Resolving Interpersonal Conflict

Interpersonal conflicts usually arise due to disagreements, these disagreements could be fundamental or trivial. Many of us are motivated to resolve interpersonal conflict as it destroys relationships, be it personal or work.  Destruction of relationships can prove to be detrimental to us as stated in Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs, social interactions through personal or work relationships is an important need. Today, I shall look at a particular case of interpersonal conflict and examine its nature in detail.

Consider a scenario which some of us may be familiar with:

You have been assigned a room with a stranger in a hostel which you are staying in for the semester. After a few nights, you realize that he has a very different sleeping pattern from yours. You prefer to work in the afternoon and sleep around midnight whereas he work til 3 in the morning (3AM) and take short afternoon naps. The problem arises due to the lighting in the room. While he was working on his assignments, his desk light distracts you from your sleep and making it difficult for you to sleep. You politely requested him to sleep earlier, he responded to your request by sticking black papers around his desk light, without notifying you beforehand. You find that is not working for you either. If you still insist on him adjusting his sleeping pattern while compromising yours (maybe both of you could sleep around 1.30AM), how should you let him know?

I think the problem is an unfortunate one. It is nobody's fault that such a conflict arises, because our sleeping patterns develop through our early years and it is not really within our control to dictate it. That being said, with enough time and effort, we can still alter our sleeping pattern. He sent an obvious non-verbal cue, that is, placing black papers around his desk light without notifying you. Being sensitive to non-verbal cues, you may conclude that he is not comfortable with speaking to you with regards to this issue. You may interpret his actions as a signal is that he is not going to sleep earlier but compromises by placing black papers around his desk light to reduce its impact on you. However,  if that proves to be insufficient, I guess one would have to invite him to a lunch and talk about it. In a friendly and comfortable setting, discuss and understand his reasons for his sleeping pattern. Explore ways in which both of you could reach a compromise, perhaps explain why you cannot adjust more to his sleeping patterns, it could be due to afternoon lessons and so on. Convince him that he may be in a better position to adjust more to your sleeping pattern as he can easily study in the afternoon instead.

Something like this may transpire in the midst of the conversation: "I understand that it may be overboard to ask you to adjust your sleeping pattern, but considering the fact that I am unable to take afternoon naps like how you did due to my lessons, I really hope you can do your assignments in the afternoon while you are in the room so that we can both sleep earlier at night.".

However, despite all the efforts made, at times the other party may not cooperate. When such situation arises, we can only seek the help of higher authority, that is, to request for a change of room. Naturally, we would want to avoid this awkward situation and having to learn the idiosyncrasies of a new roommate. Therefore, it is important that we acquire good communication skills to avoid conflicts and perhaps more importantly, to resolve them whenever we encounter them in our working and personal lives.