Reflect on a conflict in your life. Provide an objective assessment of your conflict based on the following categories: orientation to the conflict; nature of the conflict; interests; power; styles; assessment; personal intervention; and attempted solutions. Each of the 8 categories must be addressed in your paper. You DO NOT have to answer every question; however, you may pick and choose the questions as a guideline to help you assess your conflict. I. Orientation to the Conflict 1. What attitudes toward conflict do participants seem to hold? 2. Do they perceive conflict as positive, negative, or neutral? How can you tell? 3. What metaphor would you use to describe the conflict? 4. What is the cultural background of the participants? How do the cultural backgrounds of the participants impact the conflict? 5. How might gender roles impact this conflict? II. Nature of Conflict 1. What are the “triggering events” that brought this conflict into mutual awareness? 2. What is the historical context in terms of (1) the ongoing relationship between the parties and (2) other, external events within which this conflict is embedded? 3. How is the struggle being expressed by each party? 4. What are the perceived incompatible goals? 5. What are the perceived scarce resources? 6. In what ways are the parties interdependent? How are they interfering with one another? How are they cooperative to keep the conflict in motion? 7. What are the patterns of behavior present in this conflict? III. Interests 1. How do the parties clarify their goals? 2. What does each party think the other’s goals are? Are they similar or dissimilar? How? 3. Are the goals content, relational, identity or process goals? 4. How have the goals been altered from the beginning of the conflict? 5. How do the content, relational, identity or process goals overlap with one another? IV. Power 1. What do parties see as their own and the other’s dependencies on one another? 2. What power currencies do the parties see themselves and the other possessing? 3. In what ways do the parties disagree on the balance of power between them? Do they underestimate his/her own or the other’s influence? 4. What are some unused sources of power that are present? V. Styles 1. What individual styles did each party use? 2. How did the individual styles change during the course of the conflict? 3. How did the parties perceive the other’s style? 4. In what way did a party’s style reinforce the choices the other party made as the conflict progressed? 5. Do the participants appear to strategize about their conflict choices or remain spontaneous? 6. What are the tactical options used by both parties (avoidance, competition, or collaboration)? 7. How are the participants’ tactics mutually impacting on the other’s choices? 8. How are the tactics interlocking to push the conflict through phases of escalation, maintenance, or reduction? VI. Assessment 1. What rules of repetitive patterns characterize this conflict? 2. What triangles and micro-events best characterize the conflict? 3. How destructive is the tone of this conflict? VII. Personal Intervention 1. What options for change do the parties perceive? 2. What techniques of self-regulation or system regulation have been used thus far? Which might be used productively by the system? 3. How might anger be managed more productively? VIII. Attempted Solutions 1. What options have been explored for managing the conflict? 2. Have attempted solutions become part of the problem? 3. Have third parties been brought into the conflict? If so, what roles did they play and what was the impact of their involvement? 4. Is this conflict a repetitive one, with attempted solutions providing temporary change but with the overall pattern remaining unchanged? If so, what is that overall pattern? 5. What solutions have you tried? 6. How can this conflict be fractionated? 7. How can this conflict be reframed? 6. Explain how you can separate the people from the problem? 7. What are your interests? What are your positions? Can the two be separated? 8. List all of the options available for solving this conflict? 9. What options are viable? Which options will you most likely choose? 10. What role has forgiveness played in your conflict situation?