Conflicts among Siblings
(An Analysis Using Interactional View, Nonverbal Communications
and Attribution Theory of Conflict)
Page and Dina[1] are sisters. Page is three years older than Dina. These siblings are not in good terms. Page left the apartment they rented in order to avoid further confrontations. At home, they give each other a cold treatment. It’s been a month since they talked to each other.
According to Dina, their conflict is due to Page’s relationships and flings with different men, some of which are friends of Dina. Page is the problem. She always put the family’s name in shame by deciding things without thinking it over. Dina scolds her sister and always reminds Page of her shortcomings.
On the other hand, it seems that she is taking their disagreement lightly. Page said that Dina has been meddling with her life. She just wants to decide for her own. She wants Dina to stay out of her life. But Dina won’t let Page because she believes that her older sister is irresponsible.
One day, they met along the corridor of the CSM building. Dina glared at Page. She stared at Page until they passed each other. Page met Dina’s eyes but she immediately diverted her sight. She walked past Dina with her head low and looking at the floor. Dina suddenly said, “Hmp, duko man diay.”
“Interpersonal conflict refers to a disagreement between or among connected individuals.” There are three common assumptions regarding conflict. First, having conflicts with other people indicates that the relationship is a bad one. Second, “conflicts hurt an interpersonal relationship.” And last, conflicts reveal the negative self of a person. Thus, it is bad to be involved in a conflict (Devito, 1998).
However, Joseph Devito labeled these assumptions as myths. Whether it is true or not, it only depends on the persons involved. How they will approach and deal with the conflict will determine its answer.
Conflict also has advantages and disadvantages. One of its negative effects is that it “often leads to increased negative regard for the opponent.” It is also a waste of energy especially when “unproductive” strategies are used. It could also lead to closing off from the other individual.
One of the advantages of conflict is that relationship may become “stronger, healthier, and more satisfying.” Of course, this will only be attained with the usage of “productive conflict strategies.” Conflicts enable people to state what they what and possibly get it (Devito).
Conflict within a family is inevitable. It is said that conflicts are more pronounced in marital and family interaction. Conflict theories emphasize that conflicts are “ubiquitous and inherent” in close relationships particularly in a family. “The amount of reported and observed conflicts reflects the quality of family relationships” (Sillars et al.).
Charles Watkins presented essential conditions of conflict. Conflict requires two parties that are capable to invoke sanctions on each other .They may have different value or perceptual systems. Conflict happens because of “the existence of a mutually desired but mutually unobtainable objective” (Littlejohn, 1996).
In the situation above, the siblings can’t achieve their objectives. Dina can’t force her sister to be in a serious relationship wherein the guy is not closely related and not of the same age of Dina. Likewise, Page can’t force her sister to stay out and be uninvolved with her every decision in life.
Studies show that regardless of age, conflicts with siblings happen more than six times per hour. Sillars et al. state that “sibling relationships are a significant source of conflict for most children and adolescents, and they have heightened significance because children cannot put an end to their sibling relationships.”
Conflicts with siblings increases as their interaction increases. Adolescents rate their conflict with siblings as less important than conflicts with friends.
“Communication is the means by which quality relationships are achieved or, even, communication is the relationship, so relationship quality is necessarily defined by the nature of communication” (Sillars et al.)
According to the Interactional View of Paul Watzlawick, family is a communication system. This is one of the most important concepts of the theory (Wood, 1997). He believes that “in order to understand the movement of any single figure in the family system, one has to examine the communication patterns among all its members” (Griffin, 2006).
As a system, the members of the family who are considered as parts of the system are interrelated. This is one of the propositions to the systems view of communication. Since these parts are interrelated and interacting, they will always affect each other (Wood). Thus, Page can’t expect Dina to just pay no heed to whatever she does with her life.
Another concept of the Interactional View is the levels of meaning. There are two types or levels of meaning, the content and relationship. This concept was taken from Gregory Bateson and the terms were originally called report and command.
It states that “Every communication has a content and a relationship aspect such that the latter classifies the former and is therefore metacommunication” (Griffin). Metacommunication is communication about communication which is either verbal, nonverbal, or hidden meanings (Wood).
If we analyze Dina’s sentence, both the content and relationship meanings are present. “Hmp, duko man diay” could be interpreted literally as Dina’s sarcasm toward her sister. This also means that Page, even though she is older than Dina, accepts the fact that she was wrong and acknowledges her sister’s authority over her.
From the content and relationship meanings derived the content and relationship conflicts. “Content conflict centers on objects, events, and persons in the world that are usually, but not always, external to the people involved in the conflict.” This kind of conflict is easily identified.
Relationship conflicts, on the other hand, are concerned with the relationships between individuals like “who is in charge, the equality of primary relationship, and who has the right to establish rules of behavior.” These conflicts are usually hidden and more difficult to identify (Devito).
Page and Dina’s conflict can be considered as both content and relationship. They were initially fighting over the fact that Page is having relationships and flings with different men.
However, their conflict led to the point that they are now fighting about how Page should live her life in such a way that she will no longer put their family’s name in shame. Their conflict has now been centered to who is going to win the argument.
In the case of the involvement of other people, the “different men”, in the conflict, another proposition regarding communication systems will somehow explain this. It states that parts outside the system also affect the system.
There is a tendency for a system to be open. This openness “refers to the extent to which a system affects and is affected by factors and processes outside of it” (Wood). In the given situation, these outside parts are the men who are involved with Page.
Another important concept of the Interactional View is the punctuation. It states that “the nature of a relationship depends on how both parties punctuate the communication sequence” (Griffin). Wood defines punctuation as “designating the start and stop of episodes of interaction.”
The siblings are bound in the sequence that has no beginning or end. Dina wants Page to act responsibly so she always scolds and tell her older sister what she should do. Page wants her sister to leave her alone and prove that she is responsible enough so she acts on her own. But Dina doesn’t trust her sister so she tells Page the “right thing” to do. This cycle goes on and on.
This sequence justifies the suggestion of Watzlawick that state “what is typical about the sequence and makes it a problem of punctuation is that the individual concerned conceives of him or herself only as reacting to, but not as provoking, these attitudes” (Griffin). In Coordinated Management of Meaning, this sequence is called strange loop.
The relationship of Page and Dina is complementary; one aims to gain control of the other. Power has always something to do with conflicts. It is considered to be the “central issue in disturbed families” (Wood). The two siblings are somewhat competing over who will get what she wants from the other. Their different level of power was projected through their nonverbal communication.
Nonverbal communication is a form of communication without words (Devito). Nonverbal communication has seven classes which are also known as codes. The codes are the following: kinesics, physical appearance, haptics, chronemics, vocalics, proxemics, and artifacts (Cicca et al, 2003).
One of the axioms of interpersonal communication states that “one cannot not communicate” (Grifin). Even though the siblings did not talk when they met, it doesn’t mean that they were not conveying meaning to each other. Dina’s eye contact, Page’s lowered head, and their silence had an impact to both of them.
Their nonverbal communication was projected through body movements or language. The study of bodily movement is called kinesics. This involves “gestures, facial expression, body movement, posture, gaze, and gait” (Cicca et al.). Kinesics is identified into five types: emblems, illustrators, affect displays, regulators, and adaptors.
The emblems serve as substitutes for spoken words. Illustrators “make communication more vivid and help maintain the listener’s attention.” Affect displays are movements that express emotional meaning. The regulators “monitor, maintain, or control the speaking of the other individual.” Adaptors are unintentionally body movements that “satisfy some need and usually occur without conscious awareness” (Devito)
Eye communication was observed during their encounter. According to Devito, “the messages communicated by the eye vary depending on the duration, direction, and quality of the eye behavior”.
The purpose of Dina’s eye contact with Page is “to signal the nature of the relationship.” She used the less extreme way of asserting her position as the more “responsible” sibling through visual dominance behavior (Devito).
Her way of meeting her Page can be considered as a form of dominant greeting. Dominant greeting through eyes is done by “prolonged, unblinking eye contact or alternatively prevent eye contact” (ChangingMinds.org, 2008).
On the other hand, Page’s eye avoidance could either mean she lacks interest in Dina or she tried to cut off the unpleasant sight of her sister (Devito). Though her eye communication didn’t necessarily mean that she is submissive, her head movement speaks otherwise.
ChangingMinds.org included head down in the list of submissive body language. “Lowering the head also lowers the eyes and hence can be a sign of submission. It could also be driven by affection or fear.”
Dina and Page also used silence for different possible purposes. Silence could be a way of hurting the other person. In a conflict, remaining silent serves as a kind of punishment. It could also hurt others when it is used in refusing to acknowledge the presence of other person.
Silence is also a way of preventing communication of certain topics. It is used to prevent certain topics from “surfacing and to prevent one or both parties from saying things that they may later regret.” It is also used “to communicate emotional responses”.
Silence also could mean uncooperativeness, defiance of other people’s authority or position, refusal to engage in verbal communication, and annoyance. Silence could simply mean that they have nothing to say to each other (Devito).
Using Rogers-Millar and Farace’s analysis of relational communication, Dina’s movement is to gain power over her sister while Page’s movement defers to another. “One-up communication is movement to gain control of the exchange. One-down communication is movement to yield control of the exchange” (Griffin). These movements are signified by the arrows ( ↑ ) and ( ↓ ) respectively.
“Family systems are highly resistant to change” (Griffin). Dina’s role as the “responsible” sibling and Page as the “problem” serves as the status quo in the system. Interactional View predicts that if any part of the system changes, the whole system will also change. These changes could be of any possibility, either for the good of both siblings or to worsen their conflict.
In resolving their conflict, “fixing” Page will not alter the system. As one of the proposition of communication systems states that “Systems are organized wholes.” Thus, we cannot understand Page if “fixing” her will be done in isolation. “Problem person” should be assisted by other members of the family (Wood).
Going back to Watkins’ definition of conflict, parties have the following action alternatives: to obtain mutually desired objective; to end the conflict; to invoke sanctions against the opponent; and to communicate something to the opponent.
In doing any of these alternatives, parties will either increase or diminish their resources. According to Watkins, conflict will only end if “each party is satisfied that he or she has won or lost or believes that the probable cost of continuing the conflict outweigh the probable costs of ending the conflict.”
A communication-based theory of relational conflict known as the Attribution Theory of Conflict is also useful in analyzing the situation of Dina and Page. This theory was developed by Alan Sillars.
The theory is based on the idea that how a person deals with a conflict depends on how he or she place the blame. Attribution is defined as “inferences that made about the causes of behavior.”
The theory has three general strategies designed to avoid or minimize conflict, to win in a conflict and to achieve mutual positive outcomes for both parties. Sillars simply categorize these three as avoidance behaviors, competitive behaviors, and cooperative behaviors.
It is further explained that “avoidance behaviors employ no communication or indirect communication. Competitive behaviors involve negative messages, and cooperative behaviors entail more open and positive communication.”
Indications of avoidance behaviors are denial and equivocation, topic management, noncommittal remarks, and irreverent remarks. Indications of cooperative behaviors are analytic remarks and conciliatory remarks. Competitive behaviors are indicated by confrontative remarks (Littlejohn).
Page’s behavior can be considered as avoidance. It’s because she is just taking their conflict lightly. She is avoiding confrontations by leaving the apartment. However, Dina’s behavior is competitive. She practiced “hostile joking and sarcasm, hostile imperatives and personal criticism” against Page.
But both of them deny the responsibility of causing the conflict. They blame the other and this is one of the indications of competitive behavior.
Sillars believes that these attributions are significant in defining and predicting the outcomes of the conflict. “Individuals’ attributions in a conflict determine what sorts of strategies they will choose to deal with the conflict” (Littlejohn).
In the case of the siblings, they blame each other. They also find negative traits about each other. Dina finds Page as irresponsible and inconsiderate while Page finds her younger sister as meddler and overly righteous. Thus, they tend to be competitive and cooperate less.
If we are going to base the prediction of Dina and Page’s situation, their conflict will worsen since according to the theory, “competitive strategies escalate the conflict and may lead to less satisfying solutions” (Littlejohn).
