Family Emotions and Conflicts: Galtung’s Theory and Daniel Goleman

Abstract

This article examines the role of emotions in family conflicts and their articulation with the household's communication, power, rules, and hierarchies, placing in dialogue Johan Galtung's theory of violence —direct, structural, and cultural— and Daniel Goleman's model of emotional intelligence. A qualitative, interpretive, cross-sectional design was adopted. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with nine key informants in Cúcuta (Norte de Santander, Colombia) —three children, three parents, and three experts in family conflict— and analyzed through discourse analysis across five categories. The findings show that, in the moment of conflict, fear and sadness are frequently expressed as anger and shouting, revealing a deficit in emotional self-awareness; that emotional regulation tends to occur only afterwards, “with a cool head,” chiefly through physical retreat; and that participants themselves name a cultural substrate that normalizes violence (“hitting educates,” inherited authoritarian parenting), consistent with Galtung's notion of cultural violence. Structural violence appears in unequal, sometimes economically enforced decision-making, while a “false calm” exemplifies negative peace. All family participants expressed a desire for emotional-regulation training. The study concludes that intelligent emotional management operates as a resource of positive peace, and proposes a strategy grounded in emotional education, nonviolent communication, family mediation, and role reconfiguration.