Chapter 16

People have a negative view of conflict, because they don’t know how to deal with conflict and turn it into a positive learning experience. As page 217 states, “ conflicts turn sour because the conflicting parties do not take the time and effort to find a more mutually satisfying resolution” people tend to think conflict is yelling, screaming, and settling with others opinions or compromising your own opinions about something. Yes, I think as people learn about conflict they fear it less. I can say this firsthand, because I fear conflict less from taking this class. I now know how to turn conflict into a positive outcome for me and the other party. When you understand conflict your able to see it as a challenge to overcome a boundary. Chapter 16 talks about effective conflict, being seen as opportunities for personal and relationship growth in conflict situations. A lot of people don’t feel comfortable with it because they fear the unknown, of not knowing how to handle conflict. 

Learned throughout semester

 I learned a lot about myself in this course. I think that is why this class was one of my favorites, because I was able to apply the context and what not to my life.  I learned mostly about myself in this class. I learned that I tend to have a temper when arguing, I shut people out and I am not a good listener. This class made me analyze myself when in conflict. My favorite theory we learned in this class was the S-TLC approach. It is an easy, common sense approach but sometimes we over think the obvious. Now when I am in conflict, I take a breather before I respond and am a way better listener. I also analyzed the close relationships around me and how they handle and communicate when in conflict. More specifically, my poor boyfriend because I am around him the most. But, I think through all this analyzing I have hopefully made him a better communicator when in conflict situations.

Strengths/ Weakness of class

This was definitely one of my favorite online classes. I take online classes to fit in with my busy schedule, however I really dislike them because I like the face-to-face interaction I get in the classroom. What I did like about this class was the professor being easy to talk to, and down to earth. You were able to get a sense of her personality, which is hard with online classes. I also liked the discussions, and how we had to connect to our personal lives because it allowed us to all understand one another better. Meaning, we were able to get a deeper meaning about one another, not just seeing each other as a computer, but more as an emotional human being. I like that in this class we were able to open up a lot and connect to the book using real world examples. When you connect the text with your real lives, for me at least, I understand the content a lot better and I also remember it better.  I think the only weakness in this class, was having to post at three different times during the week and it being 12 hours apart.  I understand the point of it, but it was challenging at times to post three different times and keep track of those three times. I almost rather have two post, that were just longer in length. I would absolutely recommend this class to someone. This class is very beneficial. One of the reasons I am majoring in Communications is because you learn theories, content that you can apply to your everyday life verse like my geology class that I will never apply to my life. I think by taking this class you will learn a lot about yourself as well as how you can strengthen the relationships around you.  I also liked the blog setup better then D2L. At first I was apprehensive about it, because it was new but it is more organized then D2L and is easier to keep track of with all my classes. OVERALL, LOVED THIS CLASS =)

Social Exchange Theory

 I found the social exchange theory to be very relatable. I have been in a couple long-term relationships and as a young women, you tend to rate your relationships and analyze them to see if you are still happy in your relationships after a long period of time. The social exchange theory states that people evaluate their interpersonal relationships in terms of their value, which is created by costs and rewards associated with the relationship. I think where you run into problems in your relationship is when you rate your relationship satisfaction, based on previous experiences, because your comparing your boyfriends to your ex then you think about how your ex did one thing that your current boyfriend doesn’t. I also think that rating your relationship on relationship commitment level, such as rewards, or costs of alternatives can be useful because it allows you to see that your getting back what your putting into the relationship. Not saying that you need to be spoiled with goods, or money but making sure that your not putting more into the relationship then your significant other. This can lead to feeling unsure in your relationships.

 

Chapter 12- Post 2

         The Attribution theory, states that people act as they do in conflict situations because of the interferences they make about others based on their behavior (P.217). I recently asked my girlfriend to go to dinner with me, because I haven’t seen her in awhile, she replied no because she had a lot of studying to do for her test coming up. I knew she had the test coming up so my feelings weren’t hurt. Then, I was invited by my other friends to go out to eat and I said I couldn’t cause I already ate and they explained to me that they saw my girlfriend(the one I asked to go out to eat) at the place they were eating at with our friend. So I assumed she was trying to avoid me, or just didn’t want to hang out with me so naturally my feelings were hurt. Later, I texted her and made a remark stating our friends saw her. And she replied saying that they were studying together and took a break together. At first I was annoyed and bothered but later realized that I was in the wrong.

         A situation where making accurate attributions has helped me, is when I started to learn how to do makeup. I was at my friends house and she was doing my makeup for the night and I was telling her how much I loved my makeup and how I wish I knew how to do makeup. Later, she taught me how to do basic makeup looks and led me down the path of having so much passion for hair and makeup.  

Revenge, Reconciliation and Forgiveness

Sometimes I like to read my classmates posts before I do mine to help generate some ideas for my posts so what I found to be interesting was

What was interesting to me was that I found more sights with forgiveness than on revenge and reconsiliation. While, my many of my classmates found revenge to have the most sites. Reconciliation had a couple things that popped up many of it had to do with defining the word. When I first typed revenge in my google search, the television series revenge popped up everywhere. What I find to be interesting with this show, especially the title is that the media is portraying revenge as a good thing, and naming a show after the word. The show is about a girl seeking revenge for his families death. When I looked up the word forgiveness, a ton of stuff popped up. I then reworded my search so that I wouldn’t get bomboarded with sites to the television series and I still didn’t see as much sites as I did for forgiveness. A lot of stuff that had to do with the bible popped up. Such as, what the bible says about forgiveness, and  how you can be healed through forgiveness. I thought revenge would have more sites, but to my surprise forgiveness did. I am not sure why forgiveness has more sites, I thought revenge would, maybe it was what I was googling. However, maybe there are a lot of people out there wanting to seek forgiveness but don’t know how or where to start so they google it and a ton of support groups pop up. It is always interesting to see what pops up in the google search

third post-Facework

On the first discussion this week we touched base on Facebook and how we present ourselves to others. A lot of these issues that stuck out to me. My sister is in junior high and trying to discover who she is, and trying to create an image for herself so throughout this chapter I thought frequently about what she is going through. On page 161 the author talks about facework, which is the “process by which people establish and maintain their impressions of themselves to others, as well as supporting or denying the impressions that others are making”. I think a lot of young kids, fall under this pressure because they want to be seen as cool which leads to giving into peer pressure. When you usually give into peer pressure your doing something that you know isn’t who you truly are, but your supporting the impressions or assumptions people have made of you. 

Chapter 10- Forgiveness

I have a hard time forgiving my father for his past mistakes. My dad and mother divorced when I was 4 and my father moved to Connecticut. My mom is remarried now to my step-father whom is an amazing person and my dad is still in my life, just not exactly as a father. I have a hard time forgiving him, because he intentionally did things to hurt my mother and I. I am usually one to forgive and forget, but when people repeatedly intentionally hurt someone it shows their character and makes it hard for me to want to develop and relationship with them. It also almost makes it impossible to form a relationship with that person because there is no trust involved. Chapter 10 describes forgiveness as the “cognitive process that consists of letting go of feelings of revenge and desires to retaliate”(P.176). I am not sure that I 100% agree with that definition, because I don’t have any part of me that seeks revenge in my father. I don’t think that revenge will solve any emotional issues that I have. The chapter goes on too talk about transforming the meaning of the event, and I have learned to do that with my father and mine relationship. I have tried to view our relationship in a more positive light, and see it as I am older and so is he now so I am trying to start fresh with our relationship because I do feel that people can learn from their mistakes. 

chapter 9- discussion 1 (Facebook)

 I used to present myself on Facebook as a typical college girl, didn’t care as much what I posted or what pictures were tagged of me. Now however, I have much more privacy settings and have to approve what people can tag of me. I think this just comes with age, wanting others respect and knowing that your future career can see the pictures and comments on your page. Of course you want people to respect you.  Throughout high school and beginning of college I wish there were a lot of pictures that I wasn’t tagged in. I also wish I put a little more thought into posting certain pictures.  Facebook is all about communication because you communicate to each other via Facebook, and there is a ton of conflict through Facebook . People create groups and events and bully people through those groups. There is a lot of drama that stirs up from Facebook.  In chapter 9, it talks about face management, which describes “face is what one does, face management is the face that results during interaction with others”(P.157). In other words the face is Facebook and the face management is how we present ourself through our Facebook page.  Goffman brings up a good point on page 157, about the fact that we all have images of ourselves and we project that image(our face) in interactions with others. Facebook is a terrific example of Goffman’s view. How we communicate with others is how we want others to see us. For example, if you post pictures of you always drinking on your Facebook and posting statuses about drama in your life, your more then likely going to get a certain reputation. This reputation comes from positive face and autonomous (negative) face. Positive face means that people want others important to them to like and respect them. (P. 159). Positive face is more then likely what most people want. Autonomous face is the part of us that longs for some independence, privacy or time alone. People need to realize that Facebook is public, and it reflects how people view you. 

Chapter 7- discussion 3

Chapter 7 was very interesting for me to read, because I used to be a very stressful person and used to let stress ruin my day, my relationships and my attitude toward life was very negative. About 2 years ago I broke up with my ex and realized that the reason I was also so stressed was due to our relationship and it brought me down. Now I am a very optimistic person and try to always see the good in life. By having a positive outlook on life it has allowed me to accomplish more, because I feel that I have more motivation then ever before. I also feel more confident in myself and what I am capable of. When you are constantly stressed out it can ruin all of your close relationships, because nobody wants to always be around negative nancy. Your attitude certainly rubs off on people. So what caught my attention was in chapter 7 on page 128 about the idea of managing stress by having a playful spirit. The book define playful spirit as, changing your attitude toward life in a way that enables us to lighten up. It has a list of techniques that are beneficial, but I will only list a couple that I found more important. “Don’t blame yourself for everything that goes wrong or doesn’t pan out” (P.128). This one I have found extrememly useful, because I am a firm believer in that everything happens for a resason and when something goes wrong I see it as an opporuntity to fix something or maybe something better is coming my way. “Learn to say “no,” without feeling guilty. I used to always try to please others and would never tell someone no to helping them or hanging out etc. so I was too busy trying to please others and didn’t realize that I was not satisfied in my own life. So I truly feel that having a playful spirit, or never truly growing up but having your moments were you act playful like a child will keep you young and happy.

Post 2- Anger

         In my personal experience, how I react to anger varies on who I am angry with. For example, with my mother I tend to loose my patience and blow up on her. When it comes to my boyfriend I either express it calmy or not at all. I briefly touched on this on my Conflict Assesment paper, but I react to conflict differently depending on who I am frustrated with, or where we are. There are a lot of factors involved to how I channel my anger. On page 143, it talks about the term anger-ins which is the idea of not expressing your anger to the person who has upset you. It also suggest that you may express that anger to someone else,like venting. I find myself doing this more, but more so to get advice and vent so I don’t blow up on the person I am mad at. I want to hear if I am in the wrong or if I am not seeing something, so I use this more as a time for suggestion and for me it works really well because then I don’t blow up on the person I am angry with. I am able to think things through before I talk to that person about why I am upset. This also follows under the idea on chapter 8 of taking a time out. It suggests that you should exit temporarily, to help you cool off (Pg. 147). I think this is the best way to express anger as long as you aren’t permanently ignoring the issue that made you angry in the beginning.

          However, when I do blow up on someone out of anger, it never solves the issue at hand. Instead there is a lot of shouting, and not any attempt to reach a common goal to resolve the issue at hand. 

Chapter 7- discussion 1 STRESS

 The first solution indicates that we need to approach our tasks with a positive  attitude, because how we approach our tasks plays an important role on the level of stress we feel about them (Pg. 129). When it comes to school I tend to go into essays or homework with a negative attitude so it makes the process drag out longer cause I am dreading it. I need apply this positive attitude to work, because I need to realize that I am fortunate enough to have a job in this economy. I need to see work as an opportunity to make money and bond with the kids that I babysit.

 The second solution suggests that we need to see work as a game, and a type of play (Pg. 130). The author also suggests that we need to take ourselves less seriously. I firmly believe in this, because when you stress too much about life, it could lead to health issues and make you not value life as much.  I need to see work more as a play, and my job is to pretty much play with kids and keep them happy. When we loosen up and aren’t as stress about things. The third solution is about integration, and that one needs to understand that joy and pain are often found in the same play, but both are valued (Pg. 130). As soon as I read this I thought of a love, hate relationship. With school, I struggle to have a positive attitude with assignments, but then there are times that I enjoy doing an essay topic of my chooising. And in the end I need to see school as the fact that I am fortunate enough to get a higher education, and that the pain from staying up late and doing homework will be worth it in the long run, when I have my degree. When it comes to work my job can be very rewarding and I enjoy that factor of it, because I am able to see kids that I care about grow and development. Sometiems it is painful, because the kdis don’t always listen or I may have been up late the night before doing homework so im cranky. But in the end there is nothing better then going to babysit and the kids come running to the door smiling shouting my name to give me a hug. I think that life happens to us all and we forget what we have, and what we should be fortunate about and instead focus on the negative. So, I really appreciated this discussion question.

chapter 6 discussion 3

What I always enjoy about these chapters, and this class in general is that I can always apply what we are talking about to my everyday life and the conflicts I have in communication. In a lot of classes you are in class, because it is a required class to graduate, while yes this is a required class that I need, but I feel that this class is worth my time because it is helping me become a better communicator in a professional atmosphere, with my friends, and family. I do a lot of anazlying my past and current relationships when doing these discussions and from this weeks I realized that I used to be in a more competitive relationship where there was always a win-lose outcome. Now, through those experiences with the competitive relationships it has led me down a more positive path, that I now communicate in a more cooperate manner and it is always a win-win outcome. One of the many things that leads to a successful relationship is , I feel cooperating. The book defines cooperation as working together rather working against one another, and that cooperation generally increases levels of trust, openness and collaboration(Pg.110). All of these things can only better your relationship with someone. When you care deeply about someone you want to be able to open up to them and trust them with all that you got, being able to do those things allow you to have an open and honest relationship with good communication. I didn’t realize until I took communication classes, how important communication is in our lives and how not communicating can get quickly misinterpreted into many other things for example when you ignore someone after a fight they could assume the worst or assume your thinking something when your not, maybe you just want time to cool off. Overall, we need to all work towards win-win outcomes so that we can all learn from communication with others.

Power abuse relationships

After reading the instructor wrap up on Chapter 6, it made me realize that my last relationship consisted more of an abusive power communication. So I have been in both positions, being the person with more power as well as being the person with less power. Both positions ultimately, suck. I am more of a person that likes to compromise with people because I know that it ultimately makes me a better person and allows me to understand the person I am communicating with a little bit better so when you have the power or lack the power there usually isn’t much compromising.  To quote the wrap up, “those who abuse power may find that the other person responds in passive or passive-aggressive ways in order to avoid threats and abuse.” I find that when you have less power, you do feel passive and your communication is very passive aggressive, however when you feel like your the one who has the power in a relationship you feel very strong, and this is when that power, becomes abusive because you know you have the power to control the relationship and a lot of time people abuse this power. When you are in an unbalanced relationship, it is ultimately going to lead to a miscommunication and break up. Again, in the instructor wrap up she talks about giving up that power to resolve conflict and I absolutely agree with that.  If one person in a relationship feels like they have the power, they tend to talk down to the other person, making them feel insecure and weak which can make that person not want to open up to their significant other. . When there isn’t this power struggle it eliminates competition within two people. Whenever two people are competing that leads to win-lose outcomes which again leads to putting someone down in order to make you feel like you won. Ultimately, a power struggle relationship leads to many communication errors

Loss of trust

I have lost trust in someone before. I was in a three year long relationship where my boyfriend lied and cheated on me. When someone close to your lies and you loose your trust in them, it makes you feel insecure. It is hard for you to put your trust in someone again, because nobody wants to feel pain again. The trust was restored overtime, but never was 100% the same. We had, as the book puts it, an unhealthy level of trust. Once you have distrust in someone, it is hard to build that trust up again. The way to build that trust up is to slowly open up again, and when you have already lost that trust within an individual it is hard to communicate things that are personal. I also feel that once that trust suffers, an act of powerful speech definitely plays a role in a relationship. When you feel insecure after being lied too and your trust being lost, I think a form of powerless speech takes over the relationships communication. Powerless speech simply means to feel uncertain or unsure of onself. 

Chapter 4- post 3

After reading chapter 4, I couldn’t help but think of my boyfriends flaws in communicating. While I love my boyfriend to pieces, nobody is perfect so am going to use him as my example for this discussion.

          I wanted him to read chapter 4. He is just like me and when we talk, especially serious talks he doesn’t always let the other person finish what they are saying before he passes his judgment on the issue or what not. Part of the S-TLC that I really related to was the STOP step. As our professor talks about on the blog, when the book talks about “stop” it simply means to take a time out, analyze the conversation rationally and consider all the options. A lot of people (like my boyfriend) take things personal, rather than seeing the other persons goals, and considering their conflicting parties. I think this is why sometimes I prefer to write a letter to someone, because I feel I can say everything on my mind, without getting interrupted. I have always found this to be helpful, but I like face to face interaction for multiple reasons, one of which, is that the person you are talking to can see your emotions and that can make the topic seem more serious, and more important to you. 

Being a good listener

Listening is described on page 73 as being open to the other persons view and willingness to suspend judgment during the discussion, and patience to hear the other out. I think this is one of my biggest struggles as a communicator. I will sit their and it will seem like I am listening, but I don’t always take it all in. I get distracted very easily. When it is something of importance to a friend, yes I am 100% paying attention but when a friend is just chatting about non-sense, sometimes I catch myself being physically apart of the conversation but not mentally. I am also not a very patient listener. I always want to get my ideas, comments or concerns out right away when someone is talking instead of waiting till the end of their story. I am aware this is an issue for me so I try not to have things around me that could distract me, such as my phone, or objects that I could play with. I think when someone is talking I don’t suspened my judgement, I want to say what is on my mind and it is definitely something I need to work on as a communicator. Being a good listener is a huge role in any conversation. 

Stopping Conflict

I used to really struggle with stopping and approaching conflict. The S-TLC(Stop, Think, Listen, Communicate) made me realize that I still struggle with stopping conflict. I don’t like confrontation, simply because I fear I will hurt someone’s feelings or I don’t want to say something I will later regret.

         I think many people struggle with the S-TLC system, because in the heat of the moment people don’t listen, or think they usually just react and say the first thing that comes to mind. So, I think people that do struggle with not being able to respond automatically and stop conflict, I think that they need to just listen to and I always take a deep breath before I respond and I usually go “3,2,1, 1,2,3. I know it sounds silly but it helps me get through situations when I want to scream at someone.

 I think it is always important in conflict, to think and consider where the other person is coming from. On page 69 the S-TLC system talks about thinking, and try not to take the conflict personally. I think that is key when conflict is occurring, because people tend to say things out of anger, so it is important to not take the conflict personal. 

Chapter 11- Post 2

My boyfriend has been looking to buy a car recently, and we have dealt with a lot of car salesmen. So I am going to use the example of making a big purchase such as a car to show a non-interpersonal conflict. When the car salesmen fractionates the purchase and breaks it all down explaining to you what you are getting for your money, it makes you feel like your making less of an impulse buy. You want to know why this car is better then all the other cars on the market so, the Salesmen breaks it all down for you and explains what your getting for your value. Then you want to both reach a common ground on pricing so you tend to go back and forth and compromise till you find a common ground. I tend to think of these terms only in a interpersonal communication aspect, but breaking down these terms into non-interpersonal conflicts makes me realize that on a daily basis I have many conversations that involve reframing, common ground, frantionation and framing. 

Chapter 11 Post 3

Chapter 11 made me realize that I often play the mediator in my household. I have a sister that is 10 years younger than I am and my parents are older than most parents with 10 year olds, so there is occasionally some uncertainty on whats in right now, and whats not, especially in the fashion world. Very often my parents and my sister don’t see eye to eye on things. The book talks about the mediator helping to restate the parties comments in a less offensive manner (Pg. 204), which I didn’t realize it, but after I read this quote I realized that when my sister and my parents fight I often play the mediator. For example, what my sister likes to wear isn’t exactly what my mom would like her to wear. So my mom, not realizing it puts my sister down when she wears certain things, like saying “I don’t like that, it doesn’t look right” but in my sisters eyes she is just expressing herself. So being the older sibling I express to my mom that she needs to talk to my sister, not AT my sister in order to get her voice heard and she has to do it in a way that she isn’t being disrespectful. And on the same hand my sister needs to compromise a little and hear what my mom has to say. So, I think in this particular instance, finding a common ground is very important and I was able to help reframe the conversation so it was a productive form of communication and not just a bunch of yelling back and forth.