Chapter 6 Further Reading
Self-Awareness, Conflict Triggers, Intent and Impact, and Values Clarification
The following 12 sources are annotated to help you decide which to prioritize based on your interests and goals. They are organized by subtopic rather than alphabetically, following the chapter's conceptual arc.
On Self-Awareness: Foundational Texts
1. Eurich, T. (2017). Insight: The surprising truth about how others see us, how we see ourselves, and why the answers matter more than we think. Crown.
The primary source for this chapter's core research. Eurich synthesizes her multi-year research program into an accessible but rigorous book that combines empirical findings with practical guidance. The most important chapters for conflict applications are: Chapter 1 (the self-awareness illusion), Chapter 3 (the seven pillars of insight), and Chapter 6 (the role of others in our self-knowledge). Eurich's writing is direct and anecdote-rich without sacrificing intellectual substance. For readers who want the research context behind the chapter's statistics — particularly the 95%/10-15% gap — this is essential reading. Her distinction between "internal" and "external" self-awareness, and the "Me vs. We" shift, are the conceptual contributions most directly applicable to conflict.
Best for: Anyone who found the chapter's research findings compelling and wants to go deeper. Professionals in leadership, clinical, or educational settings will find particular application.
2. Goleman, D. (1995). Emotional intelligence: Why it can matter more than IQ. Bantam Books.
The book that introduced "emotional intelligence" to a mass audience. While Eurich's work is more precise on the self-awareness research specifically, Goleman's framework provides essential context: self-awareness is one of five core emotional intelligence competencies (alongside self-regulation, motivation, empathy, and social skill). His treatment of self-awareness as the foundational competency for all others — the lens through which the remaining four are managed — directly supports the argument of Chapter 6. The sections on emotional self-awareness (recognizing emotions in real time) and accurate self-assessment (knowing your strengths and limitations) are particularly relevant.
Best for: Readers who want to situate self-awareness within a broader emotional intelligence framework. A foundational text in organizational psychology and leadership development.
3. Siegel, D. J. (2010). Mindsight: The new science of personal transformation. Bantam Books.
Siegel, a clinical professor of psychiatry at UCLA, introduces the concept of "mindsight" — the capacity to observe your own mental processes from the inside, with enough perspective to avoid being entirely governed by them. Where Eurich approaches self-awareness behaviorally and organizationally, Siegel approaches it neurobiologically. His explanation of how the prefrontal cortex mediates between emotional impulse and conscious response is directly complementary to Chapter 4's threat-response material and Chapter 6's body-scan awareness practice. The "wheel of awareness" meditation practice he describes is one of the most practical tools for developing the internal body-awareness this chapter recommends.
Best for: Readers interested in the neuroscience underlying self-awareness; those who found the body-scan awareness practice compelling and want a fuller developmental framework.
On the Intent-Impact Gap and Difficult Conversations
4. Stone, D., Patton, B., & Heen, S. (2010). Difficult conversations: How to discuss what matters most (2nd ed.). Penguin.
The foundational text for the intent-impact gap concept, and one of the most practically useful books on conflict communication ever written. Stone, Patton, and Heen identify three simultaneous conversations that run in any difficult exchange: the "What happened?" conversation (facts and interpretations), the "Feelings" conversation (emotions that each party is managing), and the "Identity" conversation (what the exchange means about who you are). The intent-impact gap is addressed primarily in the "What happened?" conversation, but the identity conversation is where values clarification (from Section 6.4) becomes most relevant. The book's deceptively simple core reframe — shifting from "delivering a message" to "having a learning conversation" — is one of the most actionable in the conflict literature.
Best for: Anyone who found the intent-impact gap material resonant. This is the chapter's most directly applicable supplementary text.
5. Patterson, K., Grenny, J., McMillan, R., & Switzler, A. (2011). Crucial conversations: Tools for talking when stakes are high (2nd ed.). McGraw-Hill.
A widely used practitioner text that approaches high-stakes conversations through a skills-based framework. Its model of "mutual purpose" and "mutual respect" as the conditions for productive difficult conversations is complementary to the self-awareness work in this chapter — specifically, the idea that you need to know your own purpose clearly before you can establish it mutually. The concept of "the pool of shared meaning" (what both parties can honestly contribute and hear) maps interestingly onto the Johari Window's Open Area. The book's emphasis on what happens in the moment — the physical and emotional cues that signal safety breakdown — connects directly to the body-scan awareness practice.
Best for: Readers who want a more comprehensive conversation-skills framework to accompany the self-awareness foundation this chapter provides.
6. Heen, S., & Stone, D. (2014). Thanks for the feedback: The science and art of receiving feedback well. Viking.
This is the companion volume to Difficult Conversations, written specifically about receiving rather than delivering feedback. Given this chapter's emphasis on feedback-seeking as the primary mechanism for reducing your Blind Spot, Heen and Stone's work on why people resist feedback — and what makes it possible to receive it with genuine openness — is directly applicable. Their identification of three feedback triggers (truth triggers, relationship triggers, and identity triggers) maps neatly onto this chapter's trigger-category framework. The chapter on managing your identity conversation under feedback is particularly relevant for anyone who has had the experience of becoming defensive when confronted with accurate information.
Best for: Readers who recognized themselves in Priya's defensive response, or who know they have difficulty receiving feedback that surprises or challenges them.
On the Johari Window and Self-Disclosure in Conflict
7. Luft, J. (1969). Of human interaction. National Press Books.
Joseph Luft's own extended exposition of the Johari Window (co-developed with Harrington Ingram), this book develops the model beyond the simple four-quadrant grid that became famous. Luft explores the dynamics of what happens when the Blind Spot is reduced — the emotional disruption, the integration process, the relationship changes — with a depth that the original 1955 article couldn't capture. For readers who found the Johari Window conceptually compelling, this is the primary source for the framework's fuller implications. The sections on how trust enables the movement of information between quadrants are particularly useful for understanding why conflict conversations can paradoxically expand self-knowledge when conducted skillfully.
Best for: Readers who want the theoretical depth behind the Johari Window rather than just its practical application.
On Values and Values Clarification
8. Harris, R. (2008). The happiness trap: How to stop struggling and start living. Exisle Publishing.
Harris, an ACT (Acceptance and Commitment Therapy) therapist, presents one of the most accessible treatments of values clarification available. Where this chapter's exercise asks you to identify your top five conflict-relevant values, Harris's framework goes further: it distinguishes values from goals, shows how values can function as a compass even in situations where outcomes are uncertain, and addresses the common experience of values collision. His treatment of psychological flexibility — the capacity to hold competing values without needing to resolve the tension into a single correct answer — is directly applicable to the values-collision concept in Section 6.4. The writing is clear and practically grounded.
Best for: Readers who found the values clarification exercise particularly meaningful, or who struggle with values collisions in their conflict experience.
9. Schwartz, S. H. (1992). Universals in the content and structure of values: Theoretical advances and empirical tests in 20 countries. Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, 25, 1–65.
This is the foundational academic paper behind much contemporary values research. Schwartz mapped the universal structure of human values across cultures, identifying 10 broad values (and a circular model of their relationships and tensions) that appear across all societies studied. For readers interested in the research basis for values frameworks — rather than just their practical applications — this paper provides the empirical foundation. It's not light reading, but it is rigorous: a good example of what academic treatment of a concept looks like, versus popular treatments. The tension Schwartz identifies between power and universalism values, or between conformity and self-direction values, maps directly onto the values-collision dynamics the chapter describes.
Best for: Readers with research backgrounds, psychology or social science students, or anyone who wants the academic basis for the values frameworks used in this chapter.
On Triggers and Emotional Memory
10. van der Kolk, B. (2014). The body keeps the score: Brain, mind, and body in the healing of trauma. Viking.
Van der Kolk's landmark work on trauma and the body is relevant to this chapter's trigger-mapping content at a deeper level than most conflict texts typically address. The chapter's treatment of triggers as historical markers — as responses to past experience rather than purely present situations — is consistent with trauma research on how the body encodes emotional memory. Van der Kolk's work helps explain why triggers can be so intense, so fast, and so difficult to reason with from inside the triggered state. The chapters on body awareness (Part V) are directly relevant to the body-scan practice in Section 6.5. This book is important context for understanding why self-awareness alone is sometimes insufficient for people carrying significant unprocessed stress or trauma from their histories.
Best for: Readers who noticed very intense, persistent triggers in their mapping exercise; readers in helping professions who work with people affected by adversity; anyone who wants to understand the physiological basis of the trigger concept more deeply.
11. Rock, D. (2009). Your brain at work: Strategies for overcoming distraction, regaining focus, and working smarter all day long. HarperBusiness.
David Rock's accessible treatment of the neuroscience of work and social interaction provides the applied context for the SCARF model introduced in Chapter 4 and extended in this chapter's trigger-category framework. The book walks through real-time situations — meetings, negotiations, difficult conversations — and explains what is happening neurologically. His chapters on the threat response and on SCARF-domain activations are directly applicable to trigger mapping. Where The Body Keeps the Score addresses trauma-level responses, Rock addresses the more everyday range of threat activations that occur in ordinary organizational and relational conflict.
Best for: Readers who want a practical, accessible neuroscience of the trigger experience — particularly those in organizational or leadership contexts.
On Self-Awareness Practice and Reflective Process
12. Schön, D. A. (1983). The reflective practitioner: How professionals think in action. Basic Books.
Schön's influential work in professional education introduced the concept of "reflection-in-action" — the capacity to notice and adjust what you're doing while you're doing it, rather than only after the fact. This is the theoretical basis for what Chapter 6 calls "in-the-moment" self-awareness: the body-scan awareness, the real-time monitoring of how you're coming across, the microsecond pause between trigger and response. Schön's work spans medicine, architecture, engineering, and psychotherapy — his examples are wide-ranging — but the core insight is universal: genuine professional competence involves the capacity to treat your own performance as feedback rather than fixed output. For anyone in a helping profession, this book is essential background. For anyone in any field who wants to develop the reflective capacity that underlies advanced self-awareness practice, it is foundational.
Best for: Graduate students, professionals in clinical or educational settings, anyone interested in the theory of reflective practice that underlies the chapter's practical exercises.
A Note on Reading Strategy
If you have time for only one supplementary text after this chapter, choose based on your most pressing gap:
- If your self-awareness gap is primarily internal (you don't yet fully know your own triggers, values, and patterns): begin with Eurich's Insight, then Harris's The Happiness Trap.
- If your self-awareness gap is primarily external (you don't know how you land on others): begin with Stone, Patton, and Heen's Difficult Conversations, then Heen and Stone's Thanks for the Feedback.
- If you want to understand the neuroscience beneath the chapter's concepts: Siegel's Mindsight and Rock's Your Brain at Work are the most accessible entry points.
- If you are in a helping profession and work with others on these issues: van der Kolk and Schön together provide the deepest professional grounding.
End of Chapter 6 Further Reading