Interpersonal Causes of Stress

Stress is often the by-product of conflicts amongst peers, family or colleagues. Such types of conflicts are referred to as interpersonal conflicts. These types of conflicts take away the cohesiveness that would be otherwise seen in a group situation and thus, cause stress amongst the members of the group.

This type of a conflict is seen in almost every setting, be it home, work or even a place as casual as a leisure club or cafeteria! However, the extent to which the stress is felt depends upon the role played by each participant. Thus, this conflict can be invoked on one way or two way lines.

For example, person A may feel a sense of conflict with person B, but person B may not even be aware of it. In another situation, both A and B may feel the conflict.

Thus, stress may be felt depending upon how active a person is in the state of conflict. Usually, the person who holds grudges feels a lot of stress and so does the person against whom the grudges are held.

The extent of this feeling of stress also depends upon how involved a person really is. However, if a conflict is one-way, it might result in a state of stress for the person against whom a conflict is felt.

Such type of stress would then be called as 'perceived stress'. It is imperative that the cause of conflict be removed in order to do away with interpersonal conflict. The immediate consequence would be that the levels of stress would reduce manifold.

The resolution of such a conflict starts with the step called 'originate'. It refers to a process in which each person makes a mention of the other person's problem behavior. However, what one person may perceive as a problem will not be a cause for worry for another one.

An effort is made to collect all the 'problem causers' leading to stress. The next step is 'validate' where each person is notified about the kind of problems faced in the group. The participating members are encouraged to give their feedback indicating a sense of agreement or disagreement to the collective opinion. Such an opinion is usually made based on each person's expectations.

The third step is to ' negotiate'. Here the 'warring parties' are brought together and an attempt is made to conciliate. The aim is to reach a common agreement so that both the parties feel that their interests are met. It is only then that the feeling of resentment would disappear.

The next step is to communicate to the participating members about the outcomes of the entire conflict resolution process. An attempt may be made to suggest changes to the conclusions so that the decisions taken are willingly accepted. Since these are mutually agreed upon decisions, the participating members are happy and stress is reduced.