How to deal with high conflict personalities
I can’t stand such people.
Those who know me know that I’m usually tolerable to most personality types. But there is one personality type I absolutely loathe, and that is the high-conflict personality.
I recently came across a Big Think video on YouTube titled “How to spot high-conflict people before it’s too late” by BIll Eddy, co-founder and Chief Innovation Officer of the High Conflict Institute, which helped me understand why I dislike such personalities and how to swiftly deal with them.
First, we need to understand the patterns of a high-conflict personality:
1. They like to blame others
They have a victim mentality because they don’t take responsibility for their part. If things don’t go their way, they will blame the other party.
2. They are dogmatic
Dogmatism can best be summed up as “all or nothing” thinking. To a dogmatic thinker, people are either good or bad. Other people’s perspective is either right or wrong. There are no nuances or shades of grey as their worldview is either black or white.
3. They have unmanaged emotions
They can suddenly snap at you and in some cases, they would even start yelling, crying or just storm out a room. Unpredictability is probably the biggest indicator of a high-conflict personality.
4. They have extreme and shocking behaviours
They do what 90% of normal people wouldn’t usually do. When confronted, they would usually make up an excuse for it.
I personally find it very hard to deal with such personalities because I have to tiptoe around them. Like navigating through landmines, you never know when your words or actions might blow up in your face.
So how do we deal with such high-conflict personalities?
The short answer: we don’t.
If this person is your friend, family member or co-worker, try not to get too close to them. Even if they are inviting conflict, avoid them. If you engage with them and try to reason with them, or point out that their behaviour is unhelpful, they will ‘fight’ you.
Being an empathetic person myself, I find it hard to actively avoid people as I’m aware they might have undealt emotions and would like to help them process them. But trust me, it just isn’t worth it.
Most times, high-conflict personalities are looking for someone to become the target of their blame, and will spend their energy trying to control, eliminate or even humiliate this individual. If you get too close to them, you risk becoming the source of all their problems, even if you aren’t.
You wouldn’t want to be that person, would you? ●