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Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 9e IM-38
© 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
How to Deal with Your Anger
William W. Wilmot, Collaboration Institute
Read the below list of guidelines for managing anger. See Activity Directions below. *
1. Notice your anger and say to yourself or out loud, “I am angry.”
2. Take several deep breaths. Take that short time to think about what you will do next.
3. Think about anger in this situation–would others get angry? Do you have a choice in your
anger? What are those choices?
4. Look for the feeling underneath your anger. Begin with fear. Ask yourself three times,
“What am I afraid of here?”
5. Figure out ways to deal with that fear or other underlying feelings. Ask yourself, “What do I
really want?”
6. If you want something from the other person, ask for it instead of blaming or accusing him.
7. Practice new behaviors:
• Listen more carefully
• Use I-messages instead of blaming or accusing
• Ask for what you want, and for more information
• Stay connected to the other person
• Continue to do “self-talk”
• Breathe deeply to stay calm
*Activity Directions: Use the preceding/following set (on the next page) of questions to analyze
(a) “The Wedding Fight” (Chapter 8 Activities) or (b) a difficult, angry conversation students
have experienced themselves.
OR….
You can use it for any of the dialogue in the Instructor’s Manual, students’ actual conversations,
or clips from movies.
Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 9e IM-39
© 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
How to Deal with the Anger of Others
William Wilmot, Collaboration Institute
1. Try to figure out what the person might be afraid of.
2. It’s okay to say, “Hey, I don’t like being on the defensive here.”
3. Ask for more information instead of shutting the other person off. Say, “Tell me more about
that,” or, “I didn’t know you thought that. Tell me how you came to think that.”
4. Open up more channels of communication—phone, face-to-face contact, more notes, more
meetings.
5. Ask what the other person needs or wants. Try to solve the problem.
6. Work toward common goals–things you both can agree on.
7. Listen careful to what the other person says. Say in your own words what you think he or
she said.
8. Ask if the other person will listen to you, too.
9. Never say, "You shouldn't be angry." Feelings are facts, too.
10. Say over and over that you expect that you will be able to work this out together.
11. Ask for suggestions for solving the problem together. Give ideas yourself.
12. End with, “I want to keep this from happening again. What can be done to learn from
today?”
Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 9e IM-40
© 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Chapter 7: Mapping Your Conflicts
Activities and Discussion Questions
Brief Systems Analysis (Application 7.1 in the text)
Ask students to respond to Application 7.1 in the text prior to coming to class. They are to bring
their paragraph about the group and should have thought about the questions ahead of time, but
are not required to have a written response to them.
In class, review the six principles of systems and ask students to identify how each principle
comes into play in their own groups or systems. Use the experiences and expertise of the
students to help articulate the ways in which the theoretical principles that underlie systems
theory are present in their lived experience.
You may choose to have a full class discussion of each principle, or to divide the class into six
groups and have each group relate their assigned principle to their personal systems and then
report back to the class how the principle is lived in practice.
Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 9e IM-41
© 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Coalitions
Have students draw a diagram of their family, workplace or a school group. After reviewing the
principles of coalition formation, ask the students to work in groups of 3-4 to discuss their
diagrams in relation to those principles.
Discussion questions
1. What are your patterns?
2. Are you the communicator?
3. What are the downsides of being attached to your older sister? Or being the Mom? Or being
“caught in the middle?” Or being the “isolate”
4. How have coalitions shifted in your family, work, or school group over time? How do
members of the system adapt to physical and emotional change with respect to coalitions?
An additional activity for coalitions would be to analyze the sample conversation on the next
page, called the “After the Party Fight!” This dialogue may look familiar, as it is also located in
the Chapter 7 Test Bank. Finally, the dialogue could be used to analyze many concepts
throughout the text (power, destructive moves, name calling, TRIP, systems, styles,
forgiveness—just about anything really!)
Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 9e IM-42
© 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Sample Conversation
“After the Party”
Dan: That was a blast!
Sarah: (stony silence)
Dan: (raising his voice) I SAID that was a great party!
Sarah: I BET you had a good time. I’m sure the 17 women you
danced with had a great time, too.
Dan: Oh, I get it. You’re pouting. Is that it—You’re pouting,
aren’t you? Well, at least you’re consistent, since that’s what
you were doing all night anyway.
Sarah: I had to do SOMETHING with while you’re making a
complete ass of yourself!
Dan: Look who’s talking. You’re such a loser at parties, no
wonder no one wants to dance with you.
Sarah: I’m not a loser. I’ve told you a thousand times that
parties like that aren’t for people like me, but you never
listen. I don’t like parties because you drink too much, and I
can’t stand your friends either. When you’re with them, you
make me totally miserable.
Dan: At least I have some friends. You’d have some, too, if
you didn’t hang around Christine all the time. You’re always on
my case about how I screw everything up around the house. You
think I’m an idiot.
Sarah: How could you screw things up at the house—You’re never
home! You’ve been saying for 6 months that you’re going to
clean out the garage, but you never do. It’s either fantasy
baseball all summer or hunting every weekend in the fall.
Dan: You know why I hunt all the time? Because the animals are
more fun than you are. And they don’t go looking for fights for
no good reason.
Sarah: This isn’t a fight. It’s a discussion. And I hardly
went looking for it.
Dan: Yeah, good one. And I bet you didn’t pick out that $500
worth of clothes you’ve been hiding in the closet for the last
week either?
Activities and Discussion Questions
Hocker: Interpersonal Conflict, 9e IM-43
© 2014 by McGraw-Hill Education. This is proprietary material solely for authorized instructor use. Not authorized for sale or distribution in any
manner. This document may not be copied, scanned, duplicated, forwarded, distributed, or posted on a website, in whole or part.
Sarah: Whatever. Let’s just drop it. You’re drunk. I should
know better than to deal with you when you’re like this.
Dan: Now you want to drop it. You’ve been at me since we got in
the car. You brought it up—let’s talk about it. How, exactly,
do you think we’re going to pay for your little shopping spree.
We haven’t paid for the last one yet. Obviously, I’m not going
to get any help from you, since you’re the “struggling student”
with no job.
Sarah: How did you know about those clothes anyway? Besides, I
was going to take them back on Monday.
Dan: Christine told me.
Sarah: WHAT!?!?!? You are such a jerk. And she’s a real piece
of work, that one, too. She’s the one who said I should buy
them in the first place.
Dan: Maybe she just finds me a little more interesting than
you. She probably felt sorry for you.
Sarah: That’s it. I’m done. I’m so over this. I’m getting my
own apartment
