Interpersonal conflict is a daily part of human existence," ("Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts," n.d.). The hard part is learning how to resolve interpersonal conflicts, because they are inevitable. One of the reasons television shows are popular is that they mirror the genuine interpersonal conflicts that people have in their daily lives. This can be seen on the television show Modern Family, which depicts several interpersonal conflicts. One conflict that is developed early in the show is between Mitch and his father Jay. Mitch is gay, and although his father pretends to be fine with it and accepting of his son, his homophobia comes to the surface during the wedding planning. When Mitch mentions some problem he is having with deciding on the decor of the wedding, Jay gets impatient and says, "Why do you guys have to do this, anyway?" His outburst signals the deeper-rooted antagonism Jay had been harboring all along, and the situation is not resolved as quickly as it could have been had Jay been more willing to admit his mistaken.As Hammond (n.d.) puts it, an interpersonal conflict "occurs when two or more individuals who must work together fail to share the same views,...

1). Yet this interpersonal conflict between Mitch and Jay seems to undermine this definition, as they do not even share the same views. Jay is from an older generation, and Mitch does on some level understand this, which is why he has compassion on his father. At the same time, Jay struggles with the notion that his son wants to get married to another man. To Jay, weddings are heterosexual events. Jay does not handle the conflict well because he first deflects and dismisses his son's anxiety about wanting the wedding to be perfect. That in itself shows disrespect for what his son wants. Just because Jay does not want the same things does not mean that his son should not have his own interests. Second, Jay feels bad but it takes him a while to apologize and admit his wrong. Regarding the first issue, Jay has outmoded coping mechanisms that he learned in his childhood. "We have all developed various ways of dealing with conflict," and those ways have been learned through a process of social learning as well as individual differences ("Resolving Interpersonal Conflicts," n.d.).
To resolve this conflict, Jay would need…