This document discusses various types of conflicts, including intrapersonal, interpersonal, conscious vs unconscious, and implicit vs explicit conflicts. It also describes strategies for dealing with conflicts, such as avoiding, facing, reconciling, negotiating, and fighting. Reconciling involves finding mutual concessions through negotiation or mediation. Fighting is used for non-negotiable conflicts and aims to establish a winner and loser. While some conflicts seem non-negotiable, there may always be room for negotiation if the relationship is to be preserved. Cultural conflicts concern opposing value systems and beliefs.

1. COllaborative Management Platform for
detection and Analyses of (Re-) emerging
and foodborne outbreaks in Europe
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CONFLICTS AND COMMUNICATION
COMPARE WP10 - Teaching material

2. CONFLICTS
• Broadly speaking,
conflicts are any
situation where two or
more interests are
mutually antagonistic.
Interests are
antagonistic when the
achievement of one or
more of them prevents
the achievement of the
others.

3. INTRA PERSONAL
• According to the agent involved,
conflicts can be intrapersonal, also
called intrapsychic (between
contrasting interests or values in the
same agent)

4. INTER PERSONAL
• or interpersonal (between different
interests or values carried by different
agents, which can be individuals, or
larger group of people such as
communities or nations).

5. CONSCIOUS -
UNCONSCIOUS
• Intrapersonal conflicts can be conscious
or unconscious, according to the fact that
the agent is or is not aware of the
existence of the inner conflict.

6. IMPLICIT-EXPLICIT
• Interpersonal conflicts
can be explicit or
implicit, according to
the fact that those
who carry antagonistic
interests claim or do
not claim that their
interests are
antagonistic.

7. CONFLICTS CAN HAVE
POSITIVE FUNCTIONS
• Conflicts are frequently
viewed as necessarily
carrying negative
consequences. On the
contrary, even if they can
be destructive, more often
they are vital and positive.
Conflicts may lead to a
closer examination of
issues, and assessment of
situations. They can result
in creative and new
resolutions.

8. OPEN AND
HIDDEN
AGENDA
• Dealing with conflicts
always includes two set of
factors:
• The open agenda: the
interests that are
manifestly in contrast.
• The hidden agenda:
the underlying issues.
They can drive the
conflict and almost
always they must be
identified and settled in
order to achieve a final
resolution of a conflict.

9. NATURE AND
OUTCOME
• Conflicts can be also
classified according to:
• Their nature (psychological,
social, economic, cultural,
ethical, etc);
• Their possible outcome
(negotiable or non-
negotiable conflicts)

10. DEALING WITH
CONFLICTS
• There are only two
ways to deal with a
conflict: to face it or to
avoid it; but there are
several strategies to do
both.

11. Avoiding
conflicts
• Avoiding a conflict means to try to get rid
from it without solving it. This is rarely the
best option, because the conflict, when it
is not resolved, very often recurs or
manifests itself in another manner.
• If conflicts are actual, that is to say that
the interests involved are really
antagonistic, avoiding them means very
often to let them to aggravate, both in the
intrapersonal and in the interpersonal
sphere. Yet, when avoiding is just a way to
postpone conflicts, waiting for the time
more opportune to confront them, this
can be a sensible strategy.

12. Avoiding conflicts
• One should therefore
distinguish between:
• Denial: this option is
generally dangerous
because it usually
makes the conflict to
become more serious
and to explode out of
any control;
• Ignorance: it can be
acceptable in certain
situations, when the
conflict is not of great
importance to one or
all parties, or when the
parties are not
expected to have
future relationship.

13. Facing conflicts
• Facing a conflict means
to look for a solution,
namely to decide how
to cope with
antagonistic interests
trying to achieve the
best possible outcome
for at least one of the
party. There are several
strategies of conflict
solving, which can be all
categorised under two
major headings:

14. Reconciliating
• The alternative way to solve
conflicts is to find a
reconciliation, also called “win-
win approach”. A reconciliation is
any settlement of conflicts
reached by mutual concessions.
To find a reconciliation does not
exclude some adjudicative
instances or some use of power,
but it occurs in the context of
agreed rules and without
destroying the relationship
between the agents involved. The
theory underlies reconciliation is
that conflicts can be modified in
order to allow interests not to
clash any more.

15. Negotiating
• Reconciliation includes
many kinds of conflict
settlements, some more
formalised, and some less.
Generally speaking they can
be categorised according to
a simple criterion, that is
whether the reconciliation
process is based on the
intervention of a neutral
party. When agents of the
conflict meet to find a
settlement without any
external intervention, one
speaks of direct
negotiation; when they
meet in presence of a
neutral party, one speaks of
mediation.

16. Fighting
• The fight response, also called “win-lose
approach”. It occurs when there are non-
negotiable conflicts. Non-negotiable
conflicts are conflicts that cannot be solved
through compromises but must be
removed. The theory that underlies the
win-lose approach is that when one faces a
non-negotiable conflict there is no chance,
but to establish who is right and who is
wrong, or who is more powerful and who is
weaker. The criminal justice system is an
example of the win-lose approach in
conflicts between individuals, while war is
in conflicts between nations.

17. Room for
negotiation
• Yet it is arguable that absolute non-
negotiable conflicts may exist. In real life
there is always some room for negotiation,
and to decide that a conflict is non-
negotiable seems more an ethical and
political choice rather than an objective
evaluation. The win-lose approach destroys
the relationship, so that when one aims at
solving the conflict saving the relationship,
one should recur to different strategies.

18. Mediation
• Mediation is any
process in which a
third party neutral,
whether one person,
or more, acts as a
facilitator to assist in
solving a conflict
between individuals,
and/or communities,
even nations, through
reconciliation.

19. CULTURAL
CONFLICTS
• Conflicts which concern values and
interests related to beliefs, system of
beliefs, values, social norms, rituals,
symbols, attitudes, and perception

20. CONFLICTS BETWEEN
VALUE SYSTEMS
• Conflicts between antagonistic values
can hardly be solved building a consensus.
• The goal of mediation is to govern these
conflicts rather than to promote
reconciliation.

21. Vax vs. No-Vax
Conflicts
• Interpersonal
• Explicit
• Must be faced
• Negotiable?
• Non-negotiable?
• Do they need
mediation?
• Are they cultural
conflicts?

22. Final
recommendations
• Always search for a win-win solution
• Make explicit the hidden agenda
• Always consider mediation
• Always consider the possibility of
governing conflicts when they are
hardly resolvable

23. Thank you for your attention