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Activities and Discussion Questions
Chapter 8
Interpersonal Negotiation
Activities and Discussion Questions
Dialogue: The Wedding Fight
Overview
This sample conversation titled “The Wedding Fight” can be used for at least four of the
activities given below. However, as an instructor, you may want to use the dialogue in other
chapters to highlight the additional concepts discussed in the chapter.
Process
Distribute a copy of the dialogue to students. Read the dialogue aloud and/or assign the students
for Handling Your Anger,” (3) Wilmot’s “Guide for Handling Others’ Anger,” and (4) Wilmot’s
“How to Bring Up Issues Constructively.”
“The Wedding Fight”
Background
Kyle and Kelly have been dating for three years. They’ve recently become engaged, and they are
planning their upcoming wedding, which is one month away.
Kelly: Hey, guess what! We got our wedding invitations today. We can write up our final guest
list and mail them out this weekend.
Kyle: I thought you were doing that.
Kelly: You thought I was doing that? You always say that you’re going to help, but when it
Activities and Discussion Questions
Kyle: You know it’s finals, and I have to study. I just don’t have the time.
Kelly: So what do you think I’ve been doing, sitting on my backside? Besides, since when did
you decide to become such a serious student?
Kyle: (under his breath) Here we go again. More like my mother every day.
Kyle: Cold, totally disconnected.
Kelly: How am I cold?
Kyle: Like it takes a genius to figure it out.
Kelly: You don’t care about this wedding at all. Do you even care about me at all?
Kyle: That’s ridiculous. You’re right—I couldn’t care less about the wedding. It’s the wedding
Kyle: What do you mean? We haven’t gone to a football game for the last two weekends because
of all this wedding planning!
Kelly: (sarcastically) Well, aren’t you the perfect martyr. You’ve given up so much for me. I’m
impressed!
Kyle: (exasperated, but resigned) You know what—just tell me what to do, and I’ll do it. I’ll
Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 10e
Kelly: You could start by picking out your tux.
Kyle: I did. You didn’t like it. Big shocker there.
Kelly: What do you expect me to say about a white tux—nobody wears white tuxes anymore.
Kyle: Well, I like it, and that’s what I’m going to wear.
questions given below. Have the students work in dyads or small groups. Have the students share
their analyses with their group members. Then, have one person from each group present its
report to the entire class. Facilitate the class discussion, incorporating as many student responses
as possible. Incorporate the terminology from the chapter, and clarify students’ questions as
much as possible.
1. Discuss the role of anger in this conversation.
a. Evaluate Kelly’s expression of anger. How could she have expressed her anger more
2. Identify the “rules” in this conversation or relationship. According to Shimanoff’s format,
3. Give one example of how you could help either Kyle or Kelly reframe his or her
interpretation of the other.
4. Describe and briefly illustrate two principles of interpersonal nonviolence that Kelly and
Kyle could have used to personally intervene in their conflict.
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Activities and Discussion Questions
Wrap-Up
Identify some strategies for managing anger effectively (actions that both Kelly and Kyle could
take to better manage the other person’s anger). Then, discuss the potential obstacles for
achieving those goals. At the end of the discussion, ask the students to assess the usefulness of
these tools in really heated conflicts. Real-life conflict isn’t always as easy as the “lists” make it
seem, and the students may want to discuss this.
Bringing Up Issues Constructively
William Wilmot, The Collaboration Institute
Guidelines for the Person Who Puts Issues on the Table
1. Prepare yourself.
• Bring up an issue only if you are willing to become more involved with the other
2. Use positive language.
• State your concerns as suggestions or requests rather than demands on the other
person.
• Speak about the specific behaviors, rather than what you think are the other person’s
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 10e
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• Take a moment to realize that this is an opportunity for you to better understand how your
words and actions are experienced by another person.
• Realize that you may be uncomfortable and somewhat disorganized during this
conversation.
• Try to hear this confrontation as constructive criticism of your words and actions, and not
as a putdown of who you are.
Questions
1. Which of these suggestions could Kelly and Kyle use to manage their issues? Write a
sample dialogue for what they might say as alternatives to what they did say.
2. Use these suggestions to construct a scenario and a sample conversation for bringing up an
important issue to someone in your personal or professional life.
Family Meetings: Another Way to Manage Conflict
Overview
Often, students can find useful tips for managing their conflicts in the workplace. However,
when significant issues arise within their families, they often have difficulty applying the same
conflict principles to these issues. One way that students can apply their conflict-management
principles to manage their family conflicts is by addressing their family conflicts in the same
Process
Ask students to write about a current or a past family conflict. They can work in dyads or groups
of three to four members each to answer the following questions.
1. Describe what a meeting in the workplace looks like.
a. What is/was the setting of the meeting?
b. What are/were the reasons for the meeting?
e. What is/was the agenda for the meeting?
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Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 10e
f. What are/were the rules or norms of the meeting?
g. What are/were the action steps for the meeting?
2. Contrast between a workplace meeting and a family meeting. What issues might be
3. Construct a process for a family meeting.
a. What would be the setting of the meeting?
4. Ask students to construct specific messages for specific contexts. Ask their partners and/or
group members to provide feedback for these messages. You may have them role-play the
actual scenarios to help them prepare for the “real” situation. (This will depend upon the
comfort level of the students.)
Principled Negotiation in Action
Overview
As the semester comes to an end, you may be willing to apply the concept principled negotiation
to the test in your classroom. Students often feel the burden of extra course work at the end of the
semester, and if you already have a large number of group or individual assignments that are due
at the end of the semester, they may be vocal about their concerns on a final exam. One way to
show students how principled negotiation can really work in a scenario—and have them come to
understand it from the inside out—is to have the students work on an actual issue that is of great
importance to them. This activity suggests that you negotiate with them about the format and the
structure of their final exam for the course.
Process
First: Solicit feedback from students about the pressures that they may or may not be feeling
about the end of the semester. Allow them to talk about how the loads from their other courses,
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Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 10e
them, and read the suggestions aloud to the class.
Next: Review the materials on negotiation and bargaining, and indicate that you are willing to
engage with them in a negotiation about the final exam if they are willing to adhere to the
guidelines of principled negotiation as identified in the text.
Review the four basic principles and the steps associated with principled negotiation. You may
want to distribute the attached handout.
Divide the class into groups, and ask the groups to assess the interests and positions of all the
parties to the negotiation by asking the following questions.
Questions
• What is the problem to be addressed? Format? Investment of time?
• What are your interests? My interests?
• Invent options for mutual gain—suggestions?
• Insist on objective criteria—how will we know if it is a good decision?
• What are your goals for the negotiation?
• What are your interests in the negotiation?
conversation to your students, and ask them to discuss the ways in which imbalances of power
among the parties in this negotiation affect the negotiation. You can also discuss with them the
extent to which you are open to being persuaded in the negotiation and the extent to which you
will retain the right to alter the outcome unilaterally in the negotiation (this might not be a good
idea if you really want them to engage in the negotiation process).
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Activities and Discussion Questions
If you have a short class period, you may decide to have the negotiation in another class period.
In such a case, collect and review the proposals from all the groups, and make and distribute
copies among the groups so that each group will have the opportunity to review them before the
next meeting. You may choose to have a couple of the students serve as facilitators of the
discussion, rather than facilitating it yourself to help balance the power in the negotiation.
• How did each party’s position change over the course of the negotiation?
• What kinds of creative solutions were generated in the negotiation? Who introduced them?
Does that matter?
• What are the objective criteria by which we can evaluate the effectiveness of this
negotiated agreement?
• What would be different if you tried to have this kind of negotiation in another context?
How might you take what you have learned in this experience and apply it elsewhere?
Julie’s notes to the instructors: I’ve also successfully used this negotiation process in the first
week of class regarding an attendance policy, but I didn’t reveal what it was called until the
activity was completed. Then, when you study it in class, you can refer back to the negotiation
process and try it again with the final exam, or you could just use it once (either time).
Primary challenge: If you really want this process to work as it’s designed, as the instructor,
you must be absolutely clear about what you need or want as the topic of the negotiation (final
exam or attendance policy). Additionally, you must be truly open to hearing what the students
have to say and be willing to change your stance in the negotiation process, if necessary. It’s