Conflict Styles

Daren Bradshaw

 

Blog #3 

 

Conflict Styles in Romantic Comedies

 

 

There are so many movies that show all different types of conflict styles and alternate ways to handle certain situations. For my movie I choose Failure to Launch, a romantic comedy about a thirty-something year old slacker that suspects his parents of setting him up with his dream girl so he'll finally vacate their home. The movie is full of different types of conflict not just between him and his parents, but between him and the woman that he “thinks” he loves. For example, when Matthew McConaughey comes home and his dad has turned his bed room into the “naked room”. He is upset while simultaneously being puzzled as to why his dad need a “naked” room.  In the movie you see him handle this in an avoidance style of handling the conflict. This is when you simply avoid the issue.  You aren’t helping the other party reach their goals, and you aren’t assertively pursuing your own. Another instance of a conflict style in this movie is when he finds out that his parents paid Sarah Jessica Parker to be his girlfriend to get him to finally spread his wings. When this happens he initially plays it cool as if nothing were wrong, eventually erupting and giving into his parent wishes. Though it doesn’t appear to be I feel that this is somewhat a compromise. This is a “lose-lose” scenario where neither party really achieves what they want.  This requires a moderate level of assertiveness and cooperation. These are just a few examples of conflict styles in this movie that really stood out to me.

Conflict Styles in When Harry Met Sally by: Tyler Roden

Conflict Styles in When Harry Met Sally 

by: Tyler Roden

When Harry Met Sally is a great romantic comedy starring Billy Crystal and Meg Ryan about two friends who keep running into each other and eventually fall in love. The conflict management style that can be observed in this movie is the avoiding style. Dale Eilerman defined avoidance as “when a person knows there is a conflict but decides not to deal with it by ignoring, sidestepping, being non-committal or withdrawing from the issue or interaction.” In the movie when the characters, Harry and Sally, realize that they are attracted to each other they decide to avoid the subject and date other people instead of acting on their attraction. This is the protecting style of avoiding since both parties do whatever they can to avoid the issue. Later in the movie Harry and Sally have sex and both agree it was a mistake rather than talk it out. Eventually the two have too much pent up aggression about the situation and have a huge argument at a wedding. This is an example of how using the avoiding style to manage conflict can make the issues fester and result in destructive consequences. The couple starts to avoid having any interaction with each other. Their friends try to convince them of the mistakes they’ve made but Harry and Sally refuse to listen. At a New Year’s Eve party Harry tells Sally that he loves her and the two kiss and reconcile. If the couple had chosen a different conflict management style from the beginning they might have been together a lot longer.

Work Cited:

Eilerman, Dale. "The Use and Misuse of an Avoiding Style in Conflict Management." Mediate. Resourceful Internet Solutions, Inc., September 2006. Web. 07 March 2016.

Blog #4 Conflict Management Styles Rachel Schumpert

Blog #4 Conflict Styles in "Maid in Manhattan" by Rachel Schumpert

In the movie "Maid in Manhattan" starring Jennifer Lopez, Marisa Ventura is a maid in a beautiful hotel who mistakenly falls in love with a very famous politician.  Marisa was trying on another woman's clothes when Christopher saw her it was love at first sight.  Even though he thought he met the perfect woman of his dreams, she was convinced it could not work because of her job.  In this movie, Christopher and Marisa used the Smoothing subcategory of the Avoiding conflict style.  Smoothing is used when the parties "play down the differences and emphasize issues on which they have common ground."  Once Christopher found out who she really was, they used this style to ignore the press and all of the negative things people were saying about their relationship.  Instead, they focused on things that they had in common.  By ignoring what they both do for a living, Marisa and Chris were able to focus on their relationship and avoid the conflict that everyone else was stirring up about them.  Another form of Avoiding that took place was Protecting.  One of the reasons Marisa was scared to go public with Christopher was because she was afraid it would hurt his political race, so she thought she was protecting him by keeping everything private.  By doing all of these things, Marisa and Christopher are avoiding the conflict from surfacing by trying to work around everything.  Obviously a maid falling in love with a politician is not a very normal situation, so by handling the conflict the way they did, they were able to come to a resolution, which was their relationship going public and working out perfectly, despite the press' skepticism towards the issue.  

Conflict Styles in Trainwreck

The movie Trainwreck follows a woman named Amy through a short period in her mid-twenties. Through this time, she has many one night stands even though she has a semi-exclusive fling going on.  During these one night stands, Amy uses the competing style in order to get what she wants in bed without having to give in return. On one occasion, Amy broke her “never sleep over rule”, but she did so my using the compromising style. As the man insisted she stay the night and cuddle, Amy denied but was constantly pushed back by his persistence. When she finally agrees, she says that there needs to be a pillow between them as they sleep. She gave a little by staying the night and breaking her rule and he gave a little up by not being able to cuddle with her all night. Although compromising was found in this movie, the most highly used conflict style by Amy had to be avoidance. Amy not only avoided the men that she slept with almost immediately after, but she also avoided her break up, due to infidelity, when it happened. Even as her significant other stated that he had wanted to marry her, she changed the subject and asked if she or he could leave because she was too high to handle the conversation. This type of withdrawal can also be seen when Amy speaks her last words to her father. As she spoke to him about her new boyfriend, her father responds by doubting her new relationship’s future as well as Amy’s intentions. This lead Amy to argue with her father momentarily and then avoid the conflict by walking away from her father as he asked her not to leave. Amy’s father had been on some medication but was hoarding them which lead to his death shortly after their argument. This plays a big role in how the rest of this movie pans out, which proves that avoidance can cause a conflict to fester.         

Lauren Duncan Blog #4 - How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days

Lauren Duncan

Blog #4 

Conflict Styles in Romantic Comedies

Conflict in an inevitable part of life, and we have developed various forms of conflict styles to help us reach resolutions. One of the conflict styles that I find most interesting is the “competing” style. Dale Eilerman states, “The strategy of competing as a means of gaining power and control stems from  early childhood and is reinforced throughout our years in school and college”. When reflecting on a romantic comedy that represented conflict styles well, I chose to analyze the movie “How to  Lose a Guy in 10 Days”. In this movie, a very successful advertising executive, better known as the infamous Matthew McConaughey, makes a bet with his buddies that he can make a woman fall in love with him in 10 short days. With the little information I have provided above regarding this movie, it is an obvious observation that McConaughey’s character is using a “competing” style of conflict with the woman he is to make fall in love with him. He later meets Kate Hudson in a bar and decides this is the woman he is going to pursue and make fall for him. The value of his own goals in this scenario are very high, however the value of the relationship between him and Kate are found to be exceptionally low. Ultimately, his goal falls under the “I win, you lose” category as he is primarily concerned with proving his buddies wrong and winning this bet. A competitive style is an attempt to gain power and pressure a change at the other person’s expense, which is exactly what we see taking place between McConaughey and Hudson. He is willing to do almost anything to make her fall in love with him. For example, he buys her extravagant diamonds, takes her to important events that involve his workplace, and he even takes her home to meet his family at one point in the movie. As you can imagine, Hudson begins to fall for this man and soon realizes that she is apart of a bet, not a true love story. In realizing this, she begins to create her own competitive style by pushing him away in any way possible. She embarrasses him in front of his friends, buys a dog that he hates, and begins to act incredibly clingy and immature. It can be said that she takes on the “forcing” role by slamming doors and often giving McConaughey the silent treatment. Just like we see in this movie, we can use conflict styles to make conflict situations better, or perhaps worse.

Works Cited

"The Use and Misuse of a Competing Style in Conflict Management." The Use and Misuse of a Competing Style in Conflict Management. N.p., n.d. Web. 06 Mar. 2016.

Blog #4: The Wedding Singer

Blog #4: Conflict Styles in The Wedding Singer

By: Megan Wright

This week we wanted to use different “rom-com” movies to showcase the different conflict styles found in conflict. I chose to use the movie The Wedding Singer to show a variety of conflict styles that are used throughout the film. In this movie Robbie Hart, played by Adam Sandler, is a heartbroken wedding singer who was left at the altar by his ex-fiancé. Robbie represents the kind of nice guy that always finishes last, getting ditched at his wedding, making everyone happy but himself by offering free piano and singing lessons in payments of meatballs, and helping plan a wedding for a women he is slowly falling in love with, perfectly representing the accommodating style in the different conflict styles. In the beginning of the film it was apparent after being left at the altar, he was not in it to win, he was prepared to lose and whoever was on the other end of the conflict was going to win, he set aside his own needs in order to please others. You especially see this when he agrees to go on a double date with Julie, her fiancé Glenn and Julia’s sister, when he clearly does not want to because he has fallen in love with Julia, but he is accommodating to what Julia wants in order to make her happy. This was not a good conflict style for Robbie to use, he was miserable and unhappy putting his own feelings aside to ensure the happiness of others, he should have stepped up and had both sides in mind sooner rather than later, but of course it never happens like that in the movies. In an article called, “Influence of Conflict Training on Conflict Handling Styles of College Students”, it discusses that, “improper conflict handling styles can make the existing conflict worse and bring about additional conflicts.” This was shown when Robbie and his friend decide to confront the bad guy fiancé Glenn after coming off at first as the accommodating style, he wasn’t taken seriously and it made matters worse, and the damage had already been done, Robbie was too late to help the conflict due to the fact he hadn’t spoken up sooner and taken the conflict head on. The conflict continued to fester between both Robbie and Glenn the fiancé, and Robbie and Julia until it eventually surfaced into a fight, where it looked as though Glenn was going to win and marry Julia, and continue to cheat on her. But of course, since it is a romantic comedy and all, Robbie was able to find the courage and channel his inner Shark as a Competing Style to win over Julia romantically by singing to her on an airplane, while Glenn looks like a fool and gets threatened by singer Billy Idol.

 

Works Cited

Waithaka, A., Moore-Austin, S., & Itimu, P. (2015). Influence of Conflict Resolution Training on Conflict Handling Styles of College Students [Abstract]. Research in Higher Education Journal, 28. Retrieved March 6, 2016.