Fractionation- When a mediator breaks down an argument into smaller ones. This makes it easier for the disputants to solve each problem one at a time and get to the root of the problem.
Framing- When a mediator asks questions that do not pass judgment on anyone involved.
Reframing- When a mediator takes someone’s statement, which is passing judgment or blame, and either rephrases it or reshapes it to make the disputants see it from a different light.
Common Ground- These are attitudes, values, behaviors, expectations, and goals that the disputants can agree upon.
A good example of fractionation was an argument I had with my boyfriend on Valentines Day. I was upset because I had been trying to plan a dinner with him for about 3 weeks, but he seemed to have no real interest in celebrating. Because of our busy schedules we wouldn’t have been able to do anything until after 9 so although I was fine with keeping things simple, I was hurt that he didn’t even acknowledge that it was valentines day. What I thought was his lack of interest in me, turned out to be much bigger than I had originally thought. After a few hours of talking, we broke down the initial argument into several components so we could get to the root of the problem and make sure we were both on the same page. It turned out that there were a lot of things going on in his personal and family life that were effecting our relationship and after using fractionation, we were able to discover the root of the issue. Now that we have had this talk, I see a big improvement in his overall attitude. If we hadn’t used fractionation to solve our problems, I would have thought that my boyfriend was losing interest in me when really, there were a lot of other struggles he was going through that I didn’t even know about.
No comments:
Post a Comment