Self

The most basic component of conflict intelligence is the awareness of and ability to regulate our own go-to responses to disagreements. We are all unwitting students of conflict from birth, and have gradually developed a set of basic assumptions, emotional reactions, and behavioral tendencies that shape how we show up when conflict strikes. Becoming mindful of these inclinations, and developing the capacities to check they when they fail to serve us, is a critical step. However, many approaches to training in conflict resolution skip over this step and move us directly into learning new interpersonal conflict management techniques. Then, when we fail to actually change our patterns, we become frustrated or disillusioned.

Although there are countless individual differences that may be relevant to knowing and managing our automatic-conflict repertoire (Tehrani & Yamini, 2020), here are a set of three basic elements that research has found to be particularly determining and amenable to change: how we think about conflict, how we respond to the anxiety it triggers, and how well we use feedback about our tendencies to steer our responses to conflict.

Our Implicit Theories of Conflict

Implicit theories (Dweck & Leggett, 1988) are the often-unknown premises that we hold about important abstract concepts like intelligence (Hong et al., 1995), leadership (Offerman & Coats, 2018), followership (Sy, 2010), power (Coleman, 2006), and conflict (Halperin et al., 2014), which shape our understanding, goals, and behavioral responses to them. Most of us hold various assumptions about conflict (it’s never good, it’s always competitive, it depletes our energy), but the most-studied aspect is differences in beliefs about the essential nature of conflict: as a fixed-pie entity versus an incremental-growth dynamic. In general, fixed-pie conflict theorists assume that conflicts, and the people and groups involved with them, are inherently static, fixed and never really change, while growth theorists see conflicts are more dynamic, mutable and in fact as always changing. 

This simple difference in what we assume to be true about conflict has far-reaching consequences. Research has shown that when disputants hold fixed implicit theories, they tend to view conflicts as fixed pies and so approach them more competitively, see change as unlikely and so tend not to voice their concerns (Kammrath & Dweck, 2006), perform less well in negotiations (Kray & Haselhuhn, 2007), and when facing more intractable conflicts, have higher levels of intergroup hatred and anxiety and less willingness to interact or compromise with members of outgroups (Halperin et al., 2013). In contrast, growth theorists tend to be more open to constructive conflict resolution, show lower levels of chronic aggression, and be more open to promoting cross-race relations (Dweck, 2012). While some people hold either chronic fixed-pie or growth theories of conflict, most hold some combination of both – and so are more affected by social cues and norms that make one or the other more salient. 

For purposes of CIQ, note one critical difference in these assumptions: one frames conflicts as stable and stuck, while the other highlights their dynamism and openness to change. CIQ by definition requires an awareness of changing situational dynamics. And given that most conflicts likely involve both durable and mutable elements, some form of optimality with regard to employing both theories may be merited. In fact, one study found that negotiators holding both fixed and growth theories achieved the best joint outcomes in negotiations (Katz-Navon & Goldschmidt, 2009). 

Our Responses to Conflict Anxiety 

Because conflicts, especially tense ones, tend to elicit physiological arousal and anxiety in most of us (Brittle, 2024), or feelings of fear, dread or uneasiness, it is also critical to become aware of the different ways we tend to respond to these emotions. Research has identified six bipolar dimensions on which people tend to differ in responding to spikes in conflict-induced anxiety (Deutsch, 1993): 

  1. Excessively involved to chronically avoiding;

  2. Hard and unyielding to soft and unassertive; 

  3. Rigid and rule-bound to loose and improvisational; 

  4. Rational and intellectual to emotionally saturated; 

  5. Maximizing and escalating to minimizing and denying; and

  6. compulsively revealing to chronically concealing information. 

Recent research found that across most of these dimensions, more extreme responses to conflict anxiety resulted in lower levels of psychological well-being, increased feelings of anxiety and more negative emotional states, in particular when responding with more involved, escalating, soft, emotional, concealing, and rigid responses (Coleman & Chan, 2023). However, more moderate or balanced types of responses (e.g., at times more rational, at times more emotional, or both together moderately) were associated with more positive outcomes. This suggests an optimality effect, or the benefits of more moderate reactions to conflict anxiety. As Aristotle wrote, “Virtue is the golden mean between two vices, the one of excess and the other of deficiency.”

In addition, clinical observational research found that becoming more aware of one's predisposed reactions to conflict anxiety allowed for the modification of them when they were extreme or inappropriate (Deutsch, 1993). Such moderation can be achieved through reflective practices aided by the use of self-assessments and reflective feedback profiles (like the Conflict Anxiety Response Scale) conflict training and coaching, and psychotherapy.

Our Capacity to Self-Monitor and

Self-Regulate in Conflict 

In order to take advantage of the increased awareness one gains from experience and feedback on our implicit conflict theories and responses to anxiety, CIQ requires the capacity for self-regulation when in conflict, or the ability to manage our emotional and behavioral reactions. Self-regulation can serve as an essential check on our more chronic reactions.

In fact, studies have found that the perceived threat inherent to conflict often triggers our “hot” emotional arousal system and moves us away from our “cool,” more contemplative, cognitive system associated with more effective, strategic modes of problem solving (Mischel et al., 2014). Scholars recommend a set of techniques, including “time-outs, reflection, exposure to effective models, planning or rehearsal, and role-play” to cool the hot system and mobilize the cool system in service of achieving our longer-term goals. Doing so, they suggest, can help mitigate our more damaging automatic responses to conflict and allow us to employ our more self-aware, tolerant, constructive skill sets. (Reflection Question 3: When I face hot conflicts, am I usually able to pause to keep myself in check?)

Researchers have found that each of these components of our self-conflict dynamics – our implicit assumptions, anxiety responses, and capacity to self-regulate – is associated with more and less constructive conflict processes, and is susceptible to change in response to individualized feedback, training, and consultation. Taken together, they constitute our internal micro-system of conflict management, or Step 1 on our journey to enhanced CIQ.

Self-Conflict IQ Toolkit