Conflict in Cyberspace: How to Resolve Conflict Online
Kali Munro, M.Ed., Psychotherapist

Have you ever noticed how conflict can get blown out of proportion
online? What may begin as a small difference of opinion, or
misunderstanding, becomes a major issue very quickly. Conflict can be
difficult at the best of times, but what is it about online
communication that seems to ignite "flaming" and make conflicts more
difficult to resolve? 

There are a number of reasons to explain why conflict may be heightened
online. One is the absence of visual and auditory cues. When we talk to
someone in person, we see their facial expressions, their body language,
and hear their tone of voice. Someone can say the exact same thing in a
number of different ways, and that usually effects how we respond. 

For example, someone could shout and shake their finger at you, or they
could speak gently and with kindness. They could stand up and tower over
you, or they could sit down beside you. How you feel, interpret, and
respond to someone's message often depends on how they speak to you,
even when it's a difficult message to hear. 

In online communications, we have no visual or auditory cues to help us
to decipher the intent, meaning, and tone of the messenger. All we have
are the words on a computer screen, and how we hear those words in our
head. While people who know each other have a better chance at
accurately understanding each others' meaning and intentions, even they
can have arguments online that they would not have in-person.

Projections and Transference

While many people are convinced that how they read an email is the only
way it can be read, the truth is, how we read a text, or view a work of
art, often says more about ourselves than it does about the message or
the messenger. 

All of our communications, online and in real-time, are filled with
projections. We perceive the world through our expectations, needs,
desires, fantasies, and feelings, and we project those onto other
people. For example, if we expect people to be critical of us, we
perceive other people's communication as being critical - it sounds
critical to us even though it may not be. We do the same thing online;
in fact we are more likely to project when we are online precisely
because we don't have the visual or auditory cues to guide us in our
interpretations. How we "hear" an email or post is how we hear it in our
own heads, which may or may not reflect the tone or attitude of the
sender. 

We usually can't know from an email or post alone whether someone is
shouting, using a criticizing tone, or speaking kindly. Unless the tone
is clearly and carefully communicated by the messenger, and/or we are
very skilled at understanding text and human communication, we most
likely hear the voice we hear, or create in our head and react to that.
This is one of the reasons why controversial or potentially conflictual
issues are best dealt with by using great care and explicit expressions
of our tone, meaning, and intent. 

Where do projections come from? They come from our life experiences -
how we've been treated, how important figures in our lives have behaved,
how we felt growing up, how we responded and coped, etc. All of us
project or transfer our feelings and views of important figures in our
lives onto other people. 

To take a look at your own projections or transference with people
online, think back to the last time you felt angry at someone online.
What was it about them or their email that made you so angry? What did
you believe that they were doing to you or someone else? How did you
react internally and externally? Was your reaction to this person
(whether spoken or not) influenced by someone or something from your
past? While it certainly happens that people are treated with disrespect
and anger online, if there are any parallels between this experience and
any of your past experiences, it's likely that how you felt and
responded was coloured by your past. When our past is involved,
particularly when we are unaware of it happening, we invariably project
and transfer old feelings onto the present situation.

More at:

http://www.kalimunro.com/article_conflict_online.html

~(^^)~

Avelino

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