the biggest sources of conflict between individuals

[TinyBubbles]

derive from an inability to predict another person's behavior, correct? the more you can predict it, the better you get along with them. if you can 'read' a person quickly, you can tactfully enter into a mode of conversation which they'll be receptive to, and which would smooth over any discrepancies between both individuals' line of thinking, which would otherwise potentially escalate into conflict. i was wondering, you know, how personal appearances and stereotypes factor into this. how the meek, shy person who smiles at you everyday can have sadistic thoughts and be unkind at heart, and how the loud, arrogant, verbally abusive person reveals through actions how he is really quite trustworthy. before we talk to someone, all we have is their image by which to judge them - to predict their behavior on, and to assume familiarity with their reactions - and if our stereotyping functions are off, ie. if we judge inappropriately or incorrectly, which i'm off the cuff guessing the MAJORITY of us do, our followup reactions to those incorrect thoughts will themselves be incorrect, and naturally because they don't reflect reality, they'll have a greater chance of causing unwanted conflict.
being open minded would be an obvious solution to this problem, but say you're in a sitation which does not allow that; you're restrained by time, an obligation to act, for instance. then you'd HAVE to use your limited, deviant stereotyping functions to enable you to deal with the other person properly, without offending them, and without compromising your own integrity or values.
just a thought!

 

[enfp can be shy]

The main point is that all such stereotypes for people are in reality not fixed, and could have developed very differently, in another environment. Also, the experimenter influences the experiment, very much. I don't know if this is supposed to follow directly from QM, or is it (more likely) just a property of the plasticity of the human brains. But the way you think about people influences very much how they behave in your presence, or even in indirect relation to you. And they may behave very differently in relation to other people. We shape and paint each other all the time, without even realizing it. That's why I think all extreme goodness feeds off of evilness, and needs to invent the evilness, in some way, in order to define itself as goodness. So, if we really would like less evilness around us, maybe we should lower a little our acquisition of goodness.

 

[slant]

Wouldn't acting polite and eating your words to everyone when you first meet them reduce the occurrence of this problem? This is what I do and it seems to work. I meet a lot of important people who I do not know what they are like; so I act in a very socially acceptable, polite and mellow-temperamental way until I figure out what they believe and such. If a person reacts badly to this, they are typically -wanting- to start a conflict so all hope is lost with that lot of people.

 

[IndigoSensor]

Yup. This is the case. There have been studies saying that people with high EIQ tend to have more harmonious relations with other human beings.

The fact of the matter is, some people are better at predicting behavior, and "reading" people then others. This skill alone though won't garuntee that conflict won't arise though. I know a few people who can read people easily, but they don't use that information to prevent conflict. If anything, they ignore it, and try to start conflicts that way.

I am going to be doting on myself a little here, but to get the point across, I have to. I can read people extremely easily. Depends on the person, but I can figure out the core of what a person is like in a matter of seconds (this is not always the case, some people it could take hours or more of direct interaction to get a core down). When I learn this, I know how to act around them. I am extremely conflict adverse, and will do pretty much anything to keep the peace. If you are able to read into what a persons core main personality is like, you can as such predict their behavior. You can see that doing or saying X will equate to them doing Y. In some people who have very touchy personalites, reading them, and thus predicting their behavior avoids conflict.

There are of course those people out there who try to start conflict on purpose. I have yet to meet a person who can elict a conflict response out of me for the purpose of arguing or fighting *knock on wood*. Predicting their behavior, by reading into them, can allow you to stave it off. I sort of pride myself in being able to disarm any debate or conflict that I see. I could not do that if I didn't read into people. It takes effort, but for me it is worth it. It is about keeping the peace. Honestly, conflict does not help all that much with anything.

Now, I also have to say that sometimes peoples external behaviors do not align with who they are truly are inside. However, there are still parallel lines. If I have to correct myself after I gauge the person, I often can see how such an inner personality quirk is the way that is, despite being less-than-intuitive. I have met only a very small number of people that I could count on one hand who have totally subverted what I assumed about them from the get go, even after corrections.

 

[Reon]

derive from an inability to predict another person's behavior, correct? the more you can predict it, the better you get along with them. if you can 'read' a person quickly, you can tactfully enter into a mode of conversation which they'll be receptive to, and which would smooth over any discrepancies between both individuals' line of thinking, which would otherwise potentially escalate into conflict. i was wondering, you know, how personal appearances and stereotypes factor into this. how the meek, shy person who smiles at you everyday can have sadistic thoughts and be unkind at heart, and how the loud, arrogant, verbally abusive person reveals through actions how he is really quite trustworthy. before we talk to someone, all we have is their image by which to judge them - to predict their behavior on, and to assume familiarity with their reactions - and if our stereotyping functions are off, ie. if we judge inappropriately or incorrectly, which i'm off the cuff guessing the MAJORITY of us do, our followup reactions to those incorrect thoughts will themselves be incorrect, and naturally because they don't reflect reality, they'll have a greater chance of causing unwanted conflict.
being open minded would be an obvious solution to this problem, but say you're in a sitation which does not allow that; you're restrained by time, an obligation to act, for instance. then you'd HAVE to use your limited, deviant stereotyping functions to enable you to deal with the other person properly, without offending them, and without compromising your own integrity or values.
just a thought!

I agree in a sense, most of the conflicts people have are over the inability to act in a manner they are expected too. I read people fairly well (and I sadly ignore my intuition more times than I should because I want to start conflicts) but if you want to make more friends and acquaintances in general, this is the way to go. I'm not sure about how this will make you feel though, after you get a reading of a person, you have to either adapt your personality to the person you are talking to or hope that your normal personality won't bother them.