Conflict Anxiety at Home
Written by Anthea Chan
Stuck at home with a partner? Thought it would be rainbows and sunshine, but then the little arguments start popping up here and there? First, it’s about the dishes piling up, then you’re bickering about who’s feeding the cats while the other is in a Zoom meeting. You might now be in conflict about whether it’s okay to go to the park, to the beach, or just out for a run. One of you is super worried about particles in the air, wafting around in the wind, the other has a face mask and assures them they know how to stay 6 feet away from other pedestrians. Maybe you’re feeling trapped with your family or roommates, and when once you might have found some space when one of you left the apartment, now that might not be as possible. Or maybe someone in your home has to leave because they are an essential worker, and you have to take the requisite safety precautions every day—yet another source of anxiety. A lot of us are stuck inside, and stress is increasing—uncertainty about the future, our leaders make unrealistic promises, and some are wistfully mourning their summer plans while others are mourning the dead. It is no wonder that nearly half of Americans are anxious about getting Covid-19 and of getting seriously ill, and this anxiety may be spilling into other areas of life.
Couples and families have always had their spats, but right now these arguments have much more on the line than before. It’s about our health, how to pay the rent when there have been massive layoffs and the unemployment system is overloaded, and how to care for each other and our loved ones. Covid-19 is exposing all the cracks in our system—medical, unemployment, insurance, job security, etc. Stressful times can impact our sleep, our eating patterns, and our mental health. These times can heighten our anxiety and thus have a starker impact on the conflicts we have at home.
The International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Columbia University is exploring how we respond to anxiety about and within conflict. This research is especially timely now as people are confined together and experiencing more conflict. Our research has shown that as emotions arise in conflict, people tend to go in one of two directions on six bipolar dimensions. These dimensions are based on decades of Morton Deutsch’s clinical work with couples, and these dimensions have developed further in the past three years of survey research.
From this research, we have found roughly two groupings in these responses:
Diving into your emotions. You let your emotions take over. You get really involved in the conflict. You escalate the conflict. You let information spill out. The conflict becomes about more than just what you’re arguing over—there’s the matter of morals, honor, and respect.
Closing off from your emotions. You’re rigid with the rules. You stick only to the facts, ignoring the emotional component of the conflict. You conceal information—even the fact that you might be hurt or frustrated. You may try to control the process of handling the conflict, stepping on others’ toes to do so.
More moderate levels of each group of responses can be fine and indeed helpful in a conflict. Focusing on the facts can be beneficial, as is concealing information that might otherwise be used against you. Indeed, it is well known that there are optimal levels of anxiety. With a medium amount of anxiety, your interest and attention have peaked enough to improve your performance without anxiousness impairing and overwhelming you. It is similar with conflicts: with a moderate amount of any of these twelve responses to conflict, you can handle conflicts with your partners better. You minimize to prevent the conflict from spilling out into other areas of your life. You avoid the conflict to prevent pain or violence. You’re loose with the rules of conflict to allow for varying conflict styles. However, the problems usually lie at the extremes.
The specifics of how you respond to conflict can vary from person to person. The key is adaptivity: adjusting your response to how your partner is responding and to the situation at hand. Consciousness of different responses to anxiety in conflict can inform how you and your partner navigate conflict. Take our 15 minute assessment to learn more about your own conflict anxiety response styles!
~~Anthea Chan is a research associate at the MD-ICCCR at Columbia University. They have a background in clinical psychology, measurement and statistics.
Published Wednesday, May 27, 2020