Week 5 Reading Review #3

One of the concepts that I found the most interesting to me was the entire concept of listening. Listening to me is the most important concept when it comes to conflict resolution. Without listening there is no way of applying a proper response or speaking such a way that works well with those involved in the conflict. Not listening is basically like walking across the freeway with your eyes closed. You may make it across the freeway but you most likely won’t. Stop think listen communicate is one of the most important concepts because conflict resolution is something that cannot be rushed. Many aspects need to be taken into consideration. The times where I have not given full attention and not listened is when I have made my biggest mistakes. Communication in my personal experience is mainly about responding to peoples words or actions so unless you listen you will have nothing to say.

Week 5 Reading Review #2

When other people talk I do my best at giving my full attention. It is hard for a person to give a hundred percent of your concentration all of the time but I am still trying every day to do it. I like to focus on the main points that they are saying and tend to disregard any of the minor details I find irrelevant. I do not find myself thinking about my own ideas while someone is speaking. I try to listen to the whole story before I do anything such as pass judgment. After speaking to someone I can honestly say that I cannot entirely write down everything someone says. This is so not because I am not listening but because I focus on the main points people bring up. I could write the focus but that is about it. Maybe I could make mistakes of disregarding important information but I try my best to not do such a thing.

Week 5 Reading Review #1

When it comes to stopping a conflict I feel it is not too difficult for me. Obviously the magnitude of the conflict determines the level of difficulty but in the end I do not find stopping a conflict to be an impossible task. I give credit for this because I feel that I instinctively have been using the "stop-think-listen-communicate" method. I am happy that now I can put a name to how I handle conflicts. Looking back to how I have dealt with conflicts before I find those that ended out bad were those were I just jumped in or spoke out of emotion and did not not use the method at all. If I could give any advice I would say do not instantly approach a conflict based off your emotion and instead address why you are feeling that specific emotion and then evaluate the situation. That process can be done quickly but as long as you cover all grounds or better put as "stop-think-listen-communicate".   Personally my "time-out" is not a typical time out where I leave the room or speak to someone the next day. I find my time out to be in mid conversation especially when asked a question or when someone is expecting a response. I like to stop and think about what I am going to say, better put I am gathering my thoughts in this time out and deciding what is the best way to respond. That allows me to also catch myself before I say something wrong that could make the conflict worse.

Week 4 Reading Review #3

Personally I enjoyed talking about interpersonal conflicts and the ways of resolving them. I say this because it seems very easy to apply the concepts we learn in an interpersonal conflict. Knowing the opposing person and their beliefs allows a mediator or any person attempting to resolve a conflict to adjust their strategy that works well with the involving conflates. When you do not know the people involved in the conflict you may say one thing that makes to conflict even worse. Helping the needs of others is a part of resolving conflict and if you do not know those needs in detail you run the risk of trying to satisfy something that is already filled in a person or not wanted. I feel when dealing with non interpersonally conflicts you should try to assess the situation and people before jumping to a certain conclusion or certain way of attempting to resolve the conflict.  

Week 4 Reading Review #2

In an interpersonal conflict I could use fractionation in a timely manner.  Fractionation is a way of breaking down the issue into small pieces. Doing that may take some time and if I was dealing with people I did not know people may not have the patience for me to conduct such an analyses.  Framing is another form of solving problems that is easy to use in interpersonal conflict. Asking friendly questions is part framing and being friendly with people you know is easy because you are more aware of their thoughts and views, that allow you to adjust your questioning. On the other side, reframing is asking questions in a more negative way and if you  know the other person you are able to make your questions “sting” more because you know what that other person does not like. Common ground is all about sharing attitudes, values, behaviors, expectations and goals and when you know someone you have a better chance of finding things to share. 

Week 4 Reading Response #1

Communication majors would be great mediators because we are learning not a single way of speaking but multiple. I have learned about compromising, decision-making and group work. Learning all these different ways of communicating allows me to be versatile in my social life. I can speak to any type of person and find myself in the middle of conflicts often. This occurs because being a communication major I am able to speak in a way that satisfies both parties needs and also allows them to come to some sort of compromise. If I was not able to speak with diversity I could not do such a thing and would probably choose one side over the other and create even more of a conflict. Psychotherapist would have a problem being a mediator because they would focus more on the victim and helping the victims issue with the physiotherapists thought of a solution. Lawyers would not be able to be great mediators because they are trained to have complete focus on one side of the story and make one extremely strong argument. 

Week 3 Reading Response #3

After reading I found the non assertive communication behavior to be something that is extremely relatable to me. This behavior basically is saying that you avoid a conflict all together by satisfying the others desire through verbal or nonverbal acts. In my life I have encountered so many conflicts but always found a way get myself out of it. I also found myself getting in others conflicts because I know I am capable of defusing a conflict. In high school I was even on a special “committee” that was designed for its members to help defuse situation that went on in school that teachers were not aware of. I was a leader of this group because I had valuable communication skills that always calmed a conflict. I had a way of making everyone feel that their desires were met and by doing so conflicts were always resolved. After reading this chapter I am learning that this is a certain behavior. I never knew it had a label but it makes perfect sense.

Week 3 Reading Response #2

There are not many parents who will openly admit to abusing their children mainly because most parents do not believe they are abusing their child at all. This occurs because there is not an exact line drawn between abusive or regular discipline. What one person thinks is wrong may believe it is okay. Personally I think that physical discipline such as harsh hitting is pushing the boundaries but what I hate the most is mental abuse. Mental abuse I feel is most common because parents believe that if they are not touching their child then they are fine. Being grounded or put in a time-out is considered a normal punishment but where is becomes abuse is the reason they are being punished. One place I have seen harsh punishment is in my sport of baseball. Younger kids are being punished or yelled at for messing up and not doing “amazing”. What parents don’t understand that in baseball you will ALWAYS fail more than you succeed. A batter can get a hit 3 times out of 10 tries and that is hitting .300 which in the baseball world is a great batting average. What some parents see is 3 out of 10 which in school is 30% or better known as an “F”. I know that this is not exactly the “worst case” of punishment but my point is that parents need to understand why they are punishing their kids and make sure it is justified. 

Week 3 Reading Reaction #1

When dealing with conflict I tend to use more of the relationship orientation. I say this due to the fact that most of my conflicts occur between people I am close with. I play baseball and on a team there will always be some type of conflict. How you responded to the conflict is most important and responding out of anger of something of the sort is never good. Relationship orientated approaches allow to be demanding but also take other aspects into consideration.  I am able to get “mean” or demanding but while a mutual respect is still in place between my teammates and I simply because of our relationship. That also allows for us to be straight forward and honest enabling us to get straight to the conflict and fix it. This is why being close with your teammates is very important because if not then conflict can make everything worse.  I am very satisfied when I apply relationship conflict to my problem solving. No matter how angry or calm I become in a conflict on my team I always want to use the relationship orientation because of the mutual respect that is always present.