other. The key fobs for their building
allowed access only to their own floors.
Though they lived just metres apart,
they had no way to reach out and
bridge their divide—across which
Frances could feel bad feelings swell-
ing. “When you don’t know the person,
you expect the worst,” says Frances.
“We thought this neighbour hated us.”
Conflict is inevitable, and it often
occurs between people who can’t just
walk out of each other’s lives. Fortun-
ately, there are many ways to navigate
life’s disagreements, large and small,
without boiling over.Don’t Make Assumptions
Frances had no way to know what her
neighbour was thinking or what she
was like, so she found it easy to pre-
sume the worst. Social psychologists
call it “fundamental attribution error,”
the act of believing that what a person
does reflects their essential character.
If a colleague makes a paperwork mis-
take, we think they’re lazy, when they
might just be over-worked. If someone
cuts us off in traffic, we assume they’re
careless, rather than potentially dealing
with an emergency.
“If we experience something as being
negative in terms of the effect it has on
us, we automatically assume negative
intent on the other person’s part,”
explains Sue Wazny, a Vancouver-
based conflict mediator and consult-
ant. And that can create a spiral of
conflict without end.It’s difficult to guard against funda-
mental attribution error, says Wazny,
since our brains are hardwired for it. But
to be forewarned is to be forearmed.
“You should ask, ‘How much of this
is me feeling persecuted, and how
much is likely to be a true reflection
of the other person’s motives?’” says
Wazny. “Don’t act like you know what’s
driving that person. Act like you don’t,
because that’s probably the case.”Be Curious
Of course, many of the thorniest dis-
putes occur when we do know how
someone really feels and we disagree,
especially about deeply held beliefs.
A chat with your neighbour about an
upcoming election can uncover a dif-
ference of values, or a political protest
passing by your office window could
lead to some heated arguments at work.
According to Cheryl Picard, emeritus
professor at Carlton University and
founding director of the school’s Centre
for Conflict Education and Research,
arguments about values can end in
shouting and hurt feelings because
our first instinct is to out-logic the other
person. “If you threaten my values,” she
says, “I’m not listening to what you
have to say, because my entire focus is
on defending what I value.” Each per-
son experiences that as an attack and
responds by defending in turn, she
says, a cycle that only escalates.
Wazny suggests that when it comes
to these clashes, it’s best to squelch thereader’s digest
50 september 2019