The Harvard-Backed Psychology Of Using Arguments To Grow Closer To People You Love
Shouting may get you a lot of attention, but it does nothing for your relationships.
KrakenImages via Shutterstock Harvard conflict resolution expert Bob Bordone and neurologist Dr. Joel Salinas chat with Andrea Miller about healthy ways to handle the conflict everyone faces.
Joel Selenas, MD, is a behavioral neurologist scientist and clinical associate professor of Neurology at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine, founder, and chief medical officer at Isaac Health, as well as a former Harvard Medical School faculty.
Bob Bardone is a senior fellow at Harvard Law School founder and former director of the Harvard Negotiation and Mediation Clinical Program, former clinical professor of law at Harvard, and founder of the Cambridge Negotiation Institute.
Seven psychology-backed ways to grow closer to others during arguments and conflict
Being able to deal with conflict well includes naming, exploring, and committing, as Bordone and Salinas explain in their new book, Conflict Resilience: Negotiating Disagreement Without Giving Up or Giving In.
1. Get comfortable with conflict
Changing how you perceive conflict and recognizing it in others so you don't hold onto or avoid the conflict instead of seeking connection, is what Bordone and Salinas call conflict resilience.
Conflict resilience is being able to sit with conflict's discomfort because you are not only more cognizant of the dynamic but also you are much more aligned to resolving the conflict rather than avoiding or clinging to it.
2. Get out of your silo
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When we stay in our silos of thinking because we believe there's nothing we're going to agree on, it is exhausting and hard. So, we start to demonize and dehumanize the other person to the point we can't do the basic things we need to do together.
What we need to do is come together when we have a difference of opinion, even if we don't reach an agreement on that difference. This is a way to build connection, it is a way to build trust. Because agreements don't mean much until you have trust first.
3. Accept you cannot have a connection without conflict
The nature of intimacy or collaborative partnerships is creating the space to be different. In that space, you can feel seen and build a true connection. Conflict is a vital part of building trust and connection when the conflict is done right
It's having an orientation of moving toward conflict to see it not as a sign of failure, weakness, or things that are wrong, but as an opportunity for connection. You can't have a connection without conflict.
4. Allow conflict to fuel creativity and innovation
You can see conflict as an opportunity for creativity, innovation, and vibrancy because your differences allow you to find the best answers, and better methods, and to grow as individuals.
Without the trust built through conflict, we are not as likely to feel as open to expressing new or contradictory ideas which are the fuel of innovation.
5. Learn about your conflict style
Fight, Flight, Freeze, Fawn, and Fester all are our default conflict reactions, as supported by an American Psychological Association article. Conflict allows us to see these reactions do not resolve conflict, they shut it down or perpetuate the conflict. When we look at the conflict reaction and how to change it to build connection, we can grow into more adaptable spaces in healthy relationships and partnerships.
6. Look for the bigger, better offer
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Conflict avoidance and going into our silos is a slow kill on our relationships. We're seeing an accelerated kill on the fabric of our country and organizations because everyone thinks there is nothing to agree on.
But by paying attention to the bigger reward of changing your behavior, you
can create behavioral loops to reward and reinforce facing and healthily navigating conflict.
Feeling some kind of discomfort from potential conflict or disagreement is when we say there's a bigger reward here than the discomfort of conflict, being right, or staying in our silos. Looking for something better creates a reward loop around handling conflict.
7. Use the power of the pause
It sounds easy but self-awareness in conflict is more than half the battle here and what can be helpful is to pause and take a breath.
Take a deep breath in through the nose until you fill your lungs, do a little top-off inhale to expand then slowly exhale. Repeated as needed. It is a hack that punches way above its weight.
The results of an APA study showed how deep breathing can lower your heart rate, respiratory rate, and blood pressure, it starts activating parts of your nervous system that counteract conflict avoidance. y
After pausing and breathing, you seem calm and collected and can think clearly under stress. Your reactions are healthier and more thoughtfully focused on the bigger picture of creating a connection to improve our health and the quality of our lives.
Many people try to avoid conflict, but this leads to deeper problems, so we must stay present in tough conversations and embrace discomfort to strengthen relationships for personal growth.
Will Curtis is a creator, editor, and activist who has spent the last decade working remotely.