Gregg Walker
Department of Speech Communication
Oregon State University

Conflict Escalation

• Escalation means increasing the intensity of the conflict.
• Escalation can be productive; planned escalation can “raise the stakes,” generating a perception of interdependence.
• Escalation often makes a conflict situation unmanageable; difficult to resolve.

• Undesired repetitive patterns (URPs) are patterns of behavior in which a person feels trapped; engaging in behaviors that seem beyond one’s control.
• URPs in conflict situations are often escalatory and dysfunctional.

• URPs can escalate and intensify conflict
• One party often responds to a URP of another with a URP of his/her own.
• Reciprocal URPs can become a dysfunctional cycle of conflict.

• Conflict cycles can be positive or negative.
• Positive conflict behaviors are flexible and adaptive, avoiding rigid cycles.
• Negative conflict cycles: “The fact that conflict occurs frequently within a relationship is not what makes it dysfunctional, but rather the repetitive, unchanging, and negative way in which it reoccurs.”

• Avoidance
• Chilling Effect
• Competitive Escalation

• Primarily Intrapersonal
• View of conflict as abnormal
• Belief that confronting a conflict is bad
• Can contribute to passive-aggressive behavior
• Cycle can be broken through attitude change, skill development, mentoring, and confidence building.

We handle                                                     We get nervous
it badly                                                            about a conflict
                                                                         we are having

     The conflict gets out                         We avoid it as
     of control and must be                      long as possible
     confronted

Chilling Effect

• A belief that the incompatibility “just does not matter.”
• Witholding of criticism or grievances, often out of fear of the other’s reaction.
• May occur if one party perceives attractive alternatives and has low commitment to the relationship.

• Most common of the three cycles
• Rehash past issues, “old baggage”
• Light moves to heavier moves
• Heaviest - winning at all costs, desire to punish, or “we all go down together”
• Threats to “face”

• Aggressor-defender (agressive behavior elicits defensive behavior)
• Conflict spiral (intense cycle of action and reaction)
• Structural change (going outside the relationship, indirect confrontation)

Face issue                     Another                     More baggage
suppressed                   grievance
                                                                     Perception of
    Face threat                                            conflict and its
                       Escalation via                          issues
                      “always”/”never”

Trained Incapacities

• Defined: Behaviors that are “safe,” predictable, and often helpful, but misapplied in conflict.
• Trained incapacities blind us to alternatives.GG

• Excessive goal-centeredness
• Destructive redefinition
• Overemphasis on evaluation
• Rigid standards

• Escalation patterns can be changed, cycles can be broken
• Escalation behaviors need to be confronted
• Consequences can be explored
• Underlying interests, needs, fears, desires, concerns should be addressed
• Constructive behavior modeled