Conflict avoidance

Conflict avoidance is a person's method of reacting to conflict, which attempts to avoid directly confronting the issue. Methods of doing this can include changing the subject, putting off a discussion until later, or simply not bringing up the subject of contention. Conflict prevention can be used as a temporary measure to buy time or as a permanent means of disposing of a matter. The latter may be indistinguishable from simple concession to the other party to the extent that those avoiding the conflict subordinate their own wishes to the party with whom they have the conflict. However, conflict prevention can also take the form of withdrawing from the relationship. Thus, avoidance scenarios can be either win-lose, lose-lose or possibly even win-win if terminating the relationship is the best solution.

Turner and Weed classify concealment as one of the three main types of responses to conflict, describing concealers as those who take no risk and so say nothing, concealing their views and feelings. Concealers are further divided into three types; namely:^[1]

• Feeling-swallowers who swallow their feelings. They smile even if the situation is causing them pain and distress. They behave thus because they consider other people's approval important and feel that it would be dangerous to affront them by revealing their true feelings.
• Subject-changers who find the real issue too complex to handle. They change the topic by finding something on which there can be some agreement with the conflicting party. According to Turner and Weed, this response style usually does not solve the problem; instead, it can create problems for the people who use this and for the organization in which such people are working.
• Avoiders who go out of their way to avoid conflicts.