{"id":32776,"date":"2021-10-01T07:25:11","date_gmt":"2021-10-01T03:25:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/?p=32776"},"modified":"2021-10-01T07:25:11","modified_gmt":"2021-10-01T03:25:11","slug":"arguing-with-the-people-you-love-how-to-have-a-healthy-family-dispute","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/arguing-with-the-people-you-love-how-to-have-a-healthy-family-dispute\/","title":{"rendered":"Arguing with the people you love? How to have a healthy family dispute"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/em><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Disputes can seem to threaten us and what we stand for morally<\/em><\/span><\/h4>\n

\"\"<\/span>All families have disputes.\u00a0REUTERS \/ Alamy Stock Photo<\/a><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

Unlike Britain\u2019s royal family, most of us don\u2019t have the option to move to another country when we don\u2019t see eye to eye. But most of us have likely experienced disagreements with loved ones.<\/span><\/p>\n

Conversations are designed to do things \u2013 to start some action, and complete it \u2013 whether it\u2019s a service transaction, an invitation to coffee or reassurance on a bad day. Our uniquely complex communicative system has evolved to help us get things done in the social world.<\/span><\/p>\n

Arguments are part of this complex system. They can be unavoidable, necessary or even productive. But they can also be difficult.<\/span><\/p>\n

It can be hard to know what to do when tensions are high and harsh words are flying, particularly when it involves someone you\u2019re close to. But research on how disputes unfold \u2013 and conversation more generally \u2013 offers some ideas about the best way to handle one.<\/span><\/p>\n

What is a dispute?<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

There are many words for disagreeing, and there are plenty of academic theories describing what disputes are and why they happen. But arguments are not abstract models. They\u2019re lived in, breathed in, sweated in and talked (or sometimes shouted) into being.<\/span><\/p>\n

Research focusing on how disputes actually happen shows they\u2019re characterised by three types of features. First are the vocal features, which include talking in a higher pitch, louder and faster. Then, there are embodied features such as aggressive gestures and avoidant stances, such as turning away from someone. Finally, there are interactional features such as talking over each other, not listening or metatalk \u2013 comments about the conversation as it\u2019s happening.<\/span><\/p>\n

Displays of emotion such as displeasure or anger, are also common. Participants might accuse each other of emotions or label their own emotions.<\/span><\/p>\n

Disputes happen for several reasons. What each person is doing can vary, from complaints and accusations to demands, threats or resistance.<\/span><\/p>\n

They can be about many things \u2013 familial obligations, what to have for dinner, politics or how to plan a holiday. Luckily, disputes share elements with each other and with conversation generally \u2013 so you don\u2019t have to invent new strategies every time you\u2019re caught in one.<\/span><\/p>\n

Affiliation and alignment<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

When bickering with a friend or family member, there are ways to make them feel like you\u2019re still on their side even if you disagree. If you can keep these in mind, and use them at the right time, you might stop your dispute from escalating into something harder to mend.<\/span>
\nThe first thing is affiliation, which means support for the other person or their view of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

Affiliation involves phrasing what you say so it\u2019s best understood and easier to respond to. For example, saying \u201cyou\u2019ve been to France before, right?\u201d invites someone to share their experience \u2013 partly by including the tag \u201cright\u201d at the end, which at least requires a confirmation.<\/span><\/p>\n

It can also involve categorisation, the way we talk about or treat others as certain types or group members. For example, if you reduce the other person to a stereotype through labelling \u2013 by saying something like \u201cgirls always say stuff like that\u201d or \u201cOK, boomer\u201d \u2013 you risk provoking a response to the insult, not to the action in which that insult was embedded.<\/span><\/p>\n

The second thing we expect from any conversation is alignment \u2013 cooperating with the direction of the conversation, such as accepting or denying a request. The opposite, disalignment, might occur when a request is ignored.<\/span><\/p>\n

Alignment has more to do with the sequence of the conversation, how the dispute unfolds over time. Asking for clarification \u2013 a practice known as repair \u2013 or claiming a misunderstanding can treat problems as fixable errors rather than moral failings or attacks. Humour can diffuse conflict escalation.<\/span><\/p>\n

How to have a healthy dispute<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

In the course of a dispute, you need to think about when to bring these tactics out. They\u2019re more likely to yield better outcomes earlier in the dispute. By the time it\u2019s escalated, your responses may be viewed through the prism of the dispute and any offensiveness you\u2019ve already displayed toward each other. In cases like this, teasing can come across as contempt, for example, and claims to misunderstand as bad-faith mockery.<\/span><\/p>\n

It can feel like disputes take on a life of their own \u2013 as if the conversation uses us rather than we use it \u2013 and this is partly because conversation can seemingly take us along for the ride (consider the difficulty of turning down invitations). We invest our identities into conversations so disputes can seem to threaten us and what we stand for morally.<\/span><\/p>\n

This may be starker with family, whose opinions of us often matter more than friends or colleagues, for example. It\u2019s always worth stopping to reflect on what a dispute is really for, whether what you\u2019re saying lines up with your goals and whether taking a stand is worth it.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jessica Robles<\/strong><\/span>
\nLecturer in Social Psychology, L
\noughborough University<\/span><\/p>\n

\n

* Published in print edition on 1 October 2021<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

  Disputes can seem to threaten us and what we stand for morally<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":139,"featured_media":32777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[8348],"tags":[30096,30094,30095,13156],"class_list":["post-32776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-the-conversation","tag-arguments","tag-family-disputes","tag-family-relationships","tag-psychology"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/09\/Family-arguments.jpg?fit=1200%2C774&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p8QzSF-8wE","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/139"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32776"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32776\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/32777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.mauritiustimes.com\/mt\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}