Identification of Conflicts & Parties

Identification of Conflicts & Parties

The conflict issues were the driver's careless, dangerous driving that scared Herman Engle and his wife and Engle hitting the the young's man car.

Engle and the young black driver are the parties directly involved in the conflict. An onlooker was the third party or a "secondary actor" who influenced the outcome of the conflict without being directly involved.

Analysis of Positions & Interests

Both parties argued from their positions (solutions). "In 'positional arguing' each party decides on a specific solution to the conflict which becomes their 'position'. Then they strongly fight for that position... Unfortunately... this method often makes matters worse" (Skills, p. 24) In our case, each of the parties took strong positions and each of them wanted to win.

A stranger punching a car for unknown reasons is considered extreme. The statement "You nearly killed my wife and me!" is also extreme. According to Skills, "An extreme position... can alienate the other party... As the conflict escalates, parties may unintentionally become stuck defending the position more extreme than they intended" (p. 25) - this is what probably happened in our case study.

Engle wanted to get even with or punish the young driver for causing him fear. He wanted to show that he was still in control and deserved an apology because he was right. The driver wanted an apology too because he felt he was attacked with no reason - it was violent and made him feel insecure and disrespected. He probably thought it happened because of his race.

Identifying the interests behind the positions means examining the parties' wants and needs, concerns and fears. If each of the parties asked themselves what these were in the described situation, why they chose their positions, and if why they didn't choose another solution (Skills, p. 26), before they took their positions, they would probably discover that they both felt unsafe and insecure, wanted to be taken seriously and in control.

If they additionally asked: "Why is that interest important to me?...Could this interest be an example of something more important? What makes it of so much concern? What does it mean to me? What am I really worried might happen?" (Skills, p. 33), they might discover their deeper interests were similar - they both just wanted to be treated respectfully.

Determinations

The both parties employed a win/lose approach and used self-centered, competitive style "characterized by criticizing, defensiveness, stonewalling, and contempt on both sides." According to our textbook, competitiveness is most often associated with Type A personality. Behavior typical for competitive style