Activity #6 Conflict Resolution
DIRECTIONS
Part 1:
For this activity, please reflect on the following situation in regard to your conflict style:
You are currently living with two room mates. One room mate always pays their portion of the bills on time, cleans up after themselves, and offers to help around the apartment as needed. The other room mate does not clean after themselves, always takes advantage of the apartment complexes three day rent grace period (as in they do not technically pay on time), and never offers to help with general day to day maintenance around the apartment. It is really starting to bother you that the third room mate does not pay on time, does not clean up after themselves, and does not offer to help with general maintenance around the apartment.
PART 2
How would you handle the situation similarly/ differently than the peer you are replying to?
Any suggestions/ anything you would add to their plan on how to approach the situation and why (make sure to connect this back to what was discussed in the conflict lecture)?
first peer(Allena) :
Firstly, as annoyed as I would be, I would try listeningto the person if they actually have a substantial reason for not doing their part in the apartment. After all, even if you live with someone, you never truly know what’s going on in their head or behind the scenes. I would take a friendly approach first to see what is going on but if the person is just being lazy and irresponsible, then I would take a different approach. An apartment is a home, but it can also resemble a workplace if everyone has specific duties to attend to in it. Such as paying rent, helping out with housework or cleaning up after yourself. All three of us have responsibilities and all three of us should send equality messages to one another to show that we are all on the same page. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is the hypothesis that suggests that language determines how people think. With that, if I talk to the irresponsible roommate in a very angry and aggressive tone, they might not change their behavior or be scared in their own home to do anything right for fear of being verbally attacked again. It would not be wise to use that type of verbal aggression. But if the conversation is had in a supportive and respectful tone, then the chances are that I could get a better response (physical, verbal or both) from the messy roommate.
Second peer ( wardah) :
This phenomenon is actually present because of everyone, but in this case everyone must get between the parties from the beginning where everyone is distributed to everyone and everyone knows his job and does it and does not fall short towards it, and also for the bill it must be divided equally among everyone and justice is complete without wanting anyone.
Conflict management by settlement, when a certain problem occurs or any of the bills are not paid or someone is negligent in his work or lacking in something, a dialogue and conversation must take place with each other so that they understand what the problem is and why this happened and try to reach a solution suitable for everyone by knowing the reasons and providing assistance to overcome the problem that occurred.
Therefore, the conflict here is a conflict of cooperation, meaning that there is cooperation in all tasks and distributing them to everyone where everyone knows his job such as cleaning the apartment or washing dishes or cooking or throwing away the trash or other required tasks.
Solving problems that are solved “my way” and not “your way”, meaning that there must be a principle of teamwork and it must be agreed upon by all parties and not leaving all the work to one person while the others do not care about anything, but on the contrary, they must work as one integrated team that works together to improve their lives and search for appropriate solutions that satisfy everyone and provide all the requirements required for them, and thus there will be understanding, cooperation and agreement between everyone.
Third peer (hassib):
It would not be fair for one roommate to always clean and help out and let the other roommate take advantage. To solve this issue, I would compromise on a plan to make rules for everyone to follow. For example, everyone has to invest time to clean up the apartment at least twice and week including cleaning up after themselves. Everyone also has to pay their portion of the bills on time. Of course, these new rules will not be enforced the very next day because I understand that change takes time. When communicating these new rules to everyone I hope to receive equality messages that show everyone understands and agrees to the new terms and conditions. I also hope to look for provisional messages from everyone so we all hear each other’s point of view on the new terms. I believe that my conflict style would be competition because not everyone’s needs are met and it would only be a win for two roommates. I would like everyone to help out and pitch in to be more responsible but this only benefits me and the roommate who cleans and not the other roommate who doesn’t do much which is why I believe my approach to the situation would be competition.
