What’s Your Conflict Style? › The Case Maker and the Firecracker
Conflict styles, together
The Case Maker and the Firecracker
One comes with the facts. The other comes with the feeling. Each can think the other is missing the point.
A free quiz: pick what you’d really do in 12 everyday moments. About 3 minutes.
Where it works
Nothing stays hidden. Both say what they think, and the problem gets out in the open fast.
Where it trips
Facts can sound cold to someone who’s upset, and heat can sound unfair to someone who’s being careful. Each can push harder to be heard.
How each can be misread
Case MakerTechnically, I said Friday.
- Can mean
- Let’s be accurate.
- Can read as
- Your feelings don’t count.
FirecrackerYou never listen!
- Can mean
- This really matters to me.
- Can read as
- You’re the problem.
How it can go
A missed dinner reservation
FirecrackerYou forgot! You never listen!
Case MakerI didn’t forget. I said Friday, not Thursday.
FirecrackerThat is not the point!
PorcupineBoth could be right. The day may really have been Friday, and something may still have hurt. One answered the fact, and the other may have been talking about the feeling.
Why it helps: Check before assuming › Free tool · What does this text mean?Got a message like this?Paste it in to see a few ways it could be read, and what you could say back. We don’t save it.Check a textOne thing each can try
The Case Maker
Answer the feeling before the fact.
You’re upset, and that dinner mattered to you. Did I get that right?
Why it helps: Understand before answering ›The Firecracker
Take ten minutes, then bring the one thing you want them to hear.
Give me ten minutes. Then I want to tell you why this hurt.
Why it helps: Cool down, then talk ›After a fight
Style is only half of it. Two people can want different things afterward: one wants to talk tonight, and the other needs a day. Neither is wrong. Say it out loud: “Here’s what I need after a fight. What do you need?”
Know a pair like this?
What’s Your Conflict Style?
Pick what you’d really do in twelve everyday moments, and see your style, how you come back from it and one thing to try.
Find your conflict styleMore on these styles
- The Case MakerYou have your facts straight, and you came prepared.
- The FirecrackerQuick to light, quick to fizzle out.
- The seven conflict stylesSeven ways people handle a disagreement, and five ways they come back from it.
No style is the best one: each works sometimes and trips sometimes, and yours may change with the person and the day. The quiz is for fun and conversation. It isn’t a scientific test, and it isn’t therapy, counseling or professional advice. Porcupine made up these styles and ways back, drawing loosely on common ideas about conflict, and nobody has tested them. They describe what people do in a disagreement, not who they are or how a relationship is going. If you’re afraid of how someone might react, a page like this isn’t enough: put your safety first and talk to someone you trust (Safety first).