Mind games

The mental representation of conflict

Bibliographic Data

ID6204522
AuthorsNir Halevy (0000-0001-5491-6979, Stanford University), Eileen Y Chou (0000-0003-2015-9046, Northwestern University), J Keith Murnighan (Northwestern University)
Year2012
Volume102
Issue1
Pages132-148
Publication date2012-01-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessNo
TypeARTICLE
VenueJournal of Personality and Social Psychology (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 0022-3514 • E-ISSN: 1939-1315
PublisherAmerican Psychological Association (APA) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1037/a0025389
PMID21910551
OpenAlexW2056821124
LanguageEN
Citations received28
References cited50

Perception and misperception play a pivotal role in conflict and negotiation. We introduce a framework that explains how people think about their outcome interdependence in conflict and negotiation and how their views shape their behavior. Seven studies show that people's mental representations of conflict are predictably constrained to a small set of possibilities with important behavioral and social consequences. Studies 1 and 2 found that, when prompted to represent a conflict in matrix form, more than 70% of the people created 1 of 4 archetypal mixed-motive games (out of 576 possibilities): Maximizing Difference, Assurance, Chicken, and Prisoner's Dilemma. Study 3 demonstrated that these mental representations relate in predictable ways to negotiators' fixed-pie perceptions. Studies 4-6 showed that these mental representations shape individuals' behavior and interactions with others, including cooperation, perspective taking, and use of deception in negotiation, and through them, conflict's outcomes. Study 7 found that the games that people think they are playing influence how their counterparts see them, as well as their counterparts' negotiation expectations. Overall, the findings document noteworthy regularities in people's mental representations of outcome interdependence in conflict and illustrate that 4 archetypal games can encapsulate fundamental psychological processes that emerge repeatedly in conflict and negotiation

Cognition · Conflict resolution · Deception · Dilemma · Epistemology · Mental representation · Negotiation · Outcome (game theory) · Perception · Perspective (graphical) · Political science · Representation (politics) · Set (abstract data type) · Social dilemma · Sociology · Cultural Differences and Values · Experimental Behavioral Economics Studies · Psychology · Social and Intergroup Psychology · Social Psychology

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