What’s Your Conflict Style? › The Deal Maker and the Peacekeeper
Conflict styles, together
The Deal Maker and the Peacekeeper
One offers a fair split. The other says whatever you want. It looks easy, and it may be.
A free quiz: pick what you’d really do in 12 everyday moments. About 3 minutes.
Where it works
Little drama. One makes an offer, the other’s glad to go along, and small things get settled fast.
Where it trips
An offer accepted right away can look fair when it isn’t what the other person wanted. A split only works when both sides say what they’d like.
How each can be misread
Deal MakerDoes half work for you?
- Can mean
- I’m trying to be fair.
- Can read as
- We’re settling this now.
PeacekeeperWhatever works for you.
- Can mean
- I’d rather not argue.
- Can read as
- I don’t mind at all.
How it can go
Picking rooms in a new place
Deal MakerYou take the small room and pay a bit less. Does that work?
PeacekeeperWhatever works for you.
Deal MakerGreat, done.
Porcupine“Whatever works for you” might be a yes. It might also mean they wanted the bigger room and didn’t say. The deal can’t show that.
Why it helps: Check before assuming › Free tool · Is this text passive-aggressive?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 Deal Maker
Ask what they’d pick before you offer.
Before I suggest anything, which room do you want?
Why it helps: Understand before answering ›The Peacekeeper
Tell them what you’d like, so the deal is a real one.
I’d actually pay more for the bigger room.
Why it helps: Honest and hearable ›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 Deal MakerYou’d rather both get something than argue all night.
- The PeacekeeperYou’ll give a lot to keep things good between you.
- 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).