Conflict Intensity

Let's look at some examples of what this might look like.

Joe loves to garden. The smell of the dirt, the fact that something beautiful or delicious comes from a tiny seed is a miracle Joe never tires of. Jane hates what gardening does to her nails.

Jane loves Pilates. She feels invigorated by the workout and over the long run it gives her more energy and confidence. Joe finds that doing Pilates makes him nauseous.

Joe and Jane love to cook. They delight in having friends over for dinner and they do an elegant tag team when the guests arrive greeting their friends and attending to dishes that are just about ready.

Joe and Jane love their boys. They are the light of their lives. But Joe thinks Jane is too hard on them about keeping their rooms clean. They are just kids. Jane thinks Joe is coddling the boys. Her dad was way more strict with her than she is with them and she is proud of her ability to keep things orderly. She wants them to grow up knowing how to take care of their things.

Joe has an attraction to gardening that isn't shared by Jane. Jane is into Pilates and Joe isn't. Unless one of them thinks the other should like what they like, there isn't going to be much conflict here, but not much harmony either. These are just interests in their lives which they don't share.

They both have a high attraction to cooking and parenting. They are able to approach cooking from the same or at least a similar perspective and it creates harmony and delight for them both. But the high level of concern they each have about parenting and the welfare of their boys together with very different perspectives about what is in their sons' best interest results in a relatively high level of conflict between them.

Thus, the intensity of a conflict between two parties can be seen as a function of both the level of attraction each of the parties have around a given issue or context, and the level of agreement the parties have about how to look at and make meaning about the issue or event. I have given some thought to how to write this function mathematically, but I don't remember enough about trigonometry to know quite how to do it. Suffice it to say that the emotional valance in a given relationship around a given issue or context can be seen as positive or negative in varying degrees depending on how much each party cares about the issue and how much harmony there appears to be between the perspectives each party takes toward the issue.

If we are to build effective strategies to resolve conflict it becomes important that we notice what it is that constructs the sense of discord or harmony in the relationship. For example:

Around the issue of women choosing to end pregnancies through abortion:

If a man adopts a posture that such an action is murder and the emotion he brings to the issue is heightened by a strong sense that he is acting on behalf of God and a belief that his mother would have terminated her pregnancy when she was carrying him had she had that option; then he is going to have a very strong emotional valance and a very clearly defined perspective.

If then in his community a group of people who very strongly value a woman's right to choose decide they will open an abortion clinic, they will find themselves in an intense conflict with the man. Both parties have a high level of commitment to the issues and very different perspectives on how to address it. In the absence of other ways to address the high level of discord, the man may decide to picket the clinic.