A final thought on conflict. This time, how the different modes of conflict (competition, accommodation, avoidance and collaboration) can be thought of as free-body collisions.
Avoidance – the two bodies miss each other, and also miss the chance to influence each other
Competition x Acceptance – This is essentially a dominant collision, where one particle’s direction overpowers the other.
Collaboration: This behaves like a vector addition, where the resultant trajectory reflects the combined contributions of both particles.
Maybe the best answers are the product of differences. Whether it’s a cross product depends on how angry you are feeling (sorry couldn’t resist the vector gag)