relationship needs can cause dialectical tensions, which are contradictory feelings in relationships. Some of the most common dialectics are autonomy/connection, stability/change, and expression/privacy. Different beliefs and values about what happened, what constitutes conflict, and how to communicate about conflict can become complicated by the high- or low-context preferences of communicators. People also come in conflict when they see their goals as incompatible or perceive others to be standing in the way of achieving their goals.

3. What are the different ways of handling conflict?

Individual conflict styles can be characterized as coercion, persuasion, collaboration, compromise, accommodation, or avoidance. Conflicts become destructive when communicators criticize, act out of defensiveness, stonewall, and convey contempt. Constructive responses to conflict include remaining rational, trying to understand others, maintaining open communication, being reliable, avoiding coercion, separating people from issues, and remaining open to others.

4. How can dialectical tensions be managed in relationships?

Dialectical tensions can be managed by fulfilling one need while suppressing the other (selection), managing competing needs in different situations (separation), compromising by giving up a need (neutralization), and creating new meanings and definitions for tensions (reframing).

5. How can communication help build common ground among people?

Often people resist talking to, working with, or living alongside people they perceive to be different. When people tolerate difference, they acknowledge that everyone is not alike but still prefer to be with others who are similar to them. When people of different cultures respect each other, they start to see differences as valuable and may form new friendships. Participation occurs when people are willing to include others in a range of activities and can see them as both unique and full participants or members of a shared community.

Building common ground requires communicating resourcefully and respectfully. Resourceful communicators know their own core beliefs and values but are also willing to identify with people who are different, understand their ways of communicating, and establish common goals and values. Respectful communicators practice civility and tolerance by observing ground rules such as preserving confidentiality, avoiding interruptions, using considerate language, and checking the accuracy of their assumptions.

6. What are some important steps to remember in trying to resolve conflicts?

Most conflict situations improve when communicators carefully choose the timing of discussion, focus on current behavior, are willing to modify beliefs and find out how others feel, use descriptive statements, focus on strengths as well as weaknesses, use persuasive arguments, and generate creative solutions that satisfy the needs of everyone involved.