The new team!

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Watching for Hotspots

Dr. Herve's talk was, as predicted, really interesting.  He started off with a video clip of a woman, clearly nervous, relating a series of events, and then asked us if she was telling the truth or not.  If not for realizing that this might be a "trick question," I think all of us would not have hesitated to say that she was lying in various parts of her story.  But as explained in the rest of the seminar, it's important to keep in mind the "baseline" of the person you're talking to.  Are they usually kind of a nervous person?  Do certain topics cause them to communicate in a different way, regardless of whether they're telling the truth or not?  How do our expectations of "normal" social behaviour impact our assessment of a person's truthfulness?

The main message I got from the seminar was that although our observations of a person's behaviour and speech may display "hotspots" of unusual behaviour, those hotspots don't necessarily indicate that the person is saying something untrue.  It's important not to jump to conclusions about the trustworthiness of someone's version of events just because they are acting in a way that makes us feel like something odd is going on.  It's Although telling an untruth requires more cognitive effort than telling the truth, the fact that someone is finding something hard to remember may simply reflect the fact that the events were not particularly noteworthy at the time, and so were not assigned a priority space in their memories.

In a mediation context, of course, a professional mediator is expected in any case to avoid taking sides and prejudicing their assessment of a situation.  Another important thing to keep in mind when interviewing people is to say as little as possible.  Starting off by asking someone to "tell me what happened" is usually the best way to go.  Find out as much as you can using open-ended questions, and only ask for clarification when necessary.

While I was listening, I couldn't help but evaluate my own behaviour in terms of the indicators Dr. Herve was talking about.  Would it be possible to become a "better" liar by attempting to control the behavioural cues that indicate "hotspots" of possible untruth?  Would I be able to fake a more polite convincing smile if I remembered to crinkle the corners of my eyes?  Win a game of poker by avoiding nervous twitches?  Dr. Herve said that despite his increased training and ability to spot speech and body language cues in others, he hasn't gotten any better at controlling his own, and that this pattern holds in general.  So much for my professional gambling career, I guess.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Truth and Lies


We've all been in situations where our "gut feeling" tells us that someone is lying or, conversely, where we can "just tell" that they an honest person.  But what if those gut feelings are wrong?  Can we rely on intuition?

Apparently not.  Without training, someone's chances of differentiating truth from lies are little better than random guesses, regardless of her professional background.  This is interesting general knowledge and it's probably good to keep it in mind in everyday interactions, especially with people we don't know.  But surely it's especially relevant in the context of the legal profession.  Our justice system sometimes relies on a jury's assessment of whether the accused or the accuser is more believable.  A professional negotiator or mediator may be influenced by their perception of who is more 'at fault' in a given disagreement.  Making a strong argument in court is really all about trying to sound more logical, correct, or 'right' - concepts strongly linked to truth.

The education process as I've experienced it is often just as much (if not more) about learning what I don't know than actually acquiring new knowledge and skills.  "Facts" are inevitably based in perspective, and "truth" is always laden with pre-conceptions and cognitive filters that help us to simplify the world into something we can understand and manage.  Relying on instinct is a mental shortcut we all take much more often than we even realize, and it's often a very useful one.  But making snap decisions about who's telling the truth isn't always a good idea.

In my first month in law school, I'm quickly finding that the pattern continues.  I have managed to find another field of knowledge and practice in which I'll always be presented with new questions and interesting dilemmas.  Happily, there's always someone out there who knows way more than I do, so I can still feel like I'm making progress in tackling the ever-growing list of things I never knew I never knew.

This leads into the shameless advertising part of my post:  The first event in the CoRe Speaker Series will occur on October 27.  Dr. Hugues Hervé, a registered psychologist, partner and director with the Forensic Alliance, will give an introduction on evaluating truthfulness, including an overview of the popular myths and barriers to the accurate assessment of truthfulness, current research in the field, the relation between interviewing and credibility assessment, and an introduction to an empirically-based practical approach to evaluating truthfulness.  The talk will conclude with a discussion of how to apply this approach to the mediation context.

Interested in learning more on this fascinating topic?  Details are here!

Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Reflections on Training

Once we got all the technical details out of the way (such as where to document calls and emails and where to find certain forms), we turned to the more engaging topic of how to get the most out of phone calls with clients and potential clients.

I particularly enjoyed the discussion on reflective listening and reframing. Reflective listening is an important skill because it lets the person you are talking to feel as though you are actually interested in their feelings and what they have to say and that you understand what they are saying. More specifically, it’s important to engage skills such as paraphrasing and summarizing. This can not only demonstrate concern and understanding but also build trust. In addition, asking open-ended questions is a good way to explore issues and provide information rather than just getting “yes” or “no” answers. However, reflective listening doesn’t involve taking sides or agreeing, but instead remaining impartial and reflecting and acknowledging the person’s feelings.

Reframing is equally important because it can change how a person conceptualizes or sees a particular situation. Reframing can also be done through paraphrasing but more specifically it involves pinpointing the issues that are important to the person you are speaking with. Rather than focusing on emotions, which might preclude agreement, the goal is to figure out which values and issues are important to the parties involved. Once this is done, it may be easier to identify underlying needs and find a common ground.

Our training was also very valuable because it affirmed that ultimately our task at CoRe is not to tell anyone what to do or to force anyone into an agreement. Both parties have to agree to the final solution. This is one of the many advantages to mediation as opposed to a court setting where the parties would be bound to the ruling regardless of whether or not they agreed to the terms.

Here's a shot from the training session. Listening intently!

Friday, October 8, 2010

Welcome!

Hello and welcome to the new CoRe Clinic blog page!

CoRe Clinic is a student-run, charitable organization that provides affordable mediations and other conflict resolution services to community members, campus organizations at UBC, and not-for-profit organizations.

We are excited to get another year of mediation and conflict resolution under way and are happy to share our experiences. We have an eager new team of student clinicians who are looking forward to receiving your calls and emails and to answering any questions you might have about our clinic. 

Over the next few months we will be blogging about our experiences volunteering at the clinic and keeping you up to date on the latest mediation related news.

Also, don't hesitate to leave us a comment!

Hope to hear from you soon,

The CoRe Team.

Up next: Thoughts on Clinician Training - inspiring and insightful.