Week 16- Post 3

Overall, I have learned many new concepts about managing conflict through communication. More specifically, I learned about the S-TLC approach, which stands for stop, think, listen and communicate. This approach gives you a series of steps to follow which will help resolve interpersonal conflicts through basic communication skills. This knowledge helped me approach conflict more effectively and positively.

Understanding the concept of “you” versus “I” statements is something that I have learned from this class, and applied to my life. Using a “you” statement blames the other person and has a negative connotation to it. However, using an “I” statement personalizes the conflict by owning up to our feelings. When there is conflict in my life, I make sure to use statements that start with “I”, and avoid using “you” statements.

And most importantly, I learned that conflict is a process, and that there are many ways of approaching conflict, and many solutions.

Week 16- Post 2

What I liked most and would consider a strength about this class was the workshop. I felt that this assignment made us apply the concepts that we learned from the book, but also teaching these concepts to a specific group of people helped us further understand the theories. Another strength about this class, is that by constantly have discussion on what we have learned helped me fully understand the material, and I was also able to apply the material to my life. Furthermore, I also really enjoyed the conflict assessment paper. For this paper, we needed to record any conflict that occurred. I felt that this helped me realize what my strength and weakness are when it comes to dealing with conflict. This awareness helped me manage conflict better.

I would defiantly recommend this class to anyone and everyone. I feel that the knowledge that you gain from this place is relevant to your life and can help improve and restore your relationships. It gives you a different perspective on conflict, and gives you different strategies on how to approach and resolve conflict. 

Week 16- Post 1

“Nothing is more dangerous than an idea when it is the only one we have”. I feel that most people have had a negative experience with conflict, and have made the assumption that all conflict results in harming the relationship. Because of this belief, people formed a negative view.  The idea that conflict is “unhealthy” influences how people react. A common reaction from this view is avoidance, and we know that this behavior only makes conflict worse.

I feel that once people start to move away from the assumption that conflict is bad, they may find themselves resolving conflict in a constructive way. As they start to change their perspective, people may be more likely to confront conflict, which helps lead to the resolution phase. If people were more aware that there are many approaches and strategies that they can use to resolve conflict, people would be more inclined to fix their problems.

Week 11- Post 3

“The uncertainty theory helps explain false conflicts, which occur when at least one person in an interdependent relationship thinks that there is a conflict but after talking to the other involved, finds there is no conflict. Due to technology, text messaging is a new form of communication. I feel that this form of communication lacks important indicators that come with face-to-face or verbal interactions, thus making messages harder to interpret. With this being said, I feel that it is easy to misunderstand or misinterpret how the other person is coming off as. For example, I texted my girlfriend’s mom asking if I could use the cupcake mix she bought to give to her mom’s friend Joe. It took her a while to respond, so my girlfriend told me to go ahead and make them. After I had made them, her mom informed me through text that the cupcakes were for Halloween only, and she was suppose to make them. She also said that I needed to go buy more cake mix. I automatically, got afraid that her mom was upset with me, and started to freak out a little. However, when her mom came home she was happy I made them, because now she didn’t have to. In conclusion, it can be hard to interpret someone’s tone or voice through text and can cause a misunderstanding.

Week 11- Post 2

A couple months ago, I had plans to go out with my friend. She told me that she couldn’t go, so I decided to stay home. Then, an hour before we intended to go out, she send me a text saying that she is going. This had made me upset, because I made the assumption that she was going with someone else, and didn’t want to go with me. Because of this belief, I told her that I was upset, and disappointed because I wouldn’t have enough time to get ready. This escalated the situation because she was trying to tell me that she decided to go with me, even though she had work in the morning.

On the other hand, I have made accurate attributions about others that helped me understand their intentions. I had a friend of a friend tell me that her father had passed away. At first, I thought to myself why my friend didn’t tell me directly. I made the attribution that she was probably really upset and didn’t really know how to bring it up. It turns out that I was right, and I had to confront her about it, for her to open up. 

Week 11- Post 1

When I searched the Internet using the terms forgiveness, reconciliation, and revenge, I used the search engine of Google. Websites that I found for forgiveness was a definition from Wikipedia, and how the bible applies and defines forgiveness. Also, there was a site on Psychology Today about forgiveness that apples the psychodynamic approach theory. For the term reconciliation, I received multiple sites giving the definition, but nothing more. And for revenge, all the sites led me to the relatively new television series called revenge. Out of all three terms, forgiveness produced the most results. I feel that this is because it is common knowledge that forgiveness plays an important factor in our everyday lives. Also, because revenge is an extremely broad topic, it can be looked at in different aspects and have different meanings. On the other hand, I feel that the term reconciliation created the least amount of information.