Conflict Style
Compete, collaborate, compromise, avoid or accommodate?
Free, no account needed.
Conflict is any situation where what you want and what someone else wants seem incompatible: a deadline, a holiday, a budget, the washing-up. Researchers describe five broad ways of handling it, and everyone uses all five at times. This test finds the ones you reach for first.
You will choose between pairs of statements and decide what you would do in everyday situations at work, at home and with friends. Pick the option closest to what you would actually do, even if neither fits perfectly. There are no right answers: every mode is the best choice somewhere.
What it measures
Competing
Pursuing your own concerns firmly, using whatever influence you have to win the point.
Low: You rarely push hard for your own position, even when it might be warranted.
High: You readily stand your ground and press for the outcome you believe in.
Collaborating
Working with the other person to find a solution that fully satisfies both of you.
Low: You seldom invest the time to dig for a solution that gives both sides everything they need.
High: You treat conflicts as shared problems and dig for answers that work fully for both sides.
Compromising
Seeking a fair middle ground in which each side gives up something.
Low: You rarely settle for splitting the difference.
High: You look for fair trades and middle ground so everyone can move on.
Avoiding
Sidestepping, postponing or withdrawing from a conflict, at least for now.
Low: You tend to engage with conflicts rather than let them rest.
High: You often step back, wait or let matters drop rather than confront them.
Accommodating
Setting your own concerns aside to satisfy the other person's.
Low: You rarely give way just because something matters to the other person.
High: You readily yield to keep the peace or to give others what they need.
Assertiveness
Unassertive ↔ Assertive
How much you try to satisfy your own concerns in a conflict.
Unassertive: You tend to let your own concerns go, either to keep the peace or to stay out of it.
Assertive: You stand up for what you want and push for it.
Cooperativeness
Uncooperative ↔ Cooperative
How much you try to satisfy the other person's concerns in a conflict.
Uncooperative: The other person's concerns are not your main focus when you disagree.
Cooperative: You work to meet the other person's needs as well as, or instead of, your own.
Possible results
About this test
The model behind this test goes back to Robert Blake and Jane Mouton's managerial grid (1964), which placed ways of handling conflict on two axes. In the 1970s Kenneth Thomas and Ralph Kilmann reframed the axes as assertiveness (how much you try to satisfy your own concerns) and cooperativeness (how much you try to satisfy the other person's), giving five modes: competing (assertive and uncooperative), accommodating (unassertive and cooperative), avoiding (neither), collaborating (both) and compromising (in the middle). Their questionnaire, the Thomas-Kilmann Conflict Mode Instrument (TKI, a trademark of its publisher), is copyrighted; this independent test uses its own items. Dean Pruitt and Jeffrey Rubin developed a closely related dual-concern theory.
The key insight of the model is that no style is best. Competing protects what matters when a quick, firm decision is needed; collaborating finds the best outcome when both sides' concerns are too important to trade away; compromising settles things fairly when time is short; avoiding buys time or skips battles not worth fighting; accommodating preserves goodwill when the issue matters more to the other person. Trouble comes from using one mode everywhere.
This test scores each mode from twenty forced choices, ten everyday scenarios and four three-way dilemmas, and every answer also moves your position on the two axes. Scores are relative to the range of possible answers, not to population norms, and they show which modes you prefer, not how skilfully you use them. Your style may differ between work and home, and with different people.
References
- Blake, R. R. & Mouton, J. S. (1964). The Managerial Grid.
- Thomas, K. W. (1976). Conflict and conflict management. In M. D. Dunnette (Ed.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology.
- Kilmann, R. H. & Thomas, K. W. (1977). Developing a forced-choice measure of conflict-handling behavior: The "MODE" instrument. Educational and Psychological Measurement, 37, 309-325.
- Pruitt, D. G. & Rubin, J. Z. (1986). Social Conflict: Escalation, Stalemate, and Settlement.
- Rahim, M. A. (1983). A measure of styles of handling interpersonal conflict. Academy of Management Journal, 26, 368-376.
For self-reflection and curiosity, not diagnosis. Scores describe how you answered, relative to the possible range; they are not compared with population norms.
Conflict Style
About 9 minutes · 34 questions
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