Stonewalling is a refusal to communicate or cooperate. Such behaviour occurs in situations such as marriage guidance counseling, diplomatic negotiations, politics and legal cases. Body language may indicate and reinforce this by avoiding contact and engagement with the other party. People use deflection in a conversation in order to render a conversation pointless and insignificant. Tactics in stonewalling include giving sparse, vague responses, refusing to answer questions, or responding to questions with additional questions. In most cases, stonewalling is used to create a delay, rather than to put the conversation off forever.
Politics
In politics, stonewalling is used to refuse to answer or comment on certain questions about policy and issues, especially if the committee or politician in question is under investigation. Stonewalling in politics and in the world of business can sometimes create a critical advantage. William Safire wrote that stonewalling was originally used in Australian cricket, but its use during president Richard Nixon's Watergate affair brought it into usage in American politics as a "refusal to comment". Stonewalling can also be seen as filibustering, or delaying or stalling the passage of bills until they become outdated or changed when engaging in parliamentary procedures.
Relationships
When one or both members of a couple refuse to communicate, this can mark the final step in the breakdown of their relationship. John Gottman characterised this stage as the fourth horseman of the Apocalypse in his cascade model of divorce prediction. In his studies, "stonewalling" was overwhelmingly done by men, with women overwhelmingly using "criticism". In his studies, men's physiology reached a state of arousal prior to them doing "stonewalling", while the female partner showed a physiological reaction of increased heart rate after her partner had "stonewalled" her. As stonewalling perpetuates in a relationship and becomes a continuous cycle or the negative effects of stonewalling outweigh the positive effects, stonewalling becomes the greatest predictor of divorce in a marriage. When one or both partners in a relationship stonewall, their ability to hear each other or listen to each other's disagreement, concern, side or argument, reduces their ability to engage and help address the situation. Stonewalling can be detrimental to relationships because there is often no chance for resolution of conflict. When stonewalling occurs, it has both a physiological and psychological effect on the person who is stonewalling. Physiologically, the person who is stonewalling can shut completely down, particularly when people stonewall as a self-soothing mechanism. The person doing stonewalling may be aware or unaware that this is taking place, because of an increase in adrenaline due to an increase in stress, where the person can either engage or flee the situation. Because stonewalling is a physiological reaction, the stonewalling can be thought of as a fight or flight response. Psychologically, stonewalling is a defense mechanism used to preserve one's self and emotions. Other signs of stonewalling are silence, mumbling monotone utterances, changing the subject and physically removing oneself from the situation.
Witnesses
Witnesses in court or other legal actions may refuse to cooperate with a counsel by not volunteering information and refusing to testify. Prosecutors may try to break their united front by offering incentives such as immunity from prosecution. Another tactic of stonewalling is providing the jurors with misleading information or purposefully withholding certain pieces of information that can be self incriminating. When witnesses practice the stonewalling practice they are usually in an agreement with other witnesses to do the same in order for the tactic to be effective.
