decision-making

Decision-Making in Lose-Lose Scenarios (The Opportune Conflict, Episode 2)

In this episode I talk about what we can do in lose-lose scenarios - you know, the situations where all our options might seem to sort of suck (or really suck). So, I'll look at how we, ourselves, define value, how accepting the facts of our situation can help us expand our options, and that lose-lose scenarios don't exist within a bubble and sometimes we can use them to grow value elsewhere in our lives.

The Opportune Conflict is a project of mine where I try to take a nugget of theory from conflict resolution or decision-making and make it easier to understand and more applicable to our daily lives. And, hopefully this episode was helpful! (Also, if you hear a printer clicking in the background, it means you've almost made it all the way through the episode!)

In this episode I mention that if you do need extra help, seeking it out is an action you can take. If you need professional help for particularly sucky lose-lose scenarios (whether that is legal, therapy, mediation, etc.), knowing when you do need help is a strength (not a weakness). So if you need help, exercise your option to ask for it.

Anyhow, if you'd like more resources, or to contact me, visit my website at DavidWAngel.com.

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Defining the Troll: Emotional Schadenfreude and Personal Responsibility

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A troll is someone that gains value from the act of causing others to lose value.

Okay, that was a bit dry sounding. How is this: a troll is someone that takes pride and joy at causing misery, anger, and distress in others; a troll derives pleasure by actively creating displeasure in others. However, a troll isn’t just schadenfreude; a troll gains value by being the direct cause of that schadenfreude. Thus, a troll is comprised of two major parts: emotional schadenfreude and personal responsibility.

Value Dependency in Conflict

Value dependency is about how another person’s value from conflict affects your own value. Whether another person gains or loses value from a conflict can also cause us to gain or lose value as well. Plainly put, whether something makes another person happy or sad, can also make us happy or sad. The degree to which that happens determines the value dependency of a conflict. Value dependency can be examined by 1) the degree to which individual parties are value dependent, and 2) whether that value dependency is direct or inverse.