• Which of the four horsemen have you experienced?
• Which do you think is the worst of the horsemen?
• How do you manage conflict when one person feels defensive?
• What should you do when someone criticizes you?
• What strategies do you use when engaging in conflict?
• Which of the strategies is the best and why?
  • Competing
  • Avoiding
  • Accommodating
  • Compromising
  • Collaborating

the four horsemen:

• Criticism
  • These are personal attacks, the Greeks called this "ad hominem", you should complain about behavior rather than criticize a person for their behavior, e.g. when I was yelled at I felt embarrassed, rather than, You are embarrassing! 
• Contempt
  • When you argue so much when this person that you no longer like them, anything they say at this point bothers you.
• Defensiveness
  • When someone criticizes you or makes you feel lesser-than, you may respond in a way to re-establish your confidence. Defensiveness always detracts from the actual problem. For example, if your roommate calls you lazy for not doing enough chores, you are more likely to call them something back or get upset. This will not solve the problem. The problem is that he or she feels an unequal balance of chores, but now the new problem is that he or she made you feel defensive.
• Stonewalling
  • A prolonged disconnection of communication. This happens when you just don't want to talk about it anymore, or you're just done trying to fix the relationship.

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It seems youre referring to concepts from Dr John Gottmans research on relationships particularly th... View the full answer