Writing Assignment: Stonewalling

Hide Assignment Information Instructions Instructions: Write a 200-word response to the questions below in a self-reflective essay of your tendency to stonewall when in conflict. Then sit with someone with whom you have an important relationship and ask him or her if your self-reported answers to these items matches her or his experience with you when you two have had conflict. What have you learned about your tendency to avoid responding to a question or otherwise to be evasive? Your name, assignment title, and date should be placed in the upper right-hand margin of your paper. Use at least 2 academic sources. Make sure that you list the sources in MLA format. Stonewalling consists of a total lack of listening behavior and “tuning out” in response to a partner's requests to change through criticism, concerns, and “nagging” (Gottman, 1989) and is often seen when couples engage in patterns of demand-withdraw behavior. The demand/withdraw interaction pattern is a destructive cycle of relationship communication behavior that is associated with negative individual and relationship outcomes. Demand/withdraw behavior is thought to be strongly linked to partners' emotional reactions. (pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25495639.) Questions ✓ Under what circumstances, in general, do you find yourself stonewalling someone? ✓ Think about a specific situation in which you have stonewalled someone, what did you achieve by doing so? ✓ When someone stonewalls you, how do you react? ✓ What do you think the other person is trying to do in stonewalling? ✓ What judgment do you make of someone who is stonewalling you? ✓ What judgments do others make of you when you stonewall them?