Spoiling Alert ! Threats, Issues of Contingency and
Spill-Over Effect in Mediation:
Understanding the Consequences of Spoiling Behavior through a
Practitioner’s Lens
Natacha Vallette d’Osia
11260378
Master Thesis
M.Sc. Conflict Resolution and Governance
Supervisor: Dr. David Laws
Seconde Reader: Dr. Michelle Parlevliet
29’153 Words June 2017
Acknowledgements
I am grateful to many people for their assistance and support throughout this project. I would firstly like to thank my supervisor, David Laws, for his kind guidance and the countless interesting meetings that we had. I thank Michelle Parlevliet for accepting to be my second reader, as well as for sharing her contacts with me, and thereby granting me an easier access to the closed world of practitioners. My gratitude also goes to all of the professionals who agreed to be interviewed for sharing their experience with me. Thanks to Nathalie Favre, Spes Manirakazi, Susanne Gentz, Howard Bellman, Laurie Nathan, Oliver Wils, Oliver Wolleh, Pascal, as well as those who decided to remain anonymous.Reflecting on practice is not an easy task, especially when it is to talk about a failed case, and I thank you for your honesty. Finally, I would like to thank my family for their loving support and encouragements. A heartfelt thanks goes to my mother, Michelle Vallette d’Osia, who proofread my work and to my father, Patrick, offered valuable feedback throughout the process. I am grateful to Matthieu Fragnière for his emotional and technical support, as well as my fellow students and friends, to whom I owe my sanity and who helped me through difficult times.
Table of Content
Introduction
6
How does Mediation Make Trust Plausible ?
10
Issues of Trust and Distrust, Vulnerability and Risk 10 Hiding the Real and Showing the False: Charity, Framing, Skepticism, and Lying 14
Cooperation and Contention 18
Discussion on Trust, Cooperation and Communication 25
Research Design
28
How Did I Get hold of My Data and What Was I Looking For ? 28 Who are the practitioners that I interviewed ? 30
Limitations 31
Ethical Statement 32
Stories from Practice: What is it That Gets Spoiled ?
34
Pascal’s Story of a Failed Attempt of Cooperation 34 Building a House of Cards on Shifting Sand: Spoiling and Trust 39
How do mediators talk about spoilers/spoiling ?
43
How Contingency Permeates the Practice: Issues of Uncertainty and Ambiguity in the
Speech of Practitioners 46
Strategies of mediators: Bridging speech and actions
49
Coping with Spoiling: Strategies of Prevention and Repair
53
Breaking the Patterns: Framing, Reformulation, Caucuses and Overcoming the Failure of
the Imagination 53
Working on Frames: Understanding the Conflict and How Parties Perceive it 54 “Did I understand you correctly ?“ Translating and Reformulating 55
Caucuses: “Let’s Talk Somewhere Quiet“ 57
Adjusting the Process Design: Balancing the Extremes and Overcoming the Failure of the
Imagination 60
Strategies of Repair
63
“But Why ?“ Understanding the Motivation of Spoiling Actions, Listening and Being Heard 63
Rapport in Mediation: How To Get a Second Chance 65
Role of Apologies 67
Conclusion: What is it that is threatened and put at risk by spoiling behavior ?
69
All Area of Practice of Mediation Experience Spoiling 69
Summary of the Findings 70
Issues of Contingency 70
What does Spoiling Put at Risk ? 71
Coping and Repair 72
The Spill-Over Effect 72
Mediation and Spoiling: Two Sides of the Same Coin 74
Bibliography
77
Introduction
“Experience has demonstrated that one of the greatest risks to mediation comes from parties who believe that peace threatens their interests — for example, their power or the benefit they derive from the war economy — and who then use violence to undermine the process.“ (Ban Ki-Moon 2009: 11)
In those words, Ban Ki-Moon, former Secretary-General of the United Nations, affirms that spoilers represent one of the biggest threats to mediation. In further recommendations, Ban Ki-Moon suggests that mediators should carefully craft a process design that aims to limit the damage that a spoiler can cause to the mediation. He was actually quoting Stedman, a scholar who defined spoilers as being parties who actively seek to undermine ongoing negotiations (Stedman 1997: 5). In this perspective, spoilers represent groups who oppose a peace settlement or, more broadly, the idea of peace itself because it threatens their interests, values or lifestyle (Ibid.). Spoilers, in his view, rely on violence in their efforts to undermine any effort aiming for peace. Spoilers, not only desire to maintain the status quo, but even prefer to abstain from exploring different options that could potentially be better than the situation that they find themselves in at the moment. In their point of view, the status quo, and their BATNA will always be better than exploring other options 1
and solutions through negotiation.
While Stedman’s article on spoiler sparked a wide debate in the international mediation literature (see for instance Zahar 2009, Greenhill and Major 2007, Newman and Richmond 2006), spoilers were also discussed in the business negotiation literature (Luecke 2003, Trask & DeGuire 2013), where they refer to parties that have the power to sabotage an ongoing negotiation process (Luecke 2003: 87). Stedman views a spoiler as being inherently opposed to any form of negotiation, but most scholars see spoiling behavior as a strategy, used in order to derail a mediation process. Spoiling is hence examined as a “situated action,“ where actors behave in accordance to a situational activity (Aggestam 2006: 24), as opposed to the concept of Stedman that depicts a caricatural actor impervious to rationality. This is an important distinction to make, as it considers spoiling as a strategy amongst others used in order to reach a set goal.
Although spoiling behavior is observed inside as well as outside of the process (Newman and Richmond 2006: 4), this thesis will focus on the parties actively participating in the process of
Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement: the reason why parties negotiate is to produce a better result 1
than what you would obtain if you weren’t negotiating (Fisher and Ury 2012: 102). In that sense, all possible agreement should be measured according to parties’ BATNA and should be accepted if they make parties better off than what they would have had without the negotiation.
mediation. Hence, the term internal spoiling, also called inside spoiling, will be implied when talking about spoiling. Internal spoiling differentiates itself from external spoiling, where groups who are not directly engaged in the mediation, or who where excluded from it, attempt to disrupt the process, in order to delegitimize the ongoing mediation (Aggestam 2006: 32). Inside spoiling thus represents actions from actors participating in the process, who attempt to undermine the process by engaging in a disruptive behavior.
Although a debate is raging about the root causes leading to the emergence of spoilers, this thesis will not engage directly in these discussions. To consider spoilers, however, as exogenous artifacts of the process, like Stedman’s actor-centered theory describes them — groups who by virtue of their nature, are inherently opposed to, or even incapable of negotiating with another conflicting party (1997: 10-11), means that whatever mediators and other parties do in order to prevent, or deter spoiling behavior will not work. Because the causes of spoiling behavior lie outside of the process, mediators and the other parties can’t influence, nor attempt to change the behavior of spoilers. This is why this thesis will position itself in the second body of literature, where the emergence of spoiling behavior is endogenous to the negotiation process, which mediators and other parties can leverage and exert some influence on (Greenhill and Major 2007: 8).
This choice is justified by the fact that if the causes of spoiling lie outside of the mediation process, then the process is bound to fail even before it started. This is what Stedman explains by stating that the only way of dealing with a “total spoiler“ is to marginalize her/him sufficiently from the process, or apply financial or military sanctions on the spoiler, because her/his mere presence in
the mediation will lead to the spoiling of the process (Stedman 1997: 15). This means that either the parties or the mediator can’t do anything to save the process, except by excluding the spoiler from the mediation, or alternatively, that a mediation process simply won’t take place, as it is a voluntary process (Rubin et al. 1994: 197).
fig. 2.1: Localizing spoiling behavior
Exogenous
Endogenous
Actor
Spoiler
If the literature is abundant in terms of what leads the spoilers to emerge, it is scarce when it comes to the aftermaths of spoiling, one of the aspect of spoiling behavior that remains under-theorized. Although the representation of spoilers seems to be caricatural, the effects of its actions to sabotage the mediation process produces tangible effects — so much so that mediators have to develop specific strategies to protect their process against the spoiler’s undertakings. Even though spoiling is considered as being “one of the greatest risks to mediation“(Ibid.), the effects of those risks remain unexplored. This is why I have chosen to investigate the threats that spoiling behavior exert on mediation. My research thus aims to bridge this gap by understanding what is put at risk by spoiling behavior: What is it that is threatened and put at risk by spoiling behavior ?
The practice of mediation in regard to spoiling will therefore be observed, as well as the motives that explain why parties choose to defect from cooperation.Endogenous factors leading to spoiling behavior will be explored, as well as what mediators can do in order to prevent spoiling from impacting the mediation. Indeed, mediators and parties can influence the endogenous factors that shape the process, whereas they have no power in influencing exogenous ones.
In certain ways, spoiling can thus be considered as a pathology of mediation, where parties choose to re-engage in competitive rather than in cooperative behavior (Deutsch 1973: 353). It is thus useful to analyze what motivates the parties to commit to the process, and what on the contrary, could motivate them to spoil the mediation. In order to commit to the process, the parties need to trust that the opposing parties will commit to it as well (Idem.: 155). Therefore, trust represents an essential component of commitment, even more so when commitment is not enforceable by a superior power or a sanction system, like the courts for instance, which happens to be the case in mediation (Idem: 183). Issues of trust and distrust will be discussed in the following sections, and how trust relates to mediation and spoiling.
Furthermore, mediation is a process that is made out of words where parties attempt to reach an agreement by communication their needs and interests (Goltsman et al. 2009: 1398). Mediation strives to enhance the possibilities for communication between parties, where in order to negotiate, participants need to communicate and understand each other’s needs and interests (Fisher and Uri 2012: 35). Communication will be presented in light of Davidson’s charity principle (1974: 152), which in short argues that the receiver should privilege the interpretation that maximizes the meaning of what is being said by the speaker (Pagin 2013: 236). On the other hand, when in conflict, parties tend to doubt what the other parties are expressing. This doubt might even result in parties engaging in deceptive communication (Bok 1989: 13). While skepticism affects the understanding of what is meant by the speaker, lying is meant to overpower the other — both of which lead to miscommunication.
Both of these chapter explore the opposite side of the same coin — distrust being the opposite of trust, and charity representing the contrary of skepticism and lying. I will then draw back to cooperation and contention, and demonstrate how distrust and skepticism lead to competitive behavior and allow the emergence of spoiling behavior, while trust and charity are more prone to cooperation, or at least antagonistic cooperation.
The following sections will set the frame to investigate particular aspects of spoiling behavior. Firstly, sources of contingency will be explored and what motivates or, on the contrary, deters spoiling behavior. How does mediation create a context in which trust seems plausible ? In a context of conflict, where parties have valid reasons to be skeptical, how can charity emerge ? How does cooperation develop from the initial competitive behavior ? Finally, I will try to determine the risks and consequences of spoiling behavior. After that, my research design will be discussed. Then, practitioners’ accounts of spoiling behavior in relation to mediation will be developed in four sections. The first one will comment on their stories which demonstrates what gets spoiled by spoiling behavior. The second one will discuss the way practitioners talk about spoiling and spoilers, as well as the implication that this has on their practice. The third one, will demonstrate the strategies that mediator use to cope with spoiling behavior, and what they can do to repair the relationship between parties that was damaged by spoiling.
How does Mediation Make Trust Plausible ?
Issues of Trust and Distrust, Vulnerability and Risk
“I’ve Learned it Takes Years to Build up Trust, and it Only Takes Suspicion, not Proof, to Destroy it.“ (Unknown)
In this section, I will address issues of trust, and look into why trust is required in order to conduct a successful mediation. The importance of vulnerability in the building of trust will be highlighted., as well as the risks that are related to said vulnerability. The consequences of distrust on the mediation process will also be examined and how distrust impacts the mediation process. Finally, the question of how does spoiling behavior exploits and damages will be tackled.
“When we say we trust someone or that someone is trustworthy, we implicitly mean that the probability that he will perform an action that is beneficial or at least not detrimental to us is high enough for us to consider engaging in some form of cooperation with him.“ (Gambetta 2000: 217)
Gambetta’s definition of trust highlights several elements that are worth commenting on. Firstly, trust is a probability, or in other words, an expectation (Weber and Carter 2003: 1).This bears several implications, as it means that trust is a way of mitigating risk by managing the uncertainty of the future. It creates positive expectations, not only for one particular action in the future, but all actions that could ensue from the present moment (Gambetta 2000: 18). Secondly, these expectations are based on the assumption that our trusted partner will not act in a way that could be harmful to us, even when faced with the opportunity to do so, but that they will behave in an acceptable manner, without exploiting one’s vulnerabilities (Sako 1997: 3). Hence, in an uncertain environment, trust anchors beliefs and expectations that allow partner to rely on each other, but also restrict the field of possible action for either partner. Thirdly, Gambetta affirms that a certain level of trust is a prerequisite in order to consider cooperation. In some ways, in order to engage in cooperation, one needs to feel s/he has intangible guarantees, which in that case represents trust, that the other will not take advantage of one’s vulnerability. In that sense, these expectations are affiliated with the hope that the trusted partner is a reliable one. However, this also highlights the risky character that trust entails: it is a probability, an expectation, a glimpse of hope, but it is not something that an actor can be certain of. Trust is thus always an experiment, a gamble that parties engage in, as there is no central authority that could force both parties to trust each other, which is particularly accurate in mediation (Axelrod 2006: 4).
Vulnerability and trust therefore go hand in hand. You cannot trust someone without making yourself vulnerable at first, and cooperation requires trust. In that sense, any kind of cooperation starts with vulnerability. Vulnerability is connected to unilateral dependency. If one partner is vulnerable, s/he fully depends on the other’s action and cannot control the other’s behavior (Lorenz 1998: 197). Hence, trustworthiness means to refrain of exploiting someone’s vulnerability, even when given the chance, which then encourages reciprocity (Charness and Shmidov 2014: 193). Trust arises precisely in those risky areas, where deception is always a possibility. This constant exposition of vulnerability triggers a virtuous circle and allows trust to thrive.
This resonates with Axelrod’s prisoner dilemma (2006: 6). Indeed, on each move, players can either choose to cooperate or defect. However, defection will be met with further defection in the future, because the parties remember the history of their interaction (Idem: 12), and will thus be weary to be exploited again. On the other hand, cooperation might trigger a series of cooperative moves, but could also lead to the exploitation of one’s vulnerability if one decided to trust the other and cooperate, and the other chooses to defect. This is where the strategy of Tit for Tat stems from: parties should adjust their strategies to the other players’ moves, but always decide to cooperate first and see what the other party chooses to do. If s/he cooperates, then you should cooperate further, but if s/he defects, then you should also do so (Idem.: 13).
This is why blind trust can incite deception (Gambetta 2000: 219). If I continually choose to cooperate, even when you are defecting, and thus exploiting me, then you will know that you can continue to defect and I will continue to cooperate. Moreover, and following Axelrod’s reasoning of Tit for Tat, deception also occurs if one of the parties doesn’t keep their commitments in cooperation.
It is therefore necessary to build trust by incremental steps, as well as to gradually increase the levels of vulnerability that one exposes to the other party, and by doing so, reach thicker levels of trust and of interdependence:
“These properties indicate two general reasons why — even in the absence of ‘thick’ trust — it may be rational to trust trust and distrust distrust, that is, to choose deliberately a testing value of p [probability that our partner is trustworthy] which is both high enough for us to engage in tentative action, and small enough to set the risk and scale of possible disappointment acceptably low. The first is that if we do not, we shall never find out: trust begins with keeping oneself open to evidence, acting as if one trusted, at least until more stable beliefs can be established on the basis of further information.“ (Gambetta 2000: 234)
This mitigation of risk consists in always assuming that the partner is trustworthy, and starting with small expectations. Indeed, testing the trustworthiness of a partner, step-by-step, and testing the resistance of the bond that unites both actors allows to gradually access higher levels of trust, vulnerability but also reciprocity. This means that partners can build a more robust relationship, and an openness to test their level in each subsequent interaction. The more they put their trust at risk but continually choose not to exploit the other’s vulnerability, which constitutes the basis of fruitful cooperations, which will be addressed in the next section of this thesis.
Gambetta also mentions the fact that one should always act as if the partner could be trusted when in doubt of her/his trustworthiness. This is a way to engage in a trusting relationship, by simply believing that the partner is trustworthy, or at least not being suspicious of the other, alike Axelrod’s strategy of cooperation. This ‘trick’ of trusting trust is rational as it leads to more beneficial relationships for all partners involved , because it mitigates the risk of being betrayed. Nonetheless, this also means that possible disappointments are taken into account and that the advantages outweigh the risks, based on the experience and the memory that every partner hold of each other. The history and the relationship that partners maintain is capital. This is twofold: firstly, it means that trust breeds trust, and creates, as mentioned earlier, a virtuous circle. Yet, if a partner chooses to betray the other, replacing distrust by trust, then rebuilding a relationship between both actors is an extremely complex and long process:
“[D]eep distrust is very difficult to invalidate through experience, for either it prevents people from engaging in the appropriate kind of social experiment or, worse, it leads to behavior which bolsters the validity of distrust itself. Once distrust has set in it soon becomes impossible to know if it was ever in fact justified, for it has the capacity to be self-fulfilling, to generate a reality consistent with itself. It then becomes individually ‘rational’ to behave accordingly, even for those previously prepared to act on more optimistic expectations. Only accident or a third party may set up the right kind of ‘experiment’ to prove distrust unfounded (…).“ (Gambetta 2000: 234).
When distrust has set, it is increasingly difficult to build a new trustful relationship. Distrust becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy and creates a vicious circle, where the best move of each party is to defect (Axelrod 2006: 9). The same way that trust breeds trust, distrust, on the contrary, encourages antagonistic and competitive behavior. This touches upon the frames that an actor uses to make sense of a situation (Schmueli et al. 2006: 207). The way an agent interprets a situation is not the same when dealing with a trusted partner or with a partner considered unreliable. As such, in order to reduce a cognitive dissonance that could challenge the framing
used when interpreting a partner’s behavior, when parties believe they are dealing with an untrustworthy partner, they will privilege an analysis that confirms this distrust.
This brings us to the role of mediation in the creation of trust. Indeed, the way Gambetta writes about a third-party intervention fits with the role of a mediator. The mediator can thus mitigate the risks linked to trust by asking the parties to each make “irrevocable concessions, not matter how small, in an effort to create tangible evidence of a willingness to give something up and to build commitment to a conciliatory process“ (Rubin et al. 1994: 212). This can show the parties that trusting the other party is not only possible, but that it also yields higher returns. This method is called bootstrapping, where parties, step by step, reach higher levels of trust by making increasingly bigger commitments without defecting, thus building a “thicker“ trust.
This represents the experiment that Gambetta describes in the quote. Indeed, mediation can be seen as an experiment, where parties experience each other in a different manner which breaks the pattern of past behavior. In that sense, mediation can be compared to a scaffold, where participants decide to craft new boundaries and experiment something different through a safe process (Hunter 2008: 15). Through increasingly bigger commitments, which also means making oneself more and more vulnerable, participants of a mediation have the opportunity of putting the reliability of their partners, that they usually perceive as being untrustworthy, to a test. This encourages a cooperative behavior between parties, as opposed to the antagonistic position that they have experienced throughout the conflict (Deutsch 1973: 352). Nevertheless, in order to achieve this transition and ultimately trust the other party involved in the mediation, parties need to believe that the process and the mediator are unbiased and fair, and trust that the other party negotiates in good faith (Aggestam 2006: 28).
However, this makes this experiment vulnerable to spoiling behavior. If certain participants don’t believe that the process has the characteristics mentioned above, they can be inclined to spoil the mediation, in order to signal these issues and re-shape the process to make it fairer (Newman and Richmond 2006: 18), or choose to defect to serve personal interests (Aggestam 2006: 29). However, deliberate deception, such as making believe to the parties that one is a reliable partner, and then exploit their vulnerabilities for their own personal gain, destroys the entire process, but also may prevent other mediation from taking place again. Indeed, entering the process requires a leap of faith, because this means believing the that parties might be able to interact in a different way than they have in the past. This implies that participants are open to the idea of a possible cooperation and thus, of revising their judgment that other parties are inherently untrustworthy. By exploiting the parties’ vulnerabilities, a spoiler then confirms the atmosphere of distrust, which makes others trust their distrust. This not only destroys cooperative behavior in the present, but
also impedes all future cooperative behavior. Spoiling then stains the strained relationship between parties even more, and is likely to annihilate any possibilities of fostering trust in near, or even distant future.
In this section, I have shown that trust emerges from the hope that a partner won’t exploit one’s vulnerability. In order to trust a partner, an actor has to be willing to take a leap of faith and make himself vulnerable, where s/he depends on the actions of another party, which s/he cannot control. This encourages reciprocity, as trust is an important component of cooperation. Paradoxically, trust and risk are intrinsically linked to one another. Trust encourages more risk-taking and experimenting, but also mitigates the risks when dealing with a reliable partner. By constantly testing the bound that connects two or more agents, and starting by small incremental steps, a trustful relationship can be built. However, the same way that trust breeds trust, distrust leads to more distrust. This can be overturned by mediation, where the process plays a role of a scaffold and mitigates the risk of being vulnerable. Because of the very structure of the process, parties may feel that they can let go of their fears and place their trust in the process, which will ideally gradually transform into a trusting relationship with the conflicting party. Participants need to trust the process and the mediator to be fair, and maybe trust in the opposing parties will emerge, but it isn’t necessarily a prerequisite. However, spoilers might utilize that to take advantage of the other’s parties vulnerability and thus prevent this kind of experiment from happening again. In the next section, effective as well as deceptive communication will be examined in order to understand how parties communicate their trust or distrust. Furthermore, the impact of skepticism and lying on communication between parties, as well as the consequences of miscommunication, will be explored.
Hiding the Real and Showing the False: Charity, Framing, Skepticism, and
Lying
Mediation is a process that is made of ‘talk,’ parties attempt to achieve a mutually acceptable agreement by exchanging information (Goltsman et al. 2009: 1398) and where parties strive to communicate in a different way than they have in the past. Indeed, mediation tries to uncover the deeper needs and interests of parties through communication (Deutsch 1973: 353).
In this section, I will introduce Davidson’s charity principle (1974: 152) and its importance in the mediation process. I will argue that charity is a necessary condition to mediation, in order for parties to feel heard and understood. Then, I will discuss the consequences of skepticism and frames in a mediation process. Furthermore, skepticism will also be presented in its extreme expression — lying, and what motivates parties to lie to their negotiating partners.
Communication is a process where “ideas, informations, opinions, attitude and feelings are conveyed from one person to another“ (Duta 2014: 626). In that sense, efficient communication means that the speaker delivers a message that is understood as it was intended by the receiver with the least effort possible (Son and Pols 2003: 171). However, the message is rarely received so perfectly by the receiver, because what one hears is shaped by experience and beliefs, how the other is perceived and what position one holds towards the speaker (Schmueli et al. 2006: 217).
“The general policy (…) is to choose truth conditions that do as well as possible in making speakers hold sentences true when (according to the theory and the theory builder’s view of the facts) those sentences are true.“ (Davidson 1974: 152).
Davidson’s charity principle means that the receiver should privilege the interpretation that maximizes the meaning of what is being said (Pagin 2013: 236). The act of charity implies that one is open to test what is said, instead of dismissing it immediately, which resembles the openness to experiment trust that was discussed in the previous section. Davidson’s principlerecommends to apprehend the content of what the speaker utters as true, until proved otherwise. This presupposes an emphasis on understanding rather than seeking contradictions in the other’s discourse. As such, the interlocutor is seen as rational, and what is being said makes sense in the speaker’s context. The principle of charity then points out the importance of understanding a point of view before pointing out ambiguities and possible contradictions, and that an idea should only be criticized after it is fully understood. Communication depends on this principle, as it encourages empathy and position-taking to understand what the other is expressing (Fisher et al. 2012: 25).
This requires the receiver to hold back on interpretations, or in other words on the frame that is employed when talking to a conflicting party. Frames can be seen as shortcuts for making interpretations (Schmueli et al. 2006: 208). Indeed, when in conflict, parties tend to doubt and overall meet what is expressed by the other parties with skepticism (Deutsch 1973: 353). These frames are tainted by the relationship that one has with another, and particularly in conflict, the interpretation of an adversary’s utterance will be consistent with the frame that is being used, often unconsciously. Frames thus exacerbate the skepticism that is felt by the parties, while at the same time exaggerating differences and lead to the polarization of the parties involved (Idem.: 209). The principle of charity requires the opposite, where what the interlocutor expresses is considered as valid, despite the framing that could challenge this belief. This shift from an adversarial to a cooperative behavior, where believing what is said instead of doubting it, is necessary in mediation to get ahold of the deeper needs and interests that constitute the positions of the conflicting
parties, and thereby to conduct an open dialogue that allows experimentation. The hope that the speaker is saying what s/he means and meaning what s/he says then constitutes the basis of an effective communication and consequently, a successful mediation process.
While the principle of charity essentially changes the perspective of the receiver of the speech, it also impacts the speaker, that in turn feels heard and understood (Deutsch 1973: 363). Charity thus allows an open and honest communication, where each party feels safe enough to share information on the underlying needs and interests that constitute the conflict (Ibid.). Furthermore, charity also limits the risks of miscommunication that “can lead to confusion and mistrust“ (Ibid.).
This makes mediation particularly vulnerable to lying and deception, which can be used by spoilers to undermine the process and gain power over the other parties, or even exploit them, if they are applying the charity principle:
“To the extent that knowledge gives power, to that extent do lies affect the distribution of power; they add to that of the liar, and diminish that of the deceived, altering his choice at different levels. (…) Lies may also eliminate or obscure relevant alternatives, as when a traveler is falsely told a bridge has collapsed. At times, lies foster the belief that there are more alternatives than is really the case; at other times, a lie may lead to the unnecessary loss of confidence in the best alternative. Similarly, the estimates of costs and benefits of any action can be endlessly varied through successful deception. (…) Finally, the degree of uncertainty in how we look at our choices can be manipulated through deception. Deception can make a situation falsely uncertain as well as falsely certain. It can affect the objective seen, the alternatives believed possible, the estimate made of risk and benefits. Such a manipulation of the dimension of certainty is one of the main ways to gain power over the choices of those deceived. And just as deception can initiate actions a person would have otherwise never have chosen, so it can prevent action by obscuring the necessity for choice.“ (Bok 1989: 19-20).
For Bok, lying is an act of coercion, in the sense that it has the capacity of manipulating individuals to act against their will (Bok 1989: 18). Lies are thus a strategic action, as they influence the belief as well as the actions of individuals. Indeed, agency depends on estimates of what is at play, what the diagnostic of a certain situation is. Because lies alter the information that is transmitted, they directly affect decisions that will be made after evaluating the situation (Bok 1989: 19). Lies create
a power-play, where asymmetry of information is used to coerce people by deliberately misinforming them.
Although the process of mediation itself strives to level the playing field by reducing asymmetry, it relies upon the good faith of its participants and on reciprocity. Lying then rigs this reciprocity by delivering false information that annihilates the efforts of mediation of striving towards better and more honest communication. Lying thus creates byproducts: it not only damages the existing communication between parties, but undermines the possibility of charity in the future, while at the same time breaching the trust that the parties have built or are attempting to build (Bakhurst 1992: 64).
Furthermore, the power asymmetry allows the lying party to broaden her/his field of alternatives. They enjoy a free-riding status (Bok 1989: 23). Indeed, if mediation is put in a game-theory perspective, each party can either decide to tell the truth or to lie. Alike trust, lying exploits the honesty of the other party: if all parties tell the truth except for one, the lying party free-rides on the others’ good faith. And precisely in this he gets an advantage of lying without being lied to. Moreover, this in turn broadens the field of options of the liar (deciding when to lie and when to be truthful for example), while those sticking to the truth see their alternatives narrowed by precisely not considering lying as an option. Lying is thus affiliated to an “unchecked exercise of power“ (Bok 1989: 26).
Lies also prevent the exploration of alternatives by giving false information. Liars limit the field of alternatives that could have been considered for an agreement by skewing possibilities. This affects mediation in its very foundation, where exploring solutions and possibilities constitute a crucial element for reaching an agreement.
Lies attract more lies (Bok 1989: 25). This consequently increases the chances of getting caught. But it also erodes and destroys the willingness to cooperate with a liar, let alone trusting him. Lies then spread, as an imitation, retaliation, or a willingness to level the playing — why can this party lie and I can’t ? The mere suspicion of dealing with a deceitful negotiation partner can cause parties to lie (Bok 1989: 28). This not only prevents a constructive dialogue to take place, but it will also erodes the bond that links both parties together. Indeed, lying induces fear, fear of being taken advantage of, fear of getting harmed. This then encourages the parties that were willing to cooperate, and act within the realm of the charity principle, to adopt a competitive behavior, which consequently leads to escalating conflicts. Furthermore, lying in a mediation process represents a precedent in the history of the relationship of the parties. This creates a focal point, which parties then use to justify their competitive behavior, and will most likely not be inclined to resume the experiment of mediation, as in Axelrod’s terms, the lying party chose to defect, which then renders cooperation difficult, if not impossible.
Lying and skepticism can thus be seen as spoiling behavior, as the lying party uses communication to mislead their interlocutor and gain more power over the other. Consequently, communication becomes a strategic tool used to ‘win’ the conflict, where every information that is shared between partners is doubted and handled with suspicion. Therefore, the risk of miscommunication and misinterpretation increases, and the probability of renegotiating boundaries and challenge existing frames lowers. Indeed, poor communication and misinterpretation tend to bolster preexisting expectations and uphold current framing processes (Deutsch 1973: 353). This enhances the fact that communication is a two-way street, what is being said is not necessarily what is being heard.
The mediator’s task is to facilitate the communication process between parties, and encourage the charity principles by fostering position-taking and empathy (Fisher and Ury 2012: 25). To acknowledge the fact that whatever is said and intended may be misinterpreted is crucial, as it demands continual rewording and checking that what is being said is really what is being meant. This allows the clarification of interests, position, and needs (Fisher and Ury 2012: 37). However, spoiling can use miscommunication, to undermine the mediation process. In this case, rephrasing won’t necessarily avoid the spoiling behavior to take place, as long as the ‘spoiler’ doesn’t express why s/he is deceitful. A mediation process is thus particularly vulnerable and easily fails when confronted to lying and deception.
In this section, I underlined how Davidson’s charity principle was necessary for communication in mediation, as it not only changes the receiver’s perception of the speaker, but it also results in the receiver feeling heard and understood. However, the charity principle is affected by the frames used by the parties when in conflict, and more generally by skepticism, which lead to rushed interpretations. Moreover, alike trust, the charity principle is particularly vulnerable to lying. Indeed, lying, in Bok’s words, can be affiliated to a power-play, where one party attempts to gain power over another (1989: 20) and skew the alternatives that could potentially be explored by mediation. Having this in mind, the next section will now further the insights on trust and communication to address issues of cooperation and contention. What is cooperation and how is it different from competitive behavior ? How can one cooperate without trust ? How can spoiling impede cooperation ? These questions will be discussed in the next section.
Cooperation and Contention
“No matter what the other does, defection yields higher payoff than cooperation. The dilemma is that if both defect, both do worse than if both had cooperated.“ (Axelrod 2006: 8)
Cooperation and spoiling are antagonistic, as spoiling can be described as a state of non-cooperation, or contentious behavior. This is why it is essential to understand the components of cooperation and how it relates to trust and communication. The sources of contention that lead cooperation to shift to competitive behavior will be examined, as well as what is put at risk by spoiling behavior in terms of cooperation. In the previous sections, I said that trust and communication were an underlying component of cooperation. But what does cooperation mean and how does it express itself in mediation ? These are a few questions that this section will address.
In order to understand cooperation, it may be useful to firstly observe competition in relation to conflict and the escalation dynamics that derive from it. Some aspects of competitive behavior are described as following:
“It stimulates the view that the solution of the conflict can only be imposed by one side or the other by means of superior force, deception, or cleverness. The enhancement of one’s power and the complimentary minimization of the other’s power become objectives. The attempt by each of the conflicting party to create or maintain a power difference favorable to his own side tends to expand the scope of the conflict far from a focus on the immediate issue in dispute, to a conflict over the power to impose one’s preference upon the power.“ (Deutsch 1973: 353)
The competitive process to resolve a conflict shows that it’s a zero sum game, where one party wins and the other loses. However, seeing the conflict as a zero sum produces more conflict, as this inevitably results in deprivation for the other party, which is often a cause for conflict (De Dreu 2010: 8). In this perspective, winning is sought by any means, creating an escalation until one of the player is defeated, or both lose. It is interesting to note that when two parties are caught in a competitive process, this leads to a spiraling of mutual retaliation, where the first element of dispute moves to a secondary position. This develops a consistency and a commitment in the conflictual behavior, which provokes a never ending chain of reaction (Deutsch 1973: 352). Parties are thus fully committed to the conflict itself as opposed to experiencing a dispute on one particular issue. It becomes an ego-game, where the strongest, or most clever party will defeat the enemy. Furthermore, these conflict entail a mutually destructive character instead of being a catalyst for change (De Dreu 2010: 2). Breaking the cycle of competition requires a disruption and a change in the habits of considering the other as the enemy, or in the realization that parties can’t win unilaterally.
If the parties involved recognize that they’ve reached a mutually hurting stalemate and that continuing the conflict is harmful for both parties, they will be more prone to engage in cooperation (Zartman 2008: 19). However, parties may experience entrapment, meaning that they are increasingly committed to a course of action that they cannot escape, and leads to conflict escalation (Rubin et al. 1994: 166). Conflicting parties feel like they have “too much invested to quit“, where they are too committed to the conflict because they don’t want to lose (Ibid.). Nevertheless, this very mechanism can be used for constructive, instead of destructive purposes, which help parties overcome a stalemate and initiate de-escalation (Ibid.):
“Party can make a small unilateral concession, coupled with a request that Other make a similarly small concession. The smaller these concessions are, the better; the purpose of these concessions is not to weaken Party and Other but to set in motion a process to which both feel committed. Party then makes a second symbolic concession, requesting similar movement from Other. In this way the process of concession and counterconcession continues until a momentum has been established in the relationship, and both Party and Other have come to feel that they have too much invested in the process of de-escalation to give up on that.“ (Rubin et al. 1994: 166)
This passage summarizes how trust and communication lead to cooperation. In order to cooperate and thus de-escalate the conflict, one party needs to first make a “small concession“, making themselves vulnerable, even if it is to a minuscule degree, and hope that the other will reciprocate. Then, the conceding party must communicate his intention to the other clearly, that s/he wishes that the other party reciprocate the small concession. If the first concession is met with skepticism, and distrust, where parties think “It’s a trap !“, then the de-escalation will not take place.
By making one small concession at a time, in a repeated matter, parties effectively bootstrap themselves to one another, and create a momentum to de-escalate the conflict, while using the same mechanisms necessary for escalation. However, in the de-escalation scenario, parties gradually replace distrust with trust, and skepticism with charity. Parties then foster trust through their repeated pattern of interaction and cooperation, and through this learn to communicate more openly and honestly.
As seen earlier, trust encourages cooperation. However, escalation, as described above, does not offer a fertile ground for fostering trust. This is why the notion of antagonistic cooperation is interesting, or how parties develop cooperative behavior without trusting each other.
“The parties to the conflict may be willing to cease the battle when they recognize that their aims cannot be attained or that they can be attained only at a price which they are not willing to pay, or, more generally, when they conclude that continuation of the conflict is less attractive than the making of peace.“ (Coser 1961: 352)
Conflicts, where both parties possess the same “rough equality of strength“ (Coser 1961: 347) are “exceedingly costly and exhausting“ (Ibid.). Parties may thus collaborate with their ‘enemy’ in order to reduce the costs and damages engendered by the conflict (Idem: 349). Moreover, conflicting parties may decide to cooperate when they realize that a permanent state of conflict cannot be sustained.
Parties then develop “limited but durable partnerships in order to pursue common interests“ (Best 2009: 425). The limited partnership mentioned by Best translates the willingness of the parties to achieve a resolution of the conflict, yet without completely revising their positions in the conflict, thus remaining two antagonistic entities. Consequently, only a portion of the boundaries separating the parties is renegotiated, instead of an in-depth and encompassing solution that addresses the deeper needs that came into play in the conflict.
What then drives the cooperation is a shared common goal that neither party can achieve unilaterally, thus highlighting the important motivational factor that interdependence entails. A certain form of trust then emerges, as both parties know that they will have to achieve an agreement in order to overcome the stalemate that has been installed. If a party shows characteristics of deviant behavior, or even spoiling behavior, this could be read as a provocation to then return to a competitive state of the conflict.
Nevertheless, sharing a common goal might not be sufficient to achieve cooperation, even an antagonistic one. First of all, this requires from parties to agree on what exactly these goals are, and secondly, agree on how to tackle the issues that have been putting a strain on their relationship. They may agree on what the issues are, but not what means should be employed to address these issues and vice versa.
This also introduces the notion of devious objectives and spoiling. Devious objectives arise when the agenda of the process either doesn’t address an important issue of one of the parties, or when parties use the process of cooperation to achieve other goals than what was stated in the agenda, that are mostly guided by self-interest (Aggestam 2006: 36). This means that the parties are using the process instrumentally and abusively in order to achieve goals that aren’t necessarily on the agenda of the mediation.
This strongly contrasts with the idea of cooperative behavior in conflict. Cooperative behavior depends on the framing used to read and interpret the conflict (Schmueli et al. 2006: 211). Indeed, conflict can be seen as a “common problem in which both conflicting parties have the joint interest of reaching a mutually satisfactory solution“ (Deutsch 1973: 363). In this case, the focus of the party will be to reach an acceptable agreement for both parties. In that sense, cooperative conflict resolving entails different elements:
“It encourages the recognition of the legitimacy of the other’s interests and of the necessity to search for a solution that is responsive to the need of each side. It tends to limit rather than expand the scope of conflicting interests and thus minimizes the need for defensiveness. It enables the participants to approach the mutually acknowledged problem in a way that utilizes their special talents and enables them to substitute for one another in their joint work so that the duplication of effort is reduced. Attempts at influence tend to be limited to process persuasion. The enhancement of mutual resources and mutual power becomes the objective.“ (Deutsch 1973: 363).
Contrasting with competitive behavior, cooperative behavior accepts the other as being a legitimate partner in order to try to reach an agreement. Moreover, cooperative behavior increases the chance of finding creative solutions that address not only the manifest issues that were expressed during the conflict, but also address the underlying ones (Deutsch 1973: 363). The interests, as well as the needs are uncovered through the sharing of relevant information (Ibid.), which then circumvents the conflict and the issues that are relevant. This process allows to de-personalize the conflict, and ideally recognize that the issues are not rooted in the ‘nature’ or personality of the other, but is more situational. Disentangling the conflict from the person allows a forward-looking gaze towards the future instead of staying at the blame distribution stage (Fisher et al. 2012: 23). This allows the development of empathy, which in turn increases the sensitivity to similarities rather than differences (Ibid,).
In addition to this, cooperative behavior overcomes the idea that the conflict is a zero sum game. Indeed, the zero sum game implies that the spoils are fixed, and that “more for me means less for you“ (Fisher et al. 2012: 72). By identifying their needs and interests, parties can then move on to craft solutions that accommodate those needs, and often realize that one wanted the peel and the
other the orange’s flesh , showing that a relationship can have a competitive as well as 2
cooperative dimension. This then allows parties to be better off than if the spoils were simply halved and distributed equally.
By seeing how cooperation benefits all parties involved in a conflict, why do individuals often fail to cooperate with one another ? The following excerpts states that there are several reasons behind non-cooperation, and thus explain why parties may choose to resort to spoiling behavior.
“The first motive is greed — by making a non-cooperative choice one accumulates more personal gain, or incurs fewer personal losses, than by making a cooperative choice. Greed as a motive captures a wide variety of human goals and aspirations. Not only tangible aspirations such as making money or gaining access to scarce resources such as water, oil, or fertile land drives greed. Greed also manifests itself in the search for status and power, or in the tendency to see oneself, or one’s group, as superior to other individuals, or groups.
The second motive underlying failures to cooperate is fear — by making a non-cooperative choice, one protects oneself against exploitation by one’s partner. Fear often results from expectations about the partner’s behavior that are grounded in, for example, past behavior or beliefs about what the partner’s most likely choice is going to be.“ (De Dreu 2010: 11)
Being motivated by greed leads a particular party to think that it would be better off if it doesn’t strike a deal with the other, which in turn may escalate in a spiral of competitive behavior. Indeed, similarly to trust, cooperation limits the possible set of possibilities by concentrating on shared interests. Furthermore, by virtue of game-theory, each participant is better off competing when the other is cooperating in the short term (De Dreu 2010: 8), which could also represent an incentive to defect from cooperation. And finally, greed can be explained if participants do not perceive each other as equal, or see themselves as deserving more than the other.
This is a popular metaphor in mediation. Two sisters are fighting over an orange, and their mother, instead 2
of cutting the orange in half, asks them why they would like the orange and what they would do with it. One child answers that he wants to make juice and thus needs the flesh of the orange, while the other is baking a cake, and needs the peel. In that sense, both children ended up having more than the mere half of the orange by expressing their needs. This story is attributed to Mary Parker Follett, see: Kolb, D.M. (1995). The Love for Three Oranges Or: What Did We Miss About Ms. Follett in the Library?. In: Negotiation Journal, 11 (4), pp. 339-348
Fear is as damaging as greed, because it relies on the assumption that the adversary is an unreliable partner. Similarly to distrust, this has a self-fulfilling effect, which then tends to strengthen the idea that cooperation with the opposing party will be damaging for the fearful party. These expectations are often rooted in the history of the relationship that the parties have, or at least the expectation that the others will act in a certain way that would be harmful (De Dreu 2010: 11). Fear, or negative expectations, lead to misinterpretations and distorted reading of certain actions or words:
“In such ‘noisy’ situations, a cooperative move by one’s partner may be mistaken for a non-cooperative move, thus inducing non-cooperative responses. Such a non-cooperative response leads one’s partner to reciprocate with defection, and this may be the beginning of an escalatory spiral of competitive exchanges.“ (De Dreu 2010: 28)
“Noisy“ in this case means anything that interferes in the communication process from getting a particular message across, or that alters the intended meaning of the message. This means that an interpretation of a particular utterance might be different from what was actually meant (Wood 2015: 22). As such, if an act of cooperation is actually interpreted as a defection by the other party, this can lead to retaliation which then re-establishes a chain of competitive behavior. This is why communication and sharing the same meaning of each other’s action is crucial in order to avoid these unnecessary escalation, which will be presented in the next chapter.
Cooperation constitutes a central element in mediation (Poitras 2005: 281). Indeed, cooperation is necessary to move from the strategic position that is inherent to competitive behavior, to a more need- and interests-oriented approach, which encourages creative solution-thinking through empathy and position-taking. However, antagonistic cooperation, where partners share the same goals, yet aren’t willing to completely abandon their competitive positions can also be compatible with mediation. The renegotiation of boundaries is thus partial, and the cooperation that emerges from these parties is instrumental, in order to achieve the shared objective.
Spoiling is per se a state of non-cooperation that is affiliated to a state of competitive behavior, as well as it is can represent a defense mechanism against the risk of cooperation and trust. Indeed, potential partners are considered adversaries, or at least, non-reliable partners. Spoiling, just like non-cooperation, can thus be motivated by greed, where spoilers believes that he can strike a better deal than what is presented to them, or are simply skeptical that a negotiation will produce a better deal that they would prefer over their BATNA. In short, some parties feel that they are better off not negotiating. On the contrary, be motivated by fear, which is then meant as a self-defense
move. The fear of being exploited, or taken advantage of, motivates spoiling, and the history of the relationship that was shared by both parties equally plays an important role in justifying non-cooperation.
To come back to what was stated in the trust section, antagonistic cooperation functions if parties desire to seek an agreement and trust the mediator and the process to be fair, without necessarily trusting the other party. In contrast to that, completely cooperative behavior denotes trust not only in the procedures and the mediator, but also in the other parties. Cooperation thus requires effective communication in order to avoid misinterpretation. Nevertheless, a successful mediation requires parties to abandon their competitive positions.
Discussion on Trust, Cooperation and Communication
Spoiling in relation mediation is interesting to analyze for several reasons. Firstly, it points out the vulnerabilities as well as the flaws of such a process. Secondly, it attracts more questions relating to the underlying motivation of spoiling behavior. Spoiling should therefore be reflected upon in relation to a specific context — and to which factors may have pushed the actor to engage in a spoiling behavior, as it sometimes is the symptom of a poorly, or inadequate process design.
fig. 2.2: Illustration of Contingency, spill-over, and what spoiling behavior puts at risk
Trust / Distrust
Charity /
Skepticism
Lying
Cooperation /
Contention
Sources of
contingency
History of the relationship
Vulnerability
Reciprocity
Position-taking
Empathy
Common goals
Defection
Exploitation
Doubts
Frames
Fear
Greed
Devious Objectives
What does spoiling
behavior put at
risk?
The ability to
trust the other
at the moment/
in the future
The willingness to
perform charity at
the moment/in the
future
Cooperative Behavior at
the moment/future
The concepts of trust, communication and cooperation have unveiled the contingent character that each of those entails. What leads parties to shift from distrust to trust, skepticism to charity, and competition to cooperation represents essential questions in order to prevent spoiling behavior.
Fig. 2.2 summarizes the ideas expressed above in the theory. The sources of contingency are
shown, as well as what motivates the parties to trust, perform charity or cooperate with one another. One of the keys to explain these factors of contingency, is the history of the relationship that parties have shared in the past. If the parties experienced “productive conflict“ (Deutsch 1973: 359) in the past, they will be more prone to adopt a more lenient position than if the parties are embedded in a conflict spiral that keeps getting worse and worse (Rubin et al. 1994: 75). Moreover, if the parties reciprocate vulnerability, perform position-taking and possess common goals, they will be more inclined to cooperate. However, distrust can stem from defection, or in more extreme cases, exploitation. Similarly, doubts and previous competitive frames feed skepticism, and as explained by De Dreu (2010: 11), fear and greed motivate competitive behavior. Furthermore, devious objectives that conflict with the agenda of the mediation process — or serve self-interest can motivate parties to engage in competitive behavior (Aggestam 2006: 22).
What gets threatened by spoiling appears in the second row. This contains an indication of what is put at risk in the short-term (e.g. the ability to trust the other at the moment), but also the consequences carried by spoiling in the long-term: the willingness to perform charity in the future. This reveals the impact that spoiling can have on the relationship of parties.
Moreover, the theories suggest that spoiling behavior might have a spill-over effect. This means that if one of the parties either breaches the trust, defects from using charity, or fails to be cooperative, therefore impacting one aspect of the relationship directly, then indirectly harms the two remaining ones. This is best explained by an example. If you lie during a negotiation process (and if I find out), my willingness to trust as well as cooperate with you, will be severely hindered. Similarly, if I had committed myself to doing something, but fail to do so, your willingness to cooperate with me in the future, as well as making an effort to understand what I am saying, will be limited by my first defection. The spill-over effect also seems to work when parties are working towards a resolution of the conflict. As Rubin et al. demonstrated, in the de-escalation scenario, parties replace distrust with trust, and skepticism with charity through repeated patterns of interaction and cooperation (Rubin et al. 1994). The small concessions that were reproduced and reciprocated lead the parties to believe that the others were cooperative enough to explore alternatives to the otherwise competitive relationship.
As seen above, the insights given by theory raise interrogations. The empirical chapter will entail two dimensions. One of it will be to test the hypotheses expressed above. How does the spill-over
translate itself in practice ? How does the contingent character of mediation and spoiling translate itself in practice ?
Moreover, the empirical chapter will deepen and possibly challenge the theoretical foundations that I have laid above when spoiling behavior is observed through a practitioner’s lens. What is it that gets spoiled ? How do mediators talk about and make sense of spoilers and spoiling behavior ? And finally, what can practitioners do in order to prevent spoiling behavior from happening ? What are their strategies to cope with spoiling once it has happened ? Can they do anything to repair the parties’ relationship ?
Research Design
This section will explicate my research design and how I got hold of my data in order to answer the questions mentioned at the end of the last chapter. My methodology will be divided in five sub-sections, each reflecting on different aspects linked to it. Firstly, I will describe my research design, how my interview study was built and what exactly I was looking for in my interviews that I conducted with practitioners. Secondly, I will describe who my interviewees were and how I selected them. Then, I will consider the limitations of this thesis and how those affected my research. Finally, I will include a short ethical statement and will highlight the challenges of working with practitioners. The problems that arose regarding non-disclosure clauses and anonymity will be presented as well.
How Did I Get hold of My Data and What Was I Looking For ?
My research fits in the qualitative study framework, where I conducted narrative interviews. This research is an interview study, where the cases that I have explored represent the practice of mediators.
The goal of these interviews were to provide concrete stories of practitioners’ experiences in regard to spoiling behavior. Through their words, they presented insights of their practice, as well as shared reflections over particular aspects of the story they were sharing with me. Hence, the narrative interviews allowed me to access the theory-in-use, as well as the espoused theory of practitioners (Argyris 1976: 638-639). Both of those were interesting to me, as they show two different aspects of their practice. The first aspect, the theory-in-use depicts what theories professionals use in action, while the espoused one describes what theory they think they are using in action (Ibid.). Discrepancies between espoused theory and the theory-in-use are particularly interesting, as they tend to lead to puzzles that are often inexplicable for the agent performing a theory-in-use:
“And when espoused theory is incongruent with theory-in-use, then an outcome may be an error in relation to the first and a match in relation the second.“ (Schön 1983: 305)
In short, people might think that they are acting in a certain way, whereas their actions contradict what their espoused theory, resulting in what seems to be errors, which are in fact consistent with the agent’s theory-in-use.
Due to the contingent character that mediation and spoiling entails, this was particularly interesting to me. This is why I payed close attention to the story of the mediator, and how they related to it. I even thought that maybe, certain practitioners thought they were doing something (espoused theory), when in fact they were doing something else that could have had caused the spoiling to happen. However, this didn’t seem to be the case, as most of my interviewees didn’t seem to present a discrepancy between their theory-in-use and their espoused theory. Almost all of them reflected on their practice, and how their attitude might have shaped the course of an interaction. Moreover, by working in a team for instance, practitioners regularly give each other feedback that contributes to these personal reflective practices.
The structure of the interview thus allowed the practitioners to give their account of a story where they experienced spoiling behavior, and then reflect on this very experience. This allowed me to get a hold of what happened, what they have witnessed, but also what their thoughts and feelings were during the story. By asking respondents to talk about a particular case, vague general descriptions as well as discussion about practitioners’ espoused theory are avoided (Weiss 1995: 71).
The question with which I started my interview with was the following: Could you tell me a story
about your practice where you were confronted to spoiling behavior ? I purposely didn’t define what
I meant when I was talking about spoiling behavior, to see if different professionals would give me different definitions of what they thought constituted spoiling behavior. This lead to interesting insights on the one hand, although it sometimes forced me to clarify what I was looking for through additional questions. The questions following the first one either pushed the responder to add more detail to their story, or redirected the interview in a different direction, by pointing out issues of trust, communication and cooperation. My interviews generally lasted around an hour — sometimes a little more, sometimes less, depending on the detailing of the story, but also the amount of time that practitioners had to offer me. During the interview, in order to make sure that I understood them correctly, I often reformulated what they were saying, which not only make us communicate more effectively, but also led the respondents to further their thoughts on the particular issue at stake.
I analyzed the interviews by keeping in mind the “sequential and temporal structures of narratives“ (Bates 2004: 20), but also strived to understand the perspective of the respondent, and how they evaluated the situation (Ibid.). This means that the story they were sharing, as well as how they made sense of it was important for my analysis.
