How people evaluate, and deal with, interpersonal task- and relationship-focused conflicts.

The study focuses on conflicts - often a source of extreme emotions. People (N 128) narrated personal conflict events (E) following 5 prompt questions: 1. what happened, with whom, why, how E ended, 2. whether the E protagonist P talked about E with others and why, 3. if P reflected on E, what thoughts P had, 4. if P shared E, did the sharing make P change the appraisal of E, and how, 5. if P reflected on E, did P change the appraisal, of E and how. The results obtained from content analysing the narratives showed that the majority of conflicts, both task- and relationship-focused, involving work-related and personal-life domains, were not solved when they happened (44%), or ended with pseudo solutions (e.g., silence 12%, fictitious solution 11%); 8% led to a relationship break. Although most people shared E (88%), to vent emotions (35%) or get someone else's perspective (55%), only a minority changed their evalutation of E (43%). Likewise, most people thought back on E after it ended (94%), but only a few modified their evalutation (30%) - if so, because P empathised with the opponent, or saw its own behaviour as inadequate. Explicit mention of specific emotions was unfrequent - except for anger, but only in about 25% of E. In sum, the results show that an indirect and dynamic approach, that exploits personal narratives, is helpful to understand causes and effects of intense emotions.