Hi, I'm Julie Tietz, and welcome to conflict resolution-- putting the pieces together. Today we're going to talk about the misunderstanding stage of conflict. So let's get started with a definition,
Misunderstanding stage-- the stage of conflict in which parties are communicating, but are adopting negative views of each other due to differing views and interpretations of messages, actions, beliefs, and/or motives.
Conflict can be modeled as going through a number of stages, and these describe the intensity and nature of parties behaviors and attitudes as the conflict continues. There are several ways in which we can break down conflict into stages, but all models look at pre-conflict, conflict, and post-conflict.
Conflicts may escalate or de-escalate from one stage to another, and stages represent the degrees and intensity in the conflict. So let's look at the prior stages before we talk more about misunderstanding.
First, we have the pre-conflict stage, and that is a situation where parties needs could be met or could not be met. So they're not aware that a relationship between the needs being not met are present.
Next, we have discomfort stage. And that's where you become more aware that the needs are not being met, but aren't sure exactly how this relates. And there is a very vague feeling, and there aren't any concrete details.
Next, we have incident. And this is the stage of conflict where parties become aware of each other's roles in the needs not being met. And there is a concrete incident or occurrence to show that a conflict is present. Next, we have misunderstanding, so let's talk a little bit more about that in detail.
In the misunderstanding stage, people are our parties are communicating with each other, but they have differing interpretations of needs, motivations, actions, beliefs, or communicated messages. And this leads us to focus on negative views of one another and find ways that the other is impeding on us from getting what we need.
It's important to remember that beginning conflict resolution processes at the earliest possible stage of a conflict tends to make the conflict a lot easier to resolve. Let's use an example of an intervention at the misunderstanding stage.
Let's say you have plans to go out with a friend that you haven't seen in a long time. And at the very last minute, they cancel on you. And so, you think what a terrible friend this person is. They're always leaving me out of everything. They're never calling me. I don't even know why we're friends anymore. I don't even know why I try.
And you call up another mutual friend to tell them what had happened. Well, your mutual friend has told you that something really bad happened to this person, and they couldn't go into too much detail with you at the time. This clarification made by your mutual friend cleared up the misunderstanding that you have had towards the actions of the friend that canceled on you.
Now let's cover our key points for the misunderstanding stage of conflict. All models of conflict resolution look at pre-conflict, conflict, and post-conflict. Conflicts may escalate or de-escalate through stages, and these stages represent varying degrees of intensity of the conflict.
In the misunderstanding stage of conflict, parties are communicating with each other, but there are differing interpretations of each other's needs, motivations, actions, and beliefs that make the parties take on negative views of each other and focus on ways that the other is impeding on them from getting their needs met. And finally, starting the conflict resolution process at the earliest stage results in easier resolution.
Thank you, again, for taking the time out to view this tutorial, and I hope to catch you, again, next time.
