17.4 What Exacerbates Conflict

We’ve looked at why conflict arises in the first place; let’s take that a step further and look at why conflict sometimes escalates into an unhealthy, potentially even toxic, form. This is not an exhaustive list of negative factors, but may help you recognize why things can go so wrong sometimes.

1. Pride and ego. Do you know about the longest trial McDonalds has ever been involved in? It’s not the spilled coffee case (described in Chapter 8), which was a normal length for a lawsuit. This case, McDonald’s Corporation v. Steel & Morris, took place in England, and holds the record for the longest-running libel case in English history.

It began with a small group of protestors handing out leaflets in front of a McDonald’s in London, accusing the restaurant of a number of things, from animal cruelty and environmental damage to paying their workers low wages. McDonald’s sued for libel in 1990. English libel cases take a while in part because the court goes through each accusation and determines if it’s true. The court ruled that some of the accusations were true, but that others were libelous, and the defendants were ordered to pay a modest amount. So McDonald’s “won” the case — but in winning, they racked up ten years of legal fees, proved that many of the accusations against them were in fact accurate, and became the subject of a documentary called McLibel, which has been viewed by more than 25 million people.

Keep in mind: the party that files a lawsuit always has the option to drop it, so McDonald’s could have ended this trial at any point. I should also point out that originally they asked the five protesters to apologize, and three did so: the case was only against the two people who wouldn’t back down.

This is not the only example of a fight extending far longer than it should have because one or both parties have too much pride. To see a recent television show that depicts how pride destroys lives, watch Beef (starring Stephen Yuen and Ali Wong), about a minor road rage incident that escalates beyond any rational level.

2. Short-term thinking. It’s possible to overthink things, especially when it comes to trying to predict consequences far down the road. Still, it’s better to consider those consequences than to ignore them. Helen Caldicott, an Australian anti-nuclear activist, put it well in 1984: “If you don’t like the guy in the other end of your life boat, you don’t drill a hole in his end to fix him.” On a literal level, there are countries that are not currently at war, but that are dealing with land mines planted during a war decades ago, with civilians still getting killed by those mines. That in itself is a huge problem, but it’s also a good metaphor for things people do in interpersonal conflicts to solve a short-term problem, not realizing how they could “blow up” years later. If you find yourself in any kind of ongoing feud with someone, at some point you should ask yourself “How will this war end?” and “What happens after that?”

3. Attribution is not a flaw in thinking, but a necessity of life. It refers to the reasons people assign to other people’s behavior: why is that person driving so fast? Why did your girlfriend not answer your call? Why is that stranger frowning? Some attributions are internal (“That’s just the kind of person they are”) and some are external (“They need to do that for circumstantial reasons”).

The problem is not that we engage in this process constantly: it’s that we often get it wrong. There is a bias that is so common that psychologists call it the Fundamental Attribution Error (or FAE): It says that when you are assigning reasons to other people’s behavior, you tend to chalk it up to their disposition or character: they are doing 92 mph on the highway because they are a speed demon; they are late to the meeting because they are inconsiderate and self-centered. However, when people ask you why you’re acting the way you do, you explain it in terms of external factors: I’m going 92 mph because I have to catch that flight to Miami; I’m late to the meeting because of road construction.

There’s a natural reason for this tendency: you don’t know about the circumstances in other people’s lives, so of course you think the main reason must be “who they are.” (I’ve only met one kind-hearted person who said, “When I see someone driving 92 mph, I assume they must be in labor.”) Psychologists have proven that the FAE is a strong pattern, but it’s not impossible to overcome: it just takes some conscious effort to reverse the usual pattern.

How does the FAE exacerbate conflict? Start with how the different attributions sound to other people. “I’m late because of road construction” may sound reasonable, unless it’s coming from a friend or co-worker who’s always late to everything; there’s always a reason it isn’t their fault, which after a while sounds like “excuses, excuses, excuses.” Why don’t they take responsibility for checking road conditions first, or leaving early so that they might have to wait for you instead of you always having to wait for them? Because of this, if the conflict erupts into a shouting match, some of that shouting is bound to be you trying to get the other person to look at flaws or decisions they’ve been ignoring.

Now let’s switch sides and look at how it feels when someone says “It’s just who you are.” It’s inherently personal, it sounds fatalistic, and it doesn’t acknowledge that there are actually unforeseen conditions you had to deal with. So you shout back, “You don’t understand!” and then double-down on the circumstantial reasons for your behavior. This will continue to escalate unless one or both of you is willing to recognize the FAE and try to counteract it. That means listening to them when they tell you about situational factors you weren’t aware of, and also being willing to admit that your own personality and decisions might be a factor worth acknowledging.

4. Technology can aggravate conflict as well. “Flaming,” for instance, is the term used for the well-documented phenomenon where people are far more vicious over technological communication channels than they would be in face-to-face conversations. Why does this happen? Sometimes the culprit is anonymity: if no one knows who you are, you might feel more confident in showing your ugly side.

It’s not just that nobody knows who you are, though: it’s also the tendency to forget that the people you’re writing about are human beings. I think this is the reason there are “road rage” incidents more often than “sidewalk rage” incidents: it’s easy to get mad at “that black Tesla” if you can’t see the person inside it, whereas if someone bumps into you on the sidewalk and apologizes, you can see the apologetic look on their face. This can even happen with people you know well: when texting or emailing a friend, you can’t see their face so you might say hurtful things without realizing how they are reacting to it.

This is especially true when using “lean media” instead of “rich media” (a distinction we’ll explore in Chapter 19). Rich media refers to channels that carry more information, such as Zoom or FaceTime, in comparison to channels that don’t allow you to see or hear the recipient (such as emails). The odds of misunderstanding are much higher when you’re using a lean channel, which suggests that if you’re upset with someone, wait for a chance to tell them in person or over a video call instead of texting. The other thing about video calls are that they are synchronous, meaning that all participants have to participate simultaneously in order for them to work, as opposed to asynchronous channels like podcasts or video recordings, where the time when the message is created is separate from the time when the receiver gets it. Synchronous channels allow a back-and-forth discussion, which avoids problems with asynchronous channels.

To illustrate: imagine being upset with a friend who didn’t show up for a lunch date, so you send an angry text. They don’t reply, so you follow up with “Why are you ignoring me?” Your blood is still boiling, so you keep sending increasingly angry messages. Meanwhile, they got in a car crash and are being whisked away in an ambulance. When they regain consciousness and get their phone back, the first thing they see is 17 furious texts and 4 voicemails from you about what an unforgivable person you are.

Finally, there are two things technology allows that can make things worse. The first is ghosting — not responding to the other person. (I think Alexander Graham Bell would have found this ironic; he invented telephones as a way for people to talk to each other, and now they are used as a way for people to avoid talking to each other.) There are times when this is understandable (such as when you told someone with a crush on you that there’s no future in this relationship, but they won’t let it go), but other times when it creates great anxiety and uncertainty for others. Consult the chapter on Ethics (Chapter 3) for guidance on when ghosting is acceptable and when it might be a violation of the Respect or Equity components of the TARES model.

Technology also allows a person who is upset with someone else to take the grievance public, telling the whole world about it instead of dealing directly with the individual. I don’t imagine it feels good to find out from your news feed or a “diss track” that someone is unhappy with you; it would be preferable for them to contact you personally first.

Technology may allow conflict resolution where it would not otherwise be possible (for instance, if you are thousands of miles apart from the person you are upset with), but careful thought about what technology does best and what it doesn’t do well can prevent a minor infraction from turning into an all-out war. Perhaps you decide it’s time to put your phone down and just talk instead.