Dan: That was a blast! Sarah: (stony silence)

Dan: (raising his voice) I SAID that was a great party!

Sarah: I BET you had a good time. I'm sure the 17 women you danced with had a great time, too.

Dan: Oh, I get it. You're pouting. Is that itYou're pouting, aren't you? Well, at least you're consistent, since that's what you were doing all night anyway. Sarah: I had to do SOMETHING with while you're making a complete ass of yourself!

Dan: Look who's talking. You're such a loser at parties, no wonder no one wants to dance with you.

Sarah: I'm not a loser. I've told you a thousand times that parties like that aren't for people like me, but you never listen. I don't like parties because you drink too much, and I can't stand your friends either. When you're with them, you make me totally miserable.

Dan: At least I have some friends. You'd have some, too, if you didn't hang around Christine all the time. You're always on my case about how I screw everything up around the house. You think I'm an idiot.

Sarah: How could you screw things up at the houseYou're never home! You've been saying for 6 months that you're going to clean out the garage, but you never do. It's either fantasy baseball all summer or hunting every weekend in the fall.

Dan: You know why I hunt all the time? Because the animals are more fun than you are. And they don't go looking for fights for no good reason.

Sarah: This isn't a fight. It's a discussion. And I hardly went looking for it.

Dan: Yeah, good one. And I bet you didn't pick out that $500 worth of clothes you've been hiding in the closet for the last week either?

Sarah: Whatever. Let's just drop it. You're drunk. I should know better than to deal with you when you're like this.

Dan: Now you want to drop it. You've been at me since we got in the car. You brought it uplet's talk about it. How, exactly, do you think we're going to pay for your little shopping spree. We haven't paid for the last one yet. Obviously, I'm not going to get any help from you, since you're the "struggling student" with no job.

Sarah: How did you know about those clothes anyway? Besides, I was going to take them back on Monday.

Dan: Christine told me.

Sarah: WHAT!?!?!? You are such a jerk. And she's a real piece of work, that one, too. She's the one who said I should buy them in the first place.

Dan: Maybe she just finds me a little more interesting than you. She probably felt sorry for you.

Sarah: That's it. I'm done. I'm so over this. I'm getting my own apartment

Questions for analysis

1. What are the various patterns you can observe?
2. Which seem easiest to you? Why?
3. Which patterns seem to be difficult to explore and express? Why?
4. How does the process of assessing conflicts in these ways reduce the bias of interpretation of conflict?
5. How might assessing your own conflicts in these ways be different from assessing someone else's conflict?
6. To what extent is bias a concern when you are in a conflict and also doing the assessing?
7. What might happen to perceptions of power or conflict styles if you are the one to initiate the assessment process? What conclusions would you make about future courses of action?