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Amirah Basaad
Blake Wolf
COM 100
December 10, 2015
Managing Interpersonal Conflict
Human beings in their nature, have different personalities and different point of views.
These differences can show up between two or more people, whether those people are in a
personal relationship, friendship, or work relationship. Nevertheless, due to these differences,
people can have conflict between them. There are four different types of conflict and they are:
interpersonal conflict, intrapersonal conflict, intragroup conflict, and intergroup conflict. Ill be
talking about the first type, which is interpersonal conflict. This type of conflict occurs between
two individuals. Those two individuals can be co-workers, siblings, spouses, roommates,
neighbors, etc. Its the most common type of conflict and its what people think of when they
thing about conflict. As mentioned above, a conflict can happen due to us having different
personalities and these different personalities result in incompatible choices and opinions. In this
paper, Ill provide examples of interpersonal conflict, why do they occur, and some of the
approaches to managing it.
First of all, interpersonal conflict can occur in various ways and in various aspects of our
lives. For example, a conflict can start between couples due to intimacy issues, such as issues
related to intimacy or sex. In addition to that, they can occur because of power issue, where one
person is over controlling the other person with excessive demands or making decisions in behalf
of the other person. Moreover, personal flaws, such as smoking, drinking, personal grooming, or
even driving style can cause a conflict. The same thing can occur because of personal distance

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issues, including but not limited to: frequent absences, lengthy absences, school commitment, or
job commitment. Furthermore, interpersonal conflict can happen because of social issues, such
as politics, social politics, parents, children, or personal values. Finally, in my opinion, I believe
the most common example of interpersonal conflict can occur because of distrust issues,
especially lying and previous lovers.
In order to manage interpersonal conflict, some people tend to avoid conversations and
discussing the issues in hand, just because they believe the issues can go away by time or there is
no good way to solve the problem in hand. This method is typically called a lose-lose since it
usually leads to unsatisfying relationships. This is due to the fact that is has low level of
cooperation between the conflict people and low level of competitiveness. Another way of
dealing with conflict is accommodation. In accommodation, the cooperation level is high, but the
competitiveness level is low. This solution is considered a good one, but not the best since its a
lose-win situation. A third way to deal with interpersonal conflict is through competition.
Competition requires high level of competitiveness but low level of cooperation, and its a winlose solution. The fourth solution is collaboration. Collaboration requires high level of
cooperation and high level competitiveness. Its a win-win for the conflict parties. The final
method to manage interpersonal conflict is through compromise. Compromise, in my opinion, is
the ideal solution since lays between the other four.
In conclusion, a conflict is inevitable in our lives. We have different personalities and
different opinions. No matter what, we will at some point have a conflict. Once we got to that
conflict, we need to manage it properly. To do so, we need to choose an approach between
avoidance, accommodation, competition, collaboration or compromise. Each conflict might need
a different way to approach it.