Edward Swing (

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• Edward Swing (Ted)
• Graduate Assistant
• Office 484 Science I
• eswing_at_iastate.edu

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Conflict and Peacemaking Outline

• The Nature of Conflict
• Social Dilemmas
• Efforts in Peacemaking

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Conflict

• Individuals perceive an incompatibility of their
  actions or goals
• Often there is some incompatibility of goals
• Individual's perceptions magnify that
  incompatibility

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Misperceptions of Others

• Several social psychological processes can bias
  our perceptions of others self-serving bias,
  fundamental attribution error, stereotypes
• This can lead to unfair negative beliefs about an
  individual that contribute to conflict

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Zero-sum games

• Gains for one party are accompanied by equal
  losses for the other party
• Most real life conflicts are not zero-sum games
• Both sides can simultaneously achieve their goals
  or both can simultaneously fail
• Does not always lead to cooperation

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Social Dilemmas

• The best choice for each individual, when
  selected by many people, is harmful for everyone
• Not zero-sum games

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Classic Prisoner's Dilemma
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Classic Prisoner's Dilemma
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Prisoner's Dilemma
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Different Strategies

• Always cooperate
• Always defect
• Tit-for-Tat Start with cooperation, then respond
  as your opponent did on the previous round

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Public Goods Dilemma

• Everyone must contribute to a common pool of
  goods in order to maintain it
• Individual Advantageous to take without
  contributing (same benefit, less cost)
• Group Most people must contribute or nobody
  benefits

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Commons Dilemma

• Everyone takes from a limited resource that
  replenishes over time
• Often occurs with environmental resources
• Individually focused strategy leads to depletion
  of the resource, hurts group

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Peacemaking Solutions to Social Dilemmas

• Regulation
• In commons dilemmas it can help ensure the
  resource replenishes and assures that
  distribution is fair
• Regulation has costs associated with it and may
  not be viable

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Benefits of Communication

• Contact can increase liking through the mere
  exposure effect
• Facilitate trust Dawes (1980, 1984) experiment,
  participants in groups of seven could either take
  6 for themselves or give 2 to each other person
• When there was no communication, only 30 gave
  their money to the others
• After communication, 80 chose to give the money
  to the others

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Risks of Communication

• Contact does not always work an equal status
  environment is important
• Negative expectations may be met
• Exchanging threats may lead to further conflict

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Deutsch's Trucking Company Game
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Cooperation

• Common external threats
• Superordinate goals lead both parties to work
  together for a common purpose
• Shared group identity reduces conflict

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Summary

• Conflicts are fueled by misperceptions of others
  and the level of conflict with their goals
• Social dilemmas illustrate that acting in ones
  personal interest sometimes hurts the interests
  of the group
• Prisoner's Dilemma
• Public Goods Dilemma
• Commons Dilemma

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Summary

• Strategies that regulate behavior help with some
  social dilemmas
• Creating cooperation can reduce conflict
• Communication is an important part of
  peacemaking, but only if it increases trust or
  positive feelings