Essay On Conflict And Self Esteem

Conflict is a normal and natural part of life, something we have all experienced and will continue to experience throughout our lives. Interpersonally, conflict is defined as, “an expressed struggle between interdependent parties who perceive incompatible goals, scarce resources, and interference from one another,” (Floyd 343). Since perception is a key term in this definition, it seems natural that there would be a correlation between conflict and our perceptions of ourselves, i.e. our self-esteem. In fact, an abundance of research is available to prove there is certainly a correlation between conflict and self-esteem. Two of my sources, one written by de Man, et al, and the other by Kiviruusu, et al, agreed there is a negative correlation between self-esteem and conflict, meaning, if one goes up, the other goes down. Conversely another …show more content…
If we feel inadequate, it may create a source of interpersonal conflict, opposed to how feeling confident and self-assured may ease interpersonal strains. Anton de Man, et al, set out to prove or disprove this hypothesis by studying the relationships between self-esteem and interpersonal conflict, emotional exhaustion, and psychological strain in teenagers (ages 14-18). Their findings provided that teenagers who had high self-esteem reported experiencing less interpersonal conflict, emotional exhaustion, and psychological strain (249). These finding were deciphered and explained in the simple terms that those with higher self-esteem felt better equipped and prepared to handle stressful or intense circumstances (250). This conclusion suggests that those with low self-esteem do not feel prepared and therefore perceive more threat, and are more likely to turn threatening situations into conflicts compared to high self-esteem