Decisions, Decisions, Decisions...

Personally, I am unable to see the role I played during this activity to fit 100% with any of the Decision Making Conflict Behavior. I think that I exhibited partial characteristics of several of the listed behaviors. Perhaps I'll just go over all the behaviors and list how I did or did not use them to handle the conflict

1. "Compete to Win"
I did not feel the need to be aggressive or assertive to get my way, because I was confident that the rest of the class and I shared the same interest and had the same goal in mind. There was no "my way" as opposed to someone else's way. It had appeared that whatever I had in mind was already shared by my fellow classmates, and whatever possible arrangement that I could think of to raise our grades were already proposed. So I saw no need for me to get too worked up and aggressive, especially since some students had already adopted this method so added aggressiveness would only have made the situation more chaotic.

2. "Avoidance"
Although I mostly kept quiet for the duration of the activity, I was confident that Prof. K would be true to his words of allowing us to do whatever we'd like as long as there was 100% agreement of the class. That might have been a bit naive of me, and in any other situation that seems too good to be true I should probably be more skeptical, but for some reason I intuitively knew that Prof. K would not have gone back on his word. Therefore I did not hold a "there is no chance of winning" mentality. Rather, I was more quiet because there was no need to add on to the chaos that erupted over the same thing. What students did not realize was that they were arguing or fighting for the same thing, so an added voice would just have confused everyone even more.

3. "Compromise"
I did see all members to be equal, but I saw no need to serve as a mediator of any sort. Because, as I had said earlier, the members who were arguing were essentially arguing about the same thing. They were just too caught up in their own argument to listen to what their opponent was proposing. At times I tried to speak up and help them realize it, but unfortunately, my efforts were not very effective. Although, they did eventually realize they were arguing the same thing, it just took several minutes after I tried to bring up the issue.

4. "Accommodation"
Similar to my reason behind competing to win, I knew that the class and I had the same interest in mind and getting the extra points was just as important to me as anyone else. Although I did essentially let the leaders of the discussion decide for me, it was exactly what I had wanted anyway.

5. "Collaborating"
There was not much negotiating or bargaining among the class. For the most part, people accepted any proposal to get extra points. The only real "give and take" was concerning the essay. Some students were for it, and some were not. Which is understandable because every student is different, so after negotiations someone came up with the idea to keep the essay, but as extra credit. I thought that was a great idea and negotiation, and apparently so did the rest of the class.

I think another way to handle the conflict more efficiently is if we had a real authoritative figure, such as Prof K, to mediate. Although we did have a couple of students who stepped up and tried to organize everyones thoughts, I think that the majority of the class saw them as their peers so gave less attention to them. Especially when they were trying to take preliminary votes. If someone with more authority had given us some guidelines of what we could and could not ask for we would not have second guessed ourselves and our requests. Things usually run smoother when there is at least one person who has more authority and can make quick and final decisions, than when everyone is equal.