So much of negotiation and mediation is about changing minds. As negotiators gather and exchange information, new data shifts the way people understand the underlying issues, perceive the risks, and weigh choices.
The concealment or distortion of facts are the thumb on the butcher’s scales in any negotiation. Knowledge — accurate information — is indeed power.
But possessing accurate information may not be enough, whether we are talking about making decisions at the negotiation table or in the voting booth. It’s what we do with that information that matters. Consider the following.
I’ll leave the question of whether Fight the Smears is neutral and factual as opposed to partisan spin to the political pundits. Rather, I’d like to focus on the neuromarketing aspects of this effort: could Fight the Smears end up promoting the very allegations it is trying to quash?
This idea is far from outrageous. In Damage Control That Causes More Damage, I wrote about research conducted by the [Centers for Disease Control and Prevention] that showed repeating a false claim in order to discredit it actually caused more people to believe that it was true.
Want an up-close look at how the persistence of myths looks on an individual level? One voter from Medina, Ohio, despite the efforts of one blogger to innoculate her against political urban legends, persists in believing that Barack Obama is an Arab (as if there’s something wrong with that anyway) — which, she insists, disqualifies him for the job as U.S. president. Here is a video in which she struggles to explain why she clings to her views, despite a close encounter with the truth:
In “The Big Sort“, Economist.com reports on evidence that the polarization that has characterized political discourse in the U.S. will not end, as some have hoped, with the election of a new president this November. There are signs that increasingly Americans are choosing to live among neighbors who share their viewpoints, which means less exposure to other perspectives on important issues.
The implications are disturbing:
Studies suggest that when a group is ideologically homogeneous, its members tend to grow more extreme. Even clever, fair-minded people are not immune. Cass Sunstein and David Schkade, two academics, found that Republican-appointed judges vote more conservatively when sitting on a panel with other Republicans than when sitting with Democrats. Democratic judges become more liberal when on the bench with fellow Democrats.
If you’re an American, what have you experienced of this political segregation? What effort have you made to combat confirmation bias when it comes to the political issues of the day? What opportunities do you have to talk with people whose values and views are different from your own? What are the sources of news you rely on? What kind of media do you consume — progressive, conservative, mainstream, or extreme right or left? When was the last time you listened to views you disagreed with?
That “Mediate, Don’t Litigate” bumper sticker may reveal a lot more about you than the fact that you support ADR — it may be warning other drivers that you’re aggressive behind the wheel.
Drivers of cars with bumper stickers, window decals, personalized license plates and other “territorial markers” not only get mad when someone cuts in their lane or is slow to respond to a changed traffic light, but they are far more likely than those who do not personalize their cars to use their vehicles to express rage — by honking, tailgating and other aggressive behavior.
It does not seem to matter whether the messages on the stickers are about peace and love — “Visualize World Peace,” “My Kid Is an Honor Student” — or angry and in your face — “Don’t Mess With Texas,” “My Kid Beat Up Your Honor Student.”
An advertisement for one of the big ADR firms appears regularly in the weekly newspaper for lawyers distributed here in Massachusetts.
The ad, in sober gray, black, and white, covers more than half a page. It displays thumbnail photos of the neutrals on its panel, with the names in full caps printed neatly beneath each headshot.
Samuel. Jerry. William. Gordon. David. Patrick. Cortland. James. A second James. Robert. Charles. Allan. Eric. John.
And, like an afterthought, or a printing error, one lone Maria.
This ad bothers me. It seems to contradict everything I have told my daughter about women and careers. “You can be anything you want,” I have told her, ever since she was a little girl.
This ad tells my daughter something very different.
Today ADRblogs.com lists 146 blogs from 25 countries, representing conversations across the globe about mediation, negotiation, and conflict resolution in languages that include English, Spanish, Portuguese, German, French, Romanian, Danish, and Turkish.
To see more, and to immerse yourself in the global marketplace of ideas that is the ADR blogosphere, no passport is needed. Just go visit ADRblogs.com. To browse through the headlines of the blogs in its catalog, visit the World Directory of ADR Blogs Reading Room. Submissions, by the way, are always welcome.
The latest edition of Blawg Review, the weekly review of the best in legal blogging published every Monday, falls this week on Bloomsday, a celebration of James Joyce and his immortal opus, Ulysses, the book that made glorious the word “Yes” long before Roger Fisher and William Ury wrote their influential text on negotiation:
…I was [...]
In a famous experiment from the 1950s, social psychologist Solomon Asch demonstrated the influence a group exerts on our opinions and judgments.
In this experiment, subjects would agree with the answer of the group despite the evidence of their own eyes that the majority’s answer was the wrong one. It showed how readily people [...]
The internet abounds with communal gathering spots — places where like-minded souls can get or dispense advice, make friends or business connections, debate ideas, or share photos and other media.
Mashable, a social networking news source, rounds up an impressive 350 social networking sites where users can tap into the wisdom of crowds.
With sites for book [...]
Last summer the Southern California Mediators Association posted to its blog an essay by mediator Christine von Wrangel provocatively titled, “Mediation: A Lucrative Career or a Ticket to the Poor House?“, a polemic directed against the many universities and training programs raising the career expectations of hundreds of mediator-hopefuls:
Almost every accredited or unaccredited university has [...]
Two respected thinkers in the mediation field, Leonard Riskin and Nancy Welsh, recently made available on the Social Science Research Network an advance copy of the law review article they co-authored, titled, “Is that All There is? The ‘Problem’ in Court-Oriented Mediation“. It takes a long, thoughtful look at the failure of court-connected [...]
So much of negotiation and mediation is about changing minds. As negotiators gather and exchange information, new data shifts the way people understand the underlying issues, perceive the risks, and weigh choices.
