When people disagree on an issue, there are several possible routes they can take. Some might avoid it altogether (either by putting off the discussion or just agreeing with the other person in order to end the conversation). But, as you see in the pictures, it's not for everyone — others believe they need to actively resolve the matter.
In that case, they have a choice between being competitive or cooperative.
"Cooperative resolution means that people are seeking some kind of middle ground," explains Art Markman, Ph.D., and Annabel Irion Worsham Centennial Professor of Psychology and Marketing at the University of Texas at Austin. "Competitive resolution means that people are trying to convince the other person to change their belief."
Many factors lead people to take a cooperative or competitive stance when dealing with a disagreement. For instance, the personality characteristic of openness reflects how willing we are to consider new ideas, and people high in openness are more likely to be cooperative than those who are low in openness.
The characteristic of agreeableness reflects how much people want to get along with others — agreeable people are also more likely to seek a compromise than disagreeable people.
Markman also suggests a paper by Kimberly Rios, Kenneth DeMarree, and Johnathan Statzer in the July 2014 issue of Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin to better understand what affects our tendency to be cooperative or competitive.
Turns out, people's certainty about their beliefs can be broken down into two components: clarity and correctness. Clarity determines if we are sure about what we believe. Each of us has some beliefs that we hold deeply and others to which we are not as firmly attached. Correctness focuses on whether we think our belief is 'correct' in some broader cultural context or not.
The authors suggested that the more strongly people believe their attitude is correct, the more competitive they will be in their discussions with others. (Interestingly, they did not assume that clarity would be as strongly related to competitiveness.)
"Being certain of your attitude can affect whether you try to convince other people that you are right," Markman writes. "In particular, the more strongly you believe that your attitude is the right one, the more you will focus on convincing others."
"That also means that if you find yourself in conflict with others on a regular basis, you might want to evaluate whether you generally assume that your attitudes are the correct ones."
Manners mentor Maralee McKee finds it sad that sometimes, when people speak, their words seem more spit out than thought out.
"Stories abound, and it has happened to me, about being called out in person in front of family members, coworkers, friends, and anybody and everybody else for minor things, from incorrectly quoting a movie line, to saying something happened on a Tuesday when it occurred on a Wednesday, to getting the name wrong of the restaurant an incident occurred in while telling a great story," she says.
