Konflikt und Kooperation

- dissent in group decisions has a positive effect on creativity/correctness of group decisions mediated by this two variables

1. Discussion Intensity (much information on a topic is exchanged and discussed in a group, or individual processing is higher)

2. Discussion Divergence (if there is a lot of divergence there is a higher effect on creativity;e.g. that's why minority dissent stimulates creative thinking a lot) 

- majority or minority dissent as moderator 

- difference with minority stimulates divergent thinking --> induces thought processes in multiple directions

- difference with majority stimulates convergent thinking --> stimulates information processing that focusses on the position of the majority

- unanimity decision rule:  for a solution to be accepted, all group members have to agree to this solution -->  If all members have to agree, minorities know that their opinions matter and majorities have to pay attention to minority statements --> groups working under a unanimity rule have shown to express more disagreement as well as to exchange more arguments and opinions they are also more satisfied with their decision and report greater confidence about the correctness of their decision (empirical tests to link are still lacking)

- participation: the more the group members are used to being heard when important decisions are made and being able to influence these decisions through expressing their own opinion, the more each group member will be motivated to express a dissenting opinion if he or she disagrees with the prevailing opinion in the group

- dialectical leadership: the leader is open to dissent and even encourages thoughts and ideas that run counter to the solution and to decision alternatives or ideas that are currently favored in the group 

- critical norms: a common understanding in the group (or even in the whole organization) that independence and critieal thought are essential components of the group's (or the organization's) coIlective work  -->  If group members have internalized such a common understanding, they should feel free to express dissent if they disagree wlth proposals or solutions favored in the group

-  Dialectieal decision techniques = procedures that contrive dissent by enforcing a controversial debate independent of the actors' real opinions 

- devil's advocacy: a single group member or a subgroup is assigned the role of the devil's advocate, which has the task of criticizing as substantially as possible a proposal made by the group

- dilectical inquiry: after a proposal has been made, the opposite faction in the group not only critieizes this proposal but also comes up with a complete counterproposal, and a dialectieal debate between the two factions emerges about both proposals

- inverted u-shape relationship between level of task conflict and team creativity 

--> moderate levels of task conflict show the highest level of team creativity 

--> curvilinear relationship only for teams in the early phase (moderator) of a project life cycle 

- three different, but related emphases: structural, relational, and identity related 

- structural: core of reconciliation as the transformation of power relations between the advantaged and disadvantaged groups into an equality-based social structure

- relational: views greater intergroup trust and more positive relations as key elements in a reconciled intergroup reality

- identity related: suggests that conflicts threaten the identities of the parties involved and that these identity threats fuel the continuation of the conflict

--> “Trustworthy positive relations between former adversaries who enjoy secure social identities and interact in an equality-based social environment”

- grounded in the premise of social identity theory (group members are generally motivated to maintain their positive social identity and strive to restore it to the extent that it is threatened) 

- threats posed to victims’ and perpetrators’ identities are of an asymmetrical nature

- Victims experience threat to their sense of power, honour and control 

- perpetrators experience threat to their identity as morally adequate social actors

- consistent with theorising about the Big  Two in socialjudgment and behaviour:  two fundamental content dimensions along which social targets (such as groups) perceive and judge themselves and others: the agency dimension, representing traits such as “strong”, “competent”, “influential”, and“self-determined”; and the moral–social (or communion) dimension, representing traits such as “moral”, “warm”, and“trustworthy”

- victims --> threat to agency dimension 

- perpetrators --> threat to moral-social dimension 

- experience of threat results in corresponding motivational states

--> victims wish to satisfy their basic need for agency --> victims show heightened power-seeking behaviour and often wish to get even with their perpetrators

--> perpetrators wish to satisfy their basic need for communion --> thorugh encouraging apology or avoiding unpleasent emotions through minimising their responsibility 

- agency/moral needs: enhanced needs for both agency and positive moral image --> need for agency takes precedence and exerts greater influence on their behaviour

- pro-/antisocial behaviour: Like victims, their heightened need for agency translated into vengeful behaviour; unlike perpetrators, their heightened need for positive moral image failed to translate into prosocial behaviour

-  messages from the other party to the conflict, but not from a neutral third party, increased victims’ and perpetrators’ willingness to reconcile compared to the control condition

- messages from a third party who shared a common identity with the other party to the conflict effectively promoted reconciliation

- Perceived representativeness, in turn, mediated the effects of message source on reconciliation (perceives representativeness: member of opponent group > member of neutral group who shares common identity with opponent group > member of neutral group)

- BATNA (=Best alternative to a negotiated agreement ): determines the point at which a negotiator is prepared to walk away from the negotiation table. In practice, it means that the negotiators should be willing to accept any set of terms superior to their BATNA and to reject outcomes that are worse than their BATNA --> reservation point is quantification of BATNA

- Bargaining Zone: the range between negotiators’ reservation points (if range is positive, ZOPA exists) 

- ZOPA (= zone of possible agreement)

- Integrative negotiations: negotiations are integrative when all creative opportunities are leveraged and no resources are left on the table

- distributive negotiations: a negotiation is distributive when negotiators are mainly concerned about their own economic outcomes and not the joint outcomes of all negotiating parties Best alternative

-condition under which mood is likely to affect information processing: situations of deep information processing (not when need for closure, power position or time pressure)

- Anger expressions produced concessions from negotiators with a poor BATNA, presumably because the angry negotiator communicated “toughness" --> emotion is taken as cue to estimate BATNA

- only if offer is within the range of a realistic ZOPA

- but when negotiators expressed positive affect, negative affect, or neutral affect in a take-it-or-leave-it ultimatum, positive-affect negotiators were most likely to have their ultimatum accepted

- when the counterparty immediately accepts one’s first offer, a counterfactual thought process is produced (e.g., “Oh no, I should have asked for more!”) --> also taken as a heuristic to where BATNA of negotiation partner lays --> it was probably lower then assumed 

- This counterfactual thought process results in dissatisfaction, even when negotiators’ outcomes were objectively superior to agreements reached later in negotiations.

- trusting negotiators believe their counterparts will use information to identify integrative agreements 

-  they also tend to believe information that the counterpart shares, accepting it as sincere and accurate

-->  trusting negotiators exchange more information about preferences and priorities and achieve more integrative outcomes

--> mostly useful in integrative situations; could be harmful in distributive situations

- the first-offer effect remains remarkably robust across cultures and also extends to multi-issue negotiations

- low-power negotiators benefit from making the first offer across single- and multi-issue negotiations (first-offer effect works regardless of power --> low-power negotiators suffered most from not making the first offer)

- first offers operate through the distributive, not the integrative or compatible issues

--> very generalizable 

-  the prosocial orientation is sometimes considered to comprise two subtypes

-  Kurzban and Houser (2001) and Perugini and Galluci (2001) distinguish altruistic from reciprocal cooperators

- Altruists cooperate because they are more concerned with a positive outcome for others than for themselves; they are likely to remain cooperative, even when their partners defect

-  Reciprocators cooperate when they know their cooperative acts will be returned; they respond cooperatively to positive acts from their partners, but they quit cooperating in response to negative acts. thus, in addition to valuing maximization of joint outcomes, prosocial reciprocators also value equality in outcome

- two main contextual moderators of the relation between SVO and cooperative behaviour 

- signals of trustworthiness increase the level of cooperation, especially among prosocials

--> People with a natural inclination to cooperate are at the same time vulnerable to being exploited. As most people want to avoid the latter, cues signalling trustworthiness of others are likely to constitute a major determinant of the level of cooperation of prosocials. 

- incentives to cooperate will increase the level of cooperation, especially for proselfs

--> Incentives to cooperate In many exchange situations with repeated interaction, cooperation is strategically the best choice, as the collective gain of mutual cooperation often far outweighs the gain from mutual defection. Contextual incentives that signal that the outcome of noncooperation is small compared to the potential (long-term) benefits which can be obtained by cooperating are likely to induce proselfs to cooperate. In this case, the cooperative goal is aligned with the proself’s pursuit of self-interest. (e.g. when feedback is provided, tit-for-tat strategy, creation of strong group identity towards cooperation)

- they proposed that expectations mediate the influence of SVO on cooperation; can be explaned in two ways 

1) individuals who exhibit cooperative behaviour might justify their own behaviour by expecting cooperation from others 

2) individuals assume that others are similar to themselves and therefore expect cooperation 

Results: 

- medium-sized overall correlation between SVO and cooperation (r=.317) 

- large overall correlation between expectations and cooperation (r=.626) 

- after fitting a structural equation model to the pooled meta-analytic correlation matrix: 

--> direct effect (SVO --> COOP) remained significant but decreased in magnitude compared with the meta-analytical estimate of the effect size 

--> indirect effect of SVO on COOP via EXP was statistically significant 

--> they could provide evidence for partial mediation

--> prosocials expect significantly more cooperation from their partner then proselfs 

--> no difference between prosocials and proselfs on how far expectations have an influence on cooperative behavior

- respondents are required to evaluate pairs of outcomes for self and an unknown other, and to indicate the most preferred pair

- majority of existing research reviewed here has used the nine-item, triple dominance decomposed measure of SVO, which distinguishes between a cooperative, individualistic, and competitive orientation. Respondents are classified into one of
these three orientations if they make six out of nine choices consistent with one orientation

- An alternative decomposed game is the ring measure of SVO. It requires respondents to evaluate two pairs of outcomes, 24 consecutive times. The pairs of own–other outcomes are derived from points on a circle with a fixed radius. Respondents are classified if 60% of their choices are consistent with one specific social value orientation

Reliability: test–retest coefficients in the range of about 60–75% (moderate, but sufficiently high); situational stability: mixed results --> sometimes priming didn't show an effect; sometimes free of social desirability, sometimes not 

Validity: 

- Content: measures SVO as a categorical variable --> some respondents are not classified --> loss of data(10%); only three SVOs are presented in the set of outcome distribution (altruistic is not in there) 

- Convergent and discriminant validity: overlap between different techniques for measuring SVO is not yet firmly established --> possible overlap with judgmental measurement technique (.67); prosocials adhere more so universalism, but they didn't differe with respect to benevolence, fairness plays a more important role in prosocials' motivation to cooperate, trust and SVO are not correlated (not clear --> further research needed); apart from that: scant research e.g. SVO and personality

- ecological: resemblance to operationalization of dependent variable in most experimental research --> has also been used in real life social dilemmas (e.g. negotiations) --> credible and ecologically meaningful prosocial-proself distinction

- Trust = psychological state comprising the intention to accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations of the intentions or behaviour of another

- interdependence perspective on trust: trust is relevant to cooperation in situations of

(a) social interdependence that

(b) contain some degree of conflict of interest

- influences expectations towards cooperation of other person --> trust promotes cooperation in situations of conflicting interests 

- cooperation always bears the possibility of getting exploited --> especially in one-time games 

- degree of confliciting interests may affect the relation between trust and cooperation --> trust may even be more predictive of behavior in situations involving a larger, compared to smaller, conflict of interests 

- in situations with less conflict cooperation is more influenced by self-serving motives like impression management and maintaining social ties

- if someone in a high conflict situation shows trust the counterpart can be sure that it's out of benevolent motives --> strong predictor for cooperative behavior

- differentiation between high trust (generalized trust; USA) and low trust (particualized trust; Japan) cultures 

- early trust violation more harmful for cooperation in high-trust cultures and later trust violation more harmful for cooperation in low-trust cultures 

- people with low general trust expect early trust violations and difficulties --> if relationship is already established trust violation hits harder 

- generalized trust is a moderator variable 

- refers to the tendency for relations between groups to be more competitive or less cooperative than relations between individuals

- Many, but not all, experiments contrasting interindividual and intergroup interactions in the PDG context have found that intergroup interactions are relatively more competitive

- Brown’s (1954): "the quality of mob behavior has always required explanation because of its apparent discontinuity with the private characters of the individuals involved" 

Fear and greed perspective = assumes that one reason for selecting the competitive choice is the fear/greed of receiving the lowest/highest possible outcome, either in an absolute sense or relative to the outcomes achieved by the other player

1. Schema-based distrust or fear explanation:  intergroup interactions are more competitive than interindividual interactions because the anticipation of interacting with another group produces cognitive and affective responses denoting that other groups are competitive, untrustworthy, hostile, and abrasive

2. Identifiability explanation: intergroup interactions are more competitive than interindividual interactions because the other player’s ability to assign responsibility for competitive, self-interested behaviour is typically more limited in an intergroup than in an interindividual context

3. Social support for shared self-interest explanation: proposes that intergroup interactions are more competitive than interindividual interactions because group members can provide mutual social support for the competitive pursuit of shared selfinterest, whereas such social support is unavailable to isolated individuals (To respond competitively when the other player is expected to cooperate is inconsistent with norms of fairness and equality. Yet social support from ingroup members for pursuing such a self-interested strategy can reduce these normative constraint)

4. Ingroup-favouring norm explanation: group membership implies normative pressure to act so as to benefit the ingroup

5. Altruistic rationalisation explanation: interactions between groups are more competitive than interactions between individuals because group members can rationalise self-interest as being pursued for the sake of the ingroup

- group polarization = the tendency for a group to make decisions that are more extreme than the initial inclination of its members

- hot sauce experiment (Meier and Hinsz, 2004): test subjects are being provoked and can then allocate hot sauce to an individual or to a group --> subjects who had a discussion before the allocation within the group allocated significantly more hot sauce; they also allocated more hot sauce to groups then to individuals 

- prediciton from group polarization would be different --> if individuals are a bit aggressive group polarization would predict them to be more aggressive in a group, if individuals are cautious, group polarization would predict them to be more cautios in a group 

- group polarization explains behavior of groups in decision making contexts (group discussion); interindividual-intergroup discontinuity explains behavior in a mixed-interest situation

- in two experiments they manipulated the indices of entitativity (common fate, proximity, and similarity) to examine when a set of individuals interacts with another set of individuals in the competitive manner that is characteristic of group-on-group interactions

- in Experiment 1 they found that interactions between two 3-person sets were more competitive when participants
within each set shared (vs. did not share) common fate

- in Experiment 2 they found that observers as well as targets were more competitive when targets shared (vs. did not share) common fate

- Path analyses in both experiments supported the idea that common fate increases competition via increased own-set entitativity and subsequent greed, and via increased other-set entitativity and subsequent fear --> common fate increased the perceived entitativity of the own group (enhances greeed) as well as of the out-group (enhances fear)

- motivated reasoning: self-esteem might be enhanced by the belief that he or she is the primary agent in joint marital tasks 

- egocentric bias in the cognitive availability of information:

• we are always present to witness our own contributions but not always for others' contributions
• we encode our own actions more deeply --> results in reliable egocentric bias in judgements of responsibility (ease with which specific instances come to mind is used to estimate frequency) 
• many contributions of joint efforts are cognitive contributions (planning, obsessing, reviewing) --> those we can't perceive from our partner, but only from our own 
• framing of the question --> if I ask: "How much have I contributed" I retrieve more own contributions of course since the question acts as a prime 

- because also contributions, that have a negative consequence are being perceived with an egocentric bias and therefore not self-esteem eliviating --> this can't be out of motivational reasons because it doesn't serve that purpose