What do You Believe About Conflict Fighting Roommates Discussion

The Caseof the Fighting Roommates

I’d like you to please read the case study and the instructions below.

Whether you have a roommate by choice or necessity, getting along with the person/people who share your living space is essential. While having a roommate offers many benefits, such as making a new friend, having someone to experience a unique situation like college life, and splitting the cost on your own, there are challenges. Some common roommate conflicts involve neatness, noise, having guests, sharing possessions, value conflicts, money conflicts, and personality conflicts.

James and Ryan share an apartment. After reading their story, could you decide whether their pairing was a match or a mismatch and what advice you can give them to handle their conflicts properly?

James likes to rise early and enrolls in 8:00 a.m. classes. He works a part-time job. Ryan wants to sleep in, as he has a heavy late afternoon and evening course load and works until 2 am. James likes a quiet place to study. Ryan loves to read with his expensive speakers blasting music. Ryan is a neat freak. Ryan leaves his things where he happens to drop them.

As roommates, James and Ryan shared a relationship that could be described as tenuous at best until…It was about 2:00 a.m. James had been asleep for about three hours. Ryan arrived home and immediately turned on his music — it was blaring so loud that it virtually knocked James out of bed. James yelled at Ryan to turn the speakers off and put his headset on. Ryan yelled back at James to get a life. James was so angry that he hurled a book across the room; it hit the ceiling and set off the fire alarm. As the fire truck arrived, Ryan and James began to wonder if they might consider alternatives to screaming and throwing things at each other.

INSTRUCTIONS:

Length: Your responses should each be at least one paragraph (3 sentences in length) per discussion question.

For total points: Respond to two class members (2 to 3 sentences in length for each response).

Please be respectful; if not, your post will be deleted, and you will not receive credit.

Please do the following and then respond to the questions below. Once you respond to the questions, post your responses.

After you post your answers, you can respond to your classmates.

Before responding to the discussion questions, please complete the steps below:

Step 1 – Read the article – What do You Believe about Conflict?

Step 2 – Take the Conflict Style Assessment, score it, and read the information on your conflict style and what animal your style matches.

Step 3 – Watch the videoon Conflict Resolution Techniques.

Step 4 – Watch the Ted Talk – How Not to Take Things Personally

QUESTIONS:

1. After reading the case study, the article What Do You Believe and Conflict, and watching the video on Conflict Resolution Techniques?

a) What have you learned to help Ryan and James understand the best approach to resolving their conflict?

b) Please address if you think Ryan and James will survive a year together.

2. In the article What do You Believe About Conflict. Share one myth that you relate to and why.

3. After taking the Conflict Style Assessment, share your preferred conflict style and its associated animal.

a) Does the preferred style reflect how you see yourself in conflict?

b) Is there another style you would like to work on?

4. From the TedTalk How Not to Take Things Personally.

a) Share something you think you take personally and share an idea or concept from the talk that can help you better deal with not personalizing things.

b) What did the speaker mean when he said, “You can choose to be right or happy.” How can this be applied to your relationship with others?