3 attitudes to resolve conflicts

When we hear the word conflict, our mind already imagines something terrible, negative words come to mind such as anger, loss, anguish, anger, anxiety, anger, etc. And it seems that we have been learning that conflict is a bad thing ... what if I told you that the conflict itself is neither good nor bad? Is it up to us that the conflict turns into something positive or negative?

Well yes, that's right, it depends on what our attitude to resolve conflicts which will make the consequences derived from it positive or negative.

Conflicts: what do we mean by conflict?

Conflicts do not arise only when we fight with other people. When my interests and the interests of another person are incompatible, conflict also appears.


The conflict is a fact that we face every day, it is part of the relationships between people, many of the decisions we make during the day influence the people around us, influence our children, friends , in co-workers * and it is easy for conflicts to arise due to the different opinions, expectations, beliefs, values ​​or desires that often exist between people.

Throughout our lives, through our families, the school and society in general we have been learning different ways of coping and resolving conflicts.

How conflicts can be

Depending on who is involved in the conflict, we can distinguish two types; intrapersonal conflict and interpersonal conflict.


We are talking about an intrapersonal conflict when the conflict is internal, that is, we have it with ourselves. These conflicts arise from conflicting beliefs, needs or values. For example when a person behaves in an opposite way to how they really think or feel.

The interpersonal conflict they are the conflicts we have with other people. It arises as my needs, ideas, opinions collide with the needs, ideas and opinions of the other.

3 attitudes to conflicts

1. Aggressive attitude. Some people have learned to resolve conflicts through an aggressive attitude, with violence whether physical, psychic or social, in the form of insults or social vacuums. When we see that a person prevents or hinders us from achieving what we have proposed, the most frequent response that these people adopt to achieve their goal is to attack, to try to achieve what they want through force, they always seek to win even if they have to forget the interests of the other party.


Imagine a person who has learned to resolve conflicts with an aggressive attitude and who has waited for a while to be attended, suddenly a person arrives and lines up, this person's response would be: "Hey, I'm in front of you, get in line like all "he would achieve his goal (be attended first) but he is not treating the other person with respect.

2. Passive attitude. Other people face a passive attitude, avoid conflict instead of facing it, avoid fighting, abandon their interests for the reasons they consider, perhaps they are tired of trying, perhaps they give everything for lost or do not feel with the strength of face in that moment. When a person avoids conflict, forgets their own interests, stops giving importance to what they want to give more importance to the interests of the other person.

In the same situation above, a person with this attitude to the conflict, would not say anything to the person, would let it fall ... total is just a person.

The truth is that none of these two ways that we have been learning to deal with the problems that are appearing in our day to day resolves the situation satisfactorily for both parties.

If we use violence we forget the other part, we close ourselves and we stop listening, an essential act to be able to resolve the situation, in addition to the damage we cause to others and ourselves, and if we avoid it we forget ourselves , we do not solve it, we are simply postponing it and it is more likely that the conflict will reappear later.

3. Assertive attitude. To be able to solve correctly, the best thing is to face them, to have an assertive attitude that allows us to achieve our objective respecting the rights of the other person. We must be able to express our opinions and desires, show our feelings and be able to listen in an active way to the person in front of us, understanding their point of view, their emotions, feelings and thoughts.

Only if we are able to express with respect our opinion, our needs and understand the needs of others, we can reach a solution that does not harm any of the parties, that allows each one to satisfy our needs and thus be able to grow and to get better.

Rocío Navarro Psychologist Director of Psicolari, integral psychology

Video: How to deal with workplace conflicts - Develop your personality and business skills.


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