Southern California Mediation Association Conference, November 2014

Psychology and Social Psychology Provide Insight as to

How We Decide and How to Help Parties Move to Resolution

Presentation Outline

  1. Introductions
  2. Psychology & Social Psychology
  3. Daniel Kahneman
  1. Prospect Theory
  2. Thinking Fast & Slow (2011)

(i)System I

(ii)Heuristic:Short Cuts to Decisions

(iii)Expert Intuition

(iv)System II

  1. Jonathan Haidt: The Righteous Mind, Why Good People are Divided by Politics and Religion

a. We Think In Stories

b. Intuition Comes First; Strategic Reasoning Second

c. World’s Moral Compass: Six Psychological Systems (CLIP)

(i)Care/Harm

(ii)Fairness/Cheating *

(iii)Liberty/Oppression

(iv)Loyalty/Betrayal

(v)Authority/Subversion

(vi)Sanctity/Degradation

  1. As Professionals We Make Rational Decisions – Not!

a. Emotions Dominate Decision Making (Clip)

b. Recognizing Psychological and Emotional Needs

c. Kahneman’s Solutions

d. Haidt’s Advice

Psychology and Social Psychology, page two

  1. Money Goals & Expanding the Frame
  2. Culturally Influenced
  3. What People Care About
  4. Treatment, A Voice & Process
  5. Fisher & Shapiro’s 5 Core Concerns: Appreciation, Affiliation, Autonomy, Status & Role
  6. Systematic Shortcuts in Thinking That CanLead to Bad Decisions in Negotiation & Mediation and How to Overcome Them
  7. Overconfidence & Egocentrism
  8. Confirmation Bias
  9. Representativeness & Availability
  10. Fundamental Attribution Error
  11. Transference and Countertransference in Negotiation and Mediation

(Dr. Carl Shubs)

a. General Goals: Extrapolating psychoanalytic understandings of

transference and countertransference to applications in mediation

and negotiation.

b. Transference (TR)

(i) Traditional Definition

(ii) Updated Definition

(iii) Trauma Specific Transference (TST)

(iv) Impasse Specific Distortions (ISD) [my term]

  • Illustrations of intersections of early transference reactions and trauma-based distortions
  • Extrapolations to mediation and negotiation
  • Real relationships, ISDs, and transference
  • Potential sources of real relationship and ISD interactions
  • Resistance in transference and impasse distortion
  • Mediation/negotiation situation is interpersonal.
  • Impasse-based distortion roles
  • Ongoing listening perspectives

Psychology and Social Psychology, page three

c. Countertransference (CTR)

1. Updating Definitions

(i) Classical Impediment Theory (Freud)

(ii) Empathic Strain (Wilson and Lindy, 1994a)

(iii) Totalistic Countertransference (Kernberg, 1965)

  • CTR to Manifest vs. Latent Content of Impasse Material
  • Tri-partite CTR (Shubs, 2008c)

(iv) CTR Reactions and Enactments

  • Concordant and Complementary Identifications/Roles

(Racker, 1957)

  1. Take Home Propositions

1. Transference exists in all relationships.

2. CTR exists in all relationships.

3. They both are constant and perpetual contributors to all mediation interactions.

4. Recognizing the presence of TR and CTR can help prevent and resolve impasses in mediation and negotiation.