Personality conflict is a usual source of conflict as found in the case of Heather and William. Heather and William find themselves at loggerheads with Heather’s aunt Sonja as she refuses to be together with William’s relatives. Since Heather and William are unable to give in to Sonja’s demands, they face an accommodation style problem.
In the accommodation style, one party has to let go of his/her way to accommodate the other party. This style would take a lot of sacrifices for Heather and William to let Sonja have her way. In doing so, two scenarios would arise, the obvious being avoiding a possible enmity between Sonja and William’s relatives. Secondly, they may be seen as people who are unable to stand their ground when it comes to such issues. This is a win-lose situation for them.
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Heather and William also lack collaboration skills. Collaboration is another key style of conflict management. This would bring out a win-win situation, but it would require more effort and time to create more space for everyone to air their views. If Heather and William are to succeed in resolving this issue, they have to create a forum between them and Sonja where they must be as honest as Sonja is. In this forum, they have to come up with all possible scenarios that are favorable to both parties. For instance, they could agree to have both sides of the families hold parties alternatively. In such a case, each household would have to wait for its turn to hold their son’s party.
For Heather and William to avoid a sad face, they have to either accommodate Sonja’s idea of holding different parties or create a collaborative forum and have a win-win situation.
References
Wertheim, E. H. (2012). Conflict management styles. The encyclopedia of peace psychology .
Wiebe, W. T., & Zhang, Y. B. (2017). Conflict Initiating Factors and Management Styles in Family and Nonfamily Intergenerational Relationships: Young Adults’ Retrospective Written Accounts. Journal of Language and Social Psychology , 36 (3), 368-379.
