This book is about reactions to interpersonal conflict such as avoiding, negotiating, and fighting. It breaks away from the prevailing assumption that conflict behaviours are mutually isolated reactions having mutually isolated effects. Instead, reactions are viewed as components of complex conflict behaviour that influence each other's impact on the substantive and relational outcomes. The simultaneous and sequential occurrence of, for example, problem solving and fighting should therefore be studied together and not separately.
The author presents a ladder of stepwise increases in...