In any profession that deals with people, there will be times when your views and perspectives differ from those of the people with whom you are working. A main focus of professional psychology is working with people, whether they are Instructors, administrators, colleagues, or clients. As a result, it is likely you will both experience conflict and be expected to resolve conflict as a professional psychologist. Learning to identify and appropriately resolve conflicts that may arise over differences in perspectives is an especially critical skill. Your personal style of conflict resolution is influenced by past experiences, thoughts and beliefs, and personality. Conflicts may be resolved in different ways depending on the context and the individual attempting to resolve them.
• Search the Internet for “conflict resolution steps.”
• Select a website that contains a broadly applicable set of steps for resolving interpersonal conflicts.
• Use those steps to address the following conflict scenario:
Your supervisor at the agency where you work has become increasingly insistent that you work many hours over and above your required working hours. She has indicated that there is no discussion to be had—you must work the required extra hours in order for your agency to survive. All staff must work overtime, no exceptions. You have family and school obligations that you must meet, and working the additional hours has become very burdensome to you. You value and need your job, and want to be as helpful as possible. Although your supervisor indicated when these demands first began that they would be temporary, it is now six months since you began having to work many additional overtime hours and see many extra clients. Your work, family, and schoolwork have all begun to suffer, and you are increasingly frustrated with your supervisor for her approach to managing this organizational need.
Write a description of the conflict resolution steps identified on the website you selected. Apply each step to the conflict scenario. Be specific and provide examples that illustrate your personal style and approach to ensure successful conflict resolution. Provide an analysis of one strength and one limitation of the conflict resolution steps you selected. Include any steps you would add and/or delete and explain why.
