Oh I totally agree that humans have an instinct for conflict. I can remember when I was little and if someone took something that I was playing with away from me or if my mom took something away from me I made a huge stink about it and told them and her exactly how I felt. There were times where I would just stand there and scream waiting to see if that would make them give me back my toys (didn’t work with my mom, but totally worked with the other kids. They were probably thinking what’s wrong with her! But I didn’t care because my planned worked.) But now I look back on that and just laugh. I can’t stand getting into conflicts or discrepancies with people now. Just because I don’t want to listen to them blabber on, and would rather just not deal with it. But, if I have something to say and firmly disagree with the person, then I will let them know how I feel. But when people get mad at me for the most part I just laugh at them because I think it is so funny how mad someone gets over the littlest thing. If they were to just be like “hey I don’t like when you do this at this time, can you do it at another time.” I wouldn’t laugh at them. I’d change the time I do it at. No big deal.
I definitely think that an instinct for conflict is an inborn trait. We all go through conflicts from when we are born to when were older. We as humans aren’t told when were little by our parents about conflict and how to handle it. It just appears one day and boom you have to deal with it. Some people scream and fight, while others simply talk about what they are having a problem with.
I remember taking hostility test last quarter in my PE class at DeAnza and to my surprise; I stood under 20% hostile personality. This hostility fell in the category of losing patience at the long line check out counters in malls, driving signals, and getting irritated because of some habits of people to name a few. In your chilhood you might have thrown tantrums deliberately but situations like long lines, slow lowsy driver in front are encountered by all of us some or the other time. Specially the times when you are really feeling low and dull and a conflict triggers because of your own comment or response, then resolving a conflict in such a situation is a real challenege. But practising tricks like singing a song, Taking 10 deep breaths, or simply counting numbers from 1 to 30 helps cooldown. By the way, I saw these tricks in the “Anger Management” movie by Adam Sandler.
ReplyDeleteHow much easier life would be if everyone else would just be reasonable! I, like you, have felt that way many times. I do, however, try to refrain from laughing and remind myself that we are all learning to manage our emotions and the resulting conflicts. It is difficult to convince yourself that it is beneficial to show that you care when in fact you could care less, but if the relationship has any value to you, it is worth the effort in the long run. In fact, if you are not invested in the relationship then technically it is not an interpersonal conflict according to the definition in the text. So I guess the question is, "Is this relationship worth the effort required to develop and maintain it"?If not, simply remove that person from your life.
ReplyDeleteI think a lot of it is also that people feel the need to be right and feel that they deserve some sort of satisfaction on their end all of the time. i think in many cases people feel entitled to something and they need to make a point of it, whether or not they find it actually important.
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