Intention in Relationships

Video Transcription

Hi, I'm Julie Tietz. And welcome to Conflict Resolution-- putting the pieces together. Today, our topic for discussion is going to be intention in relationships. So why don't we start off with breaking down our key terms.

Purposeful behavior-- behavior which has a consciously selected objective or reflects an unconscious but felt objective. Nonintentional behavior-- behavior unrelated to a given objective.

We're going to start off by talking about purposeful behavior. And one way which we exhibit or have or show purposeful behavior is through supportive means. So this could look like helping others, encouragement, and listening. So I want you to think of other ways which we can deliberately show how we can be supportive through our behaviors to others.

And we also can be unsupportive purposefully in our actions. And this could look like lying, being vindictive, and also being disrespectful to others. And even though these may not be very nice things, at times, we do act in unsupportive ways to others. And even though I know you don't want to probably admit it, but think of some other ways in which you have acted unsupportive to another person.

Now, we're going to talk about nonintentional behavior. And these are ways in which we act where we don't necessarily have an objective in mind when we behave or communicate in a certain way. And so let's say our intent is good, or we don't really have a specific intention when we are behaving a certain way. And when we are communicating or acting in a certain way to another, they can interpret this as a bad act.

So the impact of our actions is perceived by the other as bad. And we may not be acting intentionally to impact the person in a negative way, but we can come across that way. And the other party perceives our intention or our action rather as intentional and as negative.

So let's take on how this can look and how it can relate to conflict. Let's say, again, this is our intent versus our impact. Let's use the example of traffic. You're in really heavy traffic. And you're trying to make a lane change. And you don't notice the other car out of the corner of your eye. And you accidentally cut them off.

It wasn't your intention to cut them off. You weren't acting maliciously towards the other driver. But the other driver took your action or your behavior as you intended to cut them off. And it impacted them in a negative way. And this can result in a conflict on the road like maybe you get honked at or could escalate to something a little bit more severe like road rage.

Another example, again, of our nonintentional behavior impacting the other party as intentional or a negative way could be at work. Let's say that you notice that a job hasn't been done. And so you just automatically take on the job.

But your co-worker sees you taking the job as you think that they aren't doing their job very well. And when you are just out of the loop thinking that well, this needs to get done. So I'm going to do it. You didn't intend to impact your co-worker negatively. But it came across as that way to them in you taking over a job that they wanted or were supposed to be doing.

So how can we avoid having these nonintentional behaviors come across as negative and impacting the other party in which we're in relationship with? Well, the way that we do this is through communication and through conflict resolution. And so what I suggest is when in doubt, ask questions.

It's important to ask the other party what their intentions were when they are behaving in a certain way when we feel that maybe they're intentionally trying to sabotage us in some way or one another. So we want to ask them, hey, when you said this, did you mean this or that? So we can clarify what the intentions of the other party are rather than jumping to the conclusion that they were intending to inflict harm on us or to embarrass us or to anger us.

So now that we've covered intention in relationships, let's go over some of our key points. When we have purposeful behavior, we are acting with a specific objective in mind. And our behaviors can be supportive or unsupportive to others. When we have nonintentional behavior, we don't have an objective in mind with our certain behaviors. But sometimes we can come across as our behavior as an intentional by the other parties. And this could impact them negatively.

Rather than jumping to conclusions, we should ask clarifying questions of the other parties' behaviors and find out what their intentions were so we can avoid conflict, or ask clarifying questions when we're in a conflict resolution process so we can better understand each other's intentions and behaviors. Thank you so much for taking the time out to view this tutorial. I really hope that you've learned something. And I can't wait to catch you again next time.