Avoid Avoidance

Facing conflict is not always the easiest task. In fact, sometimes a person would rather disregard the potential issue looming over their head instead of dealing with it up front and attempting to find a solution. This act of dodging a conflict is caused avoidance, and it could create a worse outcome than having a full-blown argument. Choosing not to discuss a current conflict you may be dealing with could lead to many negative outcomes and because of this, I want to encourage you to not pursue it as your conflict style.

When a person chooses to not actively pursue the conflict, even though it is already in existence, it creates a certain perception of that person and their goals. In order to help understand these ideas and possible outcomes, let’s use Alfred as an example. Alfred knows that Bruce is frustrated with him for a reason related to trust issues. Instead of facing Bruce about their bond of trust, he chooses to avoid the situation and act like everything is okay. One outcome of this could be that Alfred is perceived as uncaring about his and Bruce’s relationship. Bruce may believe because Alfred is avoiding the situation, he could simply care less about their relationship, which give Bruce more of a reason to lose his trust in him. Even though this may not be what Alfred’s intentions are, this is how he is coming off.

Another issue that arises with avoidance is how it may cause it to expand and build even more than the original conflict itself was worth. In this case, Alfred’s avoidance to his and Bruce’s conflict starts with Bruce being frustrated and questioning Alfred’s actions. Because the conflict is never discussed, eventually Bruce become angry with Alfred, and even though it start with some trust issues, Bruce now gets mad at Alfred’s present and that he does not deal with any situation and possibly accuses him of being a coward. Alfred’s intentions may be to avoid the conflict until it goes away, but because the conflict actually builds without discussion, it is doing the complete opposite of Alfred’s goal.

Another issue that may occur is the avoidance/criticize loop. So being that Alfred has chose to avoid the trust issues him and Bruce are experiencing and because it is starting to heat up because of the avoidance, it could enter this loop. Someone may approach Alfred and ask if he has talked to Bruce yet, to which his response is, “No. Why would I? He is a selfish jerk who only cares about his own secrets and no one else’s.” The retort to that might be something about if he’s ever tried to share his secrets or explain how hurt he is to Bruce. Alfred would then claim that its not worth it because it would obviously not go anywhere since Bruce is always busy doing his job and is gone all hours of the day. The constant excuses that Alfred gives is him feeding into the avoidance style and an excuse of why he does not need to address it.

Alfred and Bruce have been excellent examples of what would happen if Alfred chose to use the avoidance style of conflict in their relationship. Because these examples prove that avoidance is not a necessarily beneficial technique, one needs to know what a helpful way to approach conflict is. Integration, a way to combine one person’s goals with another’s goals in a conflict, would be the best way to move forward in a conflict. In this case, integration would allow for Alfred to sit down with Bruce and discuss what the real issues are and what they both want to achieve at the end of this conflict. This would allow for both voices to be heard as well as a new outcome to fix the issues and restore the friendship back to normal.

Obviously, this may be hard for Alfred or others like Alfred who normally choose to avoid conflict. Confrontation is not easy in any way, however, using a style like integration allows for every person in the conflict to have a voice and have their goals seem as important as the other person’s goals. It also might be difficult to not be standoffish is one of the persons have fallen into the avoidance/conflict loop, but with the ability to share each other’s thoughts and feelings, it allows for a potentially better outcome.

Avoidance can have some negative outcomes, which could lead in the ultimate failure of a friendship or relationship. Because of this, the substitution of integration in avoidance’s place will allow for everyone’s to feel important and for a better-compiled and more fair outcome to occur.

Hocker, J., & Wilmot, W. (2011). Conflict Style. In Interpersonal Conflict(9th ed., pp. 151-166). New York, New York: The McGraw Hill Companies.