What’s Your Conflict Style? › The Chameleon and the Deal Maker
Conflict styles, together
The Chameleon and the Deal Maker
One always looks for the fair middle. The other doesn’t always start from the same place.
A free quiz: pick what you’d really do in 12 everyday moments. About 3 minutes.
Where it works
A split gives a clear way forward, and the shifting side has more than one way to meet it.
Where it trips
An offer that worked last time may not work this time. That can feel like a broken deal when it may just be a different moment.
How each can be misread
ChameleonThat doesn’t work this time.
- Can mean
- This one’s different.
- Can read as
- You went back on it.
Deal MakerBut we had a deal.
- Can mean
- I’m trying to be fair.
- Can read as
- You’re keeping score.
How it can go
Taking turns choosing
Deal MakerYou pick the movie, I’ll pick dinner, same as always.
ChameleonThat doesn’t work this time.
Deal MakerBut we had a deal.
Porcupine“We had a deal” may be about fairness, not the movie. “This time” may mean something’s different tonight. Neither one says what.
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 Chameleon
Say what’s different, so it doesn’t look like a broken deal.
I’m wiped tonight. Can I just pick the easy option?
Why it helps: Honest and hearable ›The Deal Maker
Ask what matters this time.
Okay. What do you need tonight?
Why it helps: Understand before answering ›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 ChameleonNo one style stood out, and your choices moved around.
- The Deal MakerYou’d rather both get something than argue all night.
- 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).