According to a study by the University of Cambridge in 2022, 75% of women said to have compromised their own desires for the sake of others at least once in the past year, as listed in the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin journal. Moreover, as per the study conducted by the University of California, Berkeley in their journal Social Psychological and Personality Science, 60% of men have agreed that they often need to sacrifice their own needs to fulfill the wants of others. Also, the American Psychological Association website in their study conducted in 2022 claimed that 75% of people have reported experiencing stress in the past month due to the above circumstances.
Are you a part of a relationship where you often have to sacrifice your own needs for the happiness of others?
Do you feel that sometimes you can’t assert your own opinions strongly in front of others and tend to easily agree with their terms to avoid harming relationships?
Do you feel that agreeing with the other’s opinion and suppressing your desires can help resolve conflicts?
All the above questions and statistics are pointing towards a behavioral style characterized by high assertiveness and low cooperativeness. Let us discuss it in detail in this article to better understand the topic.
Which Conflict Style is Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness?
Low Assertiveness indicates that it is difficult for someone to express their views and opinions strongly in front of others and take a firm stand on them. For such individuals, speaking openly and assertively can be challenging, and they often have to suppress their thoughts within their hearts.
High Cooperativeness means being willing to provide full cooperation to others with the intent to resolve the conflict harmoniously. For highly cooperative individuals, the concerns of others matter more than their own concerns, and they are prepared to compromise on their own needs if it can help remediate the concerns of others. They can put their own desires aside if necessary to fulfill the wishes of others.
As per Thomas Kilmann’s two-dimensional model of conflict resolution, Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness can indeed be associated with the accommodating conflict style definition, where an individual is hesitant to assert their feelings and concerns in front of others and is willing to sacrifice their needs to address the concerns of others so that conflict can be solved peacefully without escalation.
Adopting a Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness conflict resolution style can often prove to be quite effective in diffusing an argument, where resolving the dispute matters more than winning the argument itself. In such situations, suppressing your feelings and allowing others to win the argument is considered the best approach to bring the quarrel to a close.
A minor disagreement over a situation can often arise between partners where they may not agree with each other’s opinion. In such circumstances, either of the one has to suppress their feelings to ensure that the matter doesn’t escalate further. An example can be a situation where a couple is arguing about where to go on vacation, with the husband wanting to go on a family trip including parents, while the wife prefers to go on an international trip as a couple. The argument gets eased when either one of the partners suppresses their desire for the type of vacation, thus preventing the argument from escalating.
Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness Accommodating Conflict Style Pros and Cons
Advantages of Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness Accommodating Conflict Resolution Style:
- Faster Resolution: In this conflict style resolution can happen very quickly as people tend to easily agree on the terms of the others, thus enabling faster resolutions.
- Relationships are Preserved: Relationships don’t get damaged as either one or both parties are willing to sacrifice their desires for each other.
- Peaceful Resolution: A peaceful resolution can also be achieved with this technique because the situation usually calms down without further escalating the matter.
- Build Trust: It can also help gain the trust of others as they realize your value through the sacrifices you are making for them, they will feel empathy towards you.
- Sign of Maturity: It showcases an early sign of maturity where you choose to remain calm and composed and agree with other’s opinions to resolve the matter peacefully.
- Compassionate about Others: You think more about others than yourself and suppress your own needs for their sake, which helps you become a good human being.
- Help Understand Other’s Perspectives: You can see things from a broader perspective and think in ways that your limited perspective otherwise couldn’t, which can help you understand what is right and what is wrong.
- Avoid Recurrence: When an argument is resolved using an accommodating style, the chances of it resurfacing in the future are reduced, as you let others win by sacrificing your concerns.
- Good Leadership Quality: It is a trait of good leadership quality, as you try to understand the concerns of others and are willing to sacrifice your concerns to motivate them.
- Reduces Stress: Conflicts and arguments can create a significant amount of stress, and sometimes using an accommodating style can be the right approach to avoid unnecessary stress, especially when you don’t want to be a part of an argument.
- Easy Resolution: Using this style can facilitate easy resolution of the argument, as it creates a win-lose situation where there is one clear winner of the argument and the other accepts the loss in exchange for peace.
- People-Oriented Decisions: Decisions are made in the best interest of others, even if they may not be favorable to you. You prioritize the concerns of others and suppress your own feelings.
Disadvantages of Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness Accommodating Conflict Resolution Style:
- Making Sacrifices: You would have to let go of your own needs by suppressing your opinion and may have to agree with others even if you don’t want to.
- Taken for Granted: Repeatedly making sacrifices can lead people to start taking you for granted, reducing the chances of maintaining a healthy long-term relationship.
- Suppressed Feelings: Many times, you would need to suppress your inner feelings, which unwillingly, have to settle down quietly within you, leaving these emotions and opinions trapped within your mind.
- Can be Frustrating: Making Sacrifices and Suppressing your feelings can make you uncomfortable and it can become frustrating in the long term.
- Impacts Relationship: If in a relationship, only one person repeatedly keeps accommodating the concerns of the other by sacrificing their own, then that relationship gradually becomes unhealthy.
- Feeling Disrespectful: Using this approach, your self-respect may get hurt, and over time, people may also stop respecting your emotions and feelings.
- Unhealthy Relationship: A relationship in which you don’t have the freedom to express yourself and have to sacrifice your needs for the concern of others can become an unhealthy relationship.
- Poor Decisions: Sometimes sacrificing your concerns for others to save relationships can force you to make wrong decisions in life that you may regret later.
- Loss of Authority and Power: You start to lose your authority and power in a relationship because others begin to take your stand lightly, and your words hold no value for them.
- Build Anxiety: Feeling powerless and poor decision-making can lead to anxiety building and stress.
How can Accommodating Resolve Conflict?
- In conflict resolution, cooperation plays a pivotal role, without cooperation, resolving conflicts becomes very difficult. In the Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating resolution style, you are naturally more cooperative because you focus less on the solution and more on the concerns of others. You don’t mind whatever the outcome, but you are more worried about the problem areas of others that need to be addressed.
- When you approach a problem with such a mindset, your main focus shifts to peacefully resolving a problem, even if it means sacrificing your own needs in exchange. You have more interest in understanding the concerns of others and getting to know their perspectives so that you understand their pain areas. This allows you to make decisions that are more aligned with their best interests.
- Using the Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating style not only aligns your thinking in the direction of incorporating others’ perspectives but also shapes your actions accordingly. It reflects your effort to harmonize your viewpoint with theirs, and your actions are guided by this alignment. If we talk about synched harmony, this resolution style aligns to a great extent with the compromising principle, where concerns for others and a compromising nature are of great importance.
- Using the Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating resolution style can often be a wise choice, especially in situations where the other person is not willing to listen, and you make an effort to end the conversation rather than prolong it. This situation creates a win-lose scenario where one side wins the argument, while the other side simply gives up maintaining harmony and peace. Clearly, there is a conclusion here that may only be beneficial to some and could lead to long-term issues. However, it does resolve the conflict at hand.
- A person using the Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating technique places greater importance on relationships than arguments. That’s why they prefer peacefully resolving the argument rather than escalating it, even if it means setting aside their own concerns to prevent damage to the relationship. Even today, many people use this resolution style during conflicts where they continue to suppress their opinions and feelings for the sake of preserving the relationship. Whether it preserves harmony in the relationship or leads to a potentially toxic one, they are still committed to saving the relationship.
- Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating technique is indeed seen as a selfless act of giving in, where you prioritize the concerns of others over your own and don’t dwell too much on your own problems. Your main purpose here is to mitigate the pain areas of others, and it’s okay if your own concerns aren’t addressed in return. This approach is taken to quickly resolve conflicts without prolonging them, whether or not there’s a personal benefit involved—it doesn’t matter.
- Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating technique helps de-escalate a situation by ensuring an argument doesn’t escalate. It’s important to understand others’ perspectives, address their concerns, and ensure they are satisfied with the resolution. The motive behind this style is the same, but it’s one-sided. Nonetheless, it prevents the situation from escalating further and allows for a peaceful resolution at that moment.
- People who frequently use the Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating resolution style often start building rapport with others. Slowly but steadily, they can be admired as role models, and it’s possible that, over time, people involved in conflicts may begin to give due importance to their concerns as well. This can lead to a situation where both parties eventually use the accommodating style, promoting mutual understanding and resolution.
When should an accommodating conflict resolution style be used?
The Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating style doesn’t need to always be the best approach to peacefully resolve a conflict. Accurately determining the right time to use this technique can indeed be very challenging. However, by keeping some important factors in mind, you can use this resolution style effectively. By being less assertive and more cooperative, a Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating resolution style can help resolve conflict in the following ways:
- Understanding Perspectives: If you have a good understanding of the perspectives and mindset of those involved in the conflict and have an idea that what they are arguing for may not be ideal but still contains valid points that need to be addressed, then the Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating style can be effectively used to peacefully resolve the situation.
- Decoding Mindset: Similarly, if you understand their mindset and have an idea that they may not be inherently negative, and what they are standing for holds relevance and significant importance to them, then this style can help build your rapport in their eyes.
- Thinking Multidimensional: If you have understood the people’s perspectives well and have a sense that they are not inherently negative, thinking multidimensionally suggests that being low on assertiveness and high on cooperation can be more suitable to address the situation.
- Weigh Relationship Importance: If relationships matter more than the argument, then using the Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating style can help you calm the situation. However, make sure to also ensure that the other party values the relationship as much as you do.
- Assessing the Criticality of the Situation: Considering the criticality of the situation, many times using this resolution style can be quite beneficial, especially when you don’t want to escalate the matter further and aim to peacefully resolve it. Your intention is to temporarily calm the situation at that time.
- People-Oriented Resolution: If you are in a leadership role where guiding and addressing people’s concerns is of paramount importance, you can still use this technique, understanding that it can assist in building rapport and potentially make you a role model in their eyes.
What kind of scenario does the accommodating conflict management style create?
- Win-Lose Scenario: This scenario is a common outcome in this resolution style where one party may lose the argument by not asserting their thoughts firmly for the sake of concern for others. It may not be an ideal scenario, but it temporarily calms down the argument.
- Highly Cooperative Scenario: By displaying low assertiveness and high cooperativeness, a scenario may also happen where both parties adopt an accommodating style approach and prioritize each other’s concerns over their own wants.
- Loss of Self-Respect Scenario: A scenario may also be created where you become so cooperative that their concerns can matter to you more than anything else. You want to address even their minor preferences and be willing to do things exactly as they say.
- Case of Self-Realisation: By talking to others and understanding their pain and suffering, you may realize that they are right in some way, and you might be supporting incorrect viewpoints. In such cases, you can be highly cooperative in addressing their concerns and building trust.
- Positive Influence Scenario: If you use this style, it’s possible that it could positively influence the people involved in the conflict, as they would realize how concerned you are for them, and this can positively change their perspective towards you. Gradually, they may also become willing to cooperate with you.
- Frustration scenario: If you repeatedly suppress your thoughts and feelings by using this style in every situation, you may be building frustration within yourself, and one day, this frustration could manifest in another situation like an outburst.
- Peaceful Scenario: There are also high chances that this approach may peacefully resolve the situation, at least temporarily cooling things down. Your focus is on resolving the other person’s concerns and making them feel happy.
- Empowering scenarios: This is a scenario where you are concerned for others, and you work to understand their perspective and work towards eliminating their pain points. Your resolution approach is people-oriented, where you focus on empowering and uplifting them.
Why might an accommodating style be the most appropriate in some circumstances?
Many times, you have to give in to reap long-term benefits. It’s crucial to understand that losing an argument doesn’t always mean defeat; it can also mean building trust and rapport with others. This can lead to long-term benefits, especially if a similar situation resurfaces in the future.
Now, as mentioned above, there are certain factors that, if taken into consideration, can make using a Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating technique quite beneficial. It’s also possible that during the initial stages of a conflict, you may use this technique to begin resolving the conflict, and if it doesn’t work, then switch to another resolution style that might be more beneficial.
If you have a good understanding of people’s perspectives and also have some insight into their mindset, then using this style would be quite appropriate. Similarly, if we talk about the importance of the relationship, if it matters more to you and the concerns of the individuals involved in the situation carry more weight than your own concerns, then using this resolution style would also be better.
Finally, if you understand the criticality of the situation and your multi-dimensional thinking also suggests using this technique, then without hesitation, you should opt for this style. Furthermore, adapting the resolution style following the situation may be necessary to ensure an optimal resolution and prevent future recurrences.
Which of the following situations is most appropriate for an accommodating style of conflict management?
The following situations will be most appropriate for a Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness accommodating style of conflict management:
- When you realize that you made a mistake by supporting the wrong cause.
- When relationships hold significant importance for you.
- When you don’t want to further escalate the argument.
- When you don’t want to waste time engaging in a debate with the other person.
- When people’s concerns are genuine and hold more importance than your concerns.
- Lastly, if you want to earn the trust of others and build rapport with them.
Below is a good example of Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness Accommodating Conflict Style I found on YouTube.
Conclusion
To conclude, the Low Assertiveness and High Cooperativeness Accommodating technique involves low assertiveness and high cooperativeness, and it can be a strong conflict resolution approach if certain important factors are taken into consideration. Additionally, we’ve discussed the advantages and disadvantages of this technique and explored where it would be most appropriate to use it. Finally, we’ve also discussed the potential scenarios that can arise from using this style.
Overall, I have delved deeply into this topic. In the meantime, I would request you to please feel free to leave a comment on how helpful this article was for you, and if you found it useful, please share it with your friends and family. FOLLOW Synched Harmony Join our vibrant community for daily inspiration. Swipe-Up to follow for more related content.
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