Suppose the Other Does Not Want to Cooperate; What Then?
Suppose the other wants to win and does not want to cooperate to resolve the conflict constructively. What then? Or suppose the other agrees to negotiate a resolution of the conflict but engages in dirty tricks to try to triumph in the negotiations. How do you respond? These are difficult questions, and it should be clear that in some instances, it may be impossible to establish a cooperative conflict resolution process or prevent the other from employing dirty tricks during a negotiation. Nevertheless, as the cases in the Introduction to this Handbook indicate, difficult, deep-rooted conflicts can be resolved or managed well. I next briefly discuss some suggestions for managing each of the two difficult types of situations.
The Other Refuses to Cooperate.
There are two main reasons for not wanting to cooperate: (1) you think it would be futile, a waste of time and energy, or (2) you feel you are the dominant power and are satisfied with the existing situation and will lose something of value (e.g., power, status, identity, wealth, religious doctrine) if you do. Before attempting to influence the other in either case, it is crucial to seek to understand the other—the other’s position, reasons, emotions, social context, and experiences that have led to and support the other’s position. This requires the development of communication with the other and active, nonjudgmental listening to the other. After achieving some understanding of the other, one will seek to influence the other to be willing to cooperate; influence attempts commonly involve the use of persuasion strategies or nonviolent power strategies, or both.
Persuasive strategies involve three types of appeals: to moral values, self-interest, or self-fulfillment.
A moral appeal to another person (group, organization, or nation) who feels it is futile to attempt cooperation might be: “If you are a moral person, you should try to achieve the good even if it is difficult or the chances of success are small. If you see a child drowning near you, you should try to rescue him even if the chances of success are small and it is difficult to do. Similarly, it is your moral obligation to try to resolve your conflict with the other in a cooperative manner even though you think the chances of success are small and it may be a difficult process.”
Appeals to the moral values of the dominant power assumes they are not fully aware of the negative impact of their power on the low-power person or group. For example, one might appeal to values related to justice, religion, or the welfare of one’s grandchildren, to name a few. Engaging high-power members to see the discrepancy between their practices and their moral values or conscience could move them to take action and change their behavior.
Self-interest appeals emphasize the gains that can be obtained and losses that can be prevented when there is cooperation to resolve the conflict. It is important that such messages be carefully constructed so as to clearly state the specific actions and changes requested of the other and to highlight the values and benefits to the other by cooperating and the potential losses of not cooperating (Deutsch, 2006).
Appeals to self-actualization focus on enhancing the sense that one’s better self—a self that one has wanted to be—is being actualized. In a sense, these are a type of self-interest appeal. The gain for the other is the feelings associated with an actualized self. In considering ways that one might share one’s power over others, one might emphasize the use of one’s power to further common interests; the spiritual emptiness of power over others; the fulfillment of creating something that goes well beyond self-benefit. By creating power with others rather than maintaining noncooperation or power over (Follett, 1973), you may actually increase your power.
Low-power individuals or groups seeking change in those who have a vested interest in maintaining their power sometimes find it difficult to employ persuasion strategies because of rage or fear. Rage, as a result of the injustices they have experienced, may lead them to seek revenge, to harm or destroy those in power. Fear of the power of the powerful to inflict bearable harm may inhibit efforts to bring about change in the powerful.
Given the possibility of the prevalence of rage or fear among low-power groups, it would be the goal of change agents (group leaders, mediators, conciliators, therapists) who seek to foster cooperation, rather than rage or fear, to harness the energy created by feelings of rage and fear and convert it into effective cooperative action. (See Gaucher and Jost, 2011.) By engaging large numbers of people through social media and other communication methods, you channel the energy generated by feelings of rage or fear toward effective action. Here the task of the change agent is to help people realize that they are more likely to achieve their goals through effective action, including cooperation with potential allies among members of high-power groups. It is important for the change agent to recognize the power of the motivational energy of low-power groups, regardless of its source.
A potentially effective strategic starting point using persuasive strategies would be for low-power groups to use social influence strategies by seeking out and creating alliances with those members of high-power groups, as well as other prestigious and influential people and groups, who are sympathetic to their efforts of building cooperation (Deutsch, 2006). Developing allies is a key method of increasing a low-power group’s power and increasing its influence and credibility with those in power.
It is useful for change agents to understand the psychological implications of appealing to the power needs of members of high-power groups—understanding how to convince those in power that their power needs can be fulfilled through fostering a common good.
Nonviolent power strategies involve enhancing one’s own power (by developing the latent power in one’s self and one’s group, as well as developing allies), employing the power of the powerful against the powerful, and reducing the power of the powerful. Gene Sharp (1973, 2005) has elaborated in great detail the many tactics available to those who seek to employ nonviolent power strategies and also discussed the strategy in producing successful nonviolent change in facing dominating, exploiting others. There are three types of nonviolent actions:
Acts of protest such as have been occurring recently in the Middle East
Noncooperation such as in Aristophanes’ Lysistrata when the women withhold sex from their spouses until war is abolished
Nonviolent intervention such as general strikes and other methods of disrupting the economy and other components of the status quo
The employment of nonviolent methods against a potentially violent, autocratic, resistance to change in power often requires considerable courage, discipline, and stamina as well as effective preplanning and organization.
There is a difference between persuasive strategies and nonviolent strategies. Nonviolent strategies are often used when persuasion strategies by themselves are not effective in bringing about change. The aim of nonviolent strategies is to open those in power so that they can be persuaded to change: resistance to and interference with the implementation of the power of the high-power group makes its power ineffective and could open it to the possibility of persuasion. Both are useful in altering the status quo in service of developing cooperation. However, in contrast to violent strategies, neither persuasion nor nonviolence seeks to destroy those in high power: they seek to change the relationship so that power is shared and used to benefit both sides.
There are two major problems with the use of violence: it commonly leads to increasing destructive cycles of reciprocating violence between the conflicting parties, and it can transform those using violent methods into mirror images of one another, so if a low-power group employs violence to overthrow a tyrannical high-power group, it may become tyrannical itself. I am suggesting that violence is never necessary to stop unrelenting tyranny. As Mandela (1995), indicated, if violence is thought to be necessary to motivate the other, it should be employed only against nonhuman targets, such as bridges or communication facilities, only.
Facing Dirty Tricks during Cooperative Negotiation.
Suppose the other agrees to negotiate cooperatively to resolve the conflict but engages in dirty tricks to advantage itself during negotiations, such as lying, misrepresenting, spreading false rumors, undermining your power, or amassing its own power to threaten and coerce you. What do you do? First, you openly confront the other with what you consider to be his dirty trick in a nonantagonistic manner and give the other a chance to respond and explain. He might persuade you that you are mistaken, and if so, you would apologize. If he denies guilt but you are not convinced of his innocence, you seek to resolve this conflict cooperatively. Here the involvement of neutral third parties such as a judge, mediator, or therapist may be of value or necessary. If the other pleads guilty, apologizes, and pledges not to continue to engage in dirty tricks but you are not completely reassured, it may be necessary to establish a mutually agreed-on neutral, independent individual or system that can detect dirty tricks (by you or the other) as well as verify or falsify accusations of dirty tricks and provide sufficient positive and negative incentives to deter their occurrence.
Whether or not the other is willing to engage in fair cooperation, one’s own approach throughout should employ the four Fs: be firm, fair, flexible, and friendly;
Firm in the sense that you will strongly protect yourself from being disadvantaged unfairly
Fair, in the sense that you will treat the other fairly and not attempt to disadvantage the other by dirty tricks
Flexible in the sense that you will not commit yourself to rigid positions and will respond flexibly to the legitimate interests of the other
Friendly, in the sense that you are always open, even after some difficulties, to fair, amiable, mutual cooperation.
CONCLUSION
The central theme of this chapter is that a knowledgeable, skillful, cooperative approach to conflict enormously facilitates its constructive resolution. However, there is a two-way relation between effective cooperation and constructive conflict resolution. Good cooperative relations facilitate constructive management of conflict. The ability to handle constructively the inevitable conflicts that occur during cooperation facilitates the survival and deepening of cooperative relations.
References
Deutsch, M. “An Experimental Study of the Effects of Cooperation and Competition upon Group Processes.” Human Relations, 1949a, 2, 199–231.
Deutsch, M. “A Theory of Cooperation and Competition.” Human Relations, 1949b, 2, 129–151.
Deutsch, M. The Resolution of Conflict: Constructive and Destructive Processes. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1973.
Deutsch, M. Distributive Justice: A Social Psychological Perspective. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.
Deutsch, M. “A Framework for Thinking About Oppression and Its Change.” Social Justice Research, 2006, 19(1), 7–41.
Deutsch, M. “Cooperation and Competition.” In Peter T. Coleman (ed.), Conflict, Interdependence, and Justice: The Intellectual Legacy of Morton Deutsch. New York: Springer, 2011.
Follett, M. P. “Power.” In E. M. Fox and L. Urwick (eds.), Dynamic Administration: The Collected Papers of Mary Parker Follett. London: Pitman, 1973. (Originally published 1924.)
Gaucher, D., and Jost, J. T. “Difficulties Awakening the Sense of Injustice and Overcoming Oppression: On the Soporific Effects of System Justification.” In Peter T. Coleman (ed.), Conflict, Interdependence, and Justice: The Intellectual Legacy of Morton Deutsch. New York: Springer, 2011.
Johnson, D. W., and Johnson, R. T. “New Developments in Social Interdependence Theory.” Psychology Monographs, 2005, 131, 285–358.
Johnson, D. W., and Johnson, R.T. “Intellectual Legacy: Cooperation and Competition.” In Peter T. Coleman (ed.), Conflict, Interdependence, and Justice: The Intellectual Legacy of Morton Deutsch. New York: Springer, 2011.
Mandela, N. A Long Walk to Freedom: The Autobiography of Nelson Mandela. London: Little, Brown, 1995.
Rawls, J. Political Liberalism. New York: Columbia University Press, 1996.
Sharp, G. The Politics of Nonviolent Action. Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 1973.
Sharp, G. Waging Nonviolent Struggle: Twentieth Century Practice and Twenty-First Century Potential. Boston: Porter Sargent Publishers, 2005.
CHAPTER TWO
JUSTICE AND CONFLICT
Morton Deutsch
That’s not fair” expresses a feeling that frequently leads to conflict. A younger brother cries out that his older brother is getting “a bigger piece of cake than I am.” An applicant for a job feels that the selection procedures are biased against members of her race, gender, or ethnic group. A politician thinks the election was lost because his opponent stuffed the ballot boxes. A wife feels that her husband doesn’t help sufficiently with the household chores. These all involve issues of justice, which may give rise to conflict. Conflict can lead to changes that reduce injustice, or it can increase injustice if it takes a destructive form, as in war.
It is useful to make a distinction between injustice and oppression. Oppression is the experience of repeated, widespread, systemic injustice. It need not be extreme and involve the legal system (as in slavery, apartheid, or the lack of right to vote) or violent (as in tyrannical societies). Harvey (1999) has used the term “civilized oppression” to characterize the everyday processes of oppression in normal life. Civilized oppression
is embedded in unquestioned norms, habits, and symbols, in the assumptions underlying institutions and rules, and the collective consequences of following those rules. It refers to the vast and deep injustices some groups suffer as a consequence of often unconscious assumptions and reactions of well-meaning people in ordinary interactions which are supported by the media and cultural stereotypes as well as by the structural features of bureaucratic hierarchies and market mechanisms. (Young, 1990, p. 41)
Structural oppression cannot be eliminated by getting rid of the rulers or by making some new laws, because oppressions are systematically reproduced in the major economic, political, and cultural institutions. While specific privileged groups are the beneficiaries of the oppression of other groups and thus have an interest in the continuation of the status quo, they do not typically understand themselves to be agents of oppression. (See Deutsch, 2006, for a fuller discussion on oppression.)
THE FORMS THAT INJUSTICE TAKES
I consider here six types of injustice: distributive injustice, procedural injustice, the sense of injustice, retributive and reparative injustice, moral exclusion, and cultural imperialism. To identify which groups of people are oppressed and what forms their oppression takes, each of these six types of injustices should be examined. (For a comprehensive discussion of social psychological research related to the following topics, see Tyler and associates, 1997.)
The scholarly literature on injustice has the following focuses:
Distributive injustice, which is concerned with the criteria that lead you to feel you receive an unfair outcome. (The boy receives an unfair share of the pie being distributed.)
Procedural injustice, concerned with unfair treatment in making and implementing the decisions that determine the outcome. (Is the politician being treated with dignity and respect? Has he lost the election fairly?)
The sense of injustice, centering on what factors determine whether an injustice is experienced as such. (If the wife does more than her fair share of the household chores, what will determine whether she feels it is unjust?)
Retributive and reparative injustice, concerned with how to respond to the violation of moral norms and how to repair the moral community that has been violated (as in the case of job discrimination against an applicant because of race).
Moral exclusion, or the scope of injustice, is concerned with who is included in the moral community and who is thought to be entitled to fair outcomes and fair treatments. Generally you do not include such creatures as ticks and roaches in your moral community—and some people think of other ethnic groups, heretics, or those with diffe
ring sexual orientation as “vermin” who are not entitled to justice.
Cultural imperialism, which occurs when a dominant group imposes its values, norms, and customs on subordinated groups so that members of these subordinated groups find themselves defined by the dominant others. To the extent that women, Africans, Jews, Muslims, homosexuals, the elderly, and so on must interact with the dominant group whose culture mainly provides stereotyped images of them, they are often under pressure to conform to and internalize the dominant group images of their group.
I discuss each focus separately in this chapter. Recognize, though, that there is considerable overlap among them.
Distributive Justice
Issues of distributive justice pervade social life. They occur not only at the societal level but also in intimate social relations. They arise when something of value is scarce and not everyone can have what they want or when something of negative value (a cost, a harm) cannot be avoided by all. In the schools, such questions arise in connection with who gets the teacher’s attention, who gets what grades, and how much of a school’s resources are to be allocated for students who are physically disabled or socioeconomically disadvantaged. Similarly, distribution of pay, promotion, benefits, equipment, and space are common problems in work settings. Issues of distributive justice are involved in health care and medical practice as well: How is a scarce or expensive medical resource, such as a heart transplant, to be allocated?
Scholars have identified a large number of principles that could be used in distributing grades, pay, scarce medical resources, and the like. Discussions focus on three key principles—equity, equality, and need—and their variants:
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