The Psychology Behind Mediation

Welcome to the bi-weekly Core Psychology series! Throughout the year, I’ll be presenting psychological research and relating it to aspects of the mediation process. The aim will be to isolate and examine some of the psychological processes that occur during mediation that either promote or undermine effective communication and achieving a settlement agreement.

In subsequent posts this series will analyze specific acts that may occur during mediation, but first I will highlight outcome interdependence and metacognition, two concepts that will be frequently mentioned throughout the year.

Outcome Interdependence

The purpose of mediation is to facilitate voluntary signing of a settlement agreement. This may be impacted by outcome interdependence, which is the compatibility or incompatibility between the parties’ interests and goals. ¹ It is possible that parties willing to undergo mediation possess a heightened level of compatibility, demonstrated by their willingness to try different forms of alternative dispute resolution; however, on the whole it seems parties engaged in negotiation are typically self-serving and fail to detect win-win solutions, opting instead for suboptimal solutions. ² We’ll look to the mediation process itself, and the perspectives and actions of the parties to determine what may promote interdependent or self serving behaviours.


Metacognition


The mediator’s effectiveness in their role will be a frequent topic in the series. If you saw the first blog submission of the year, you’ll remember the common mistakes committed by professional negotiators as outlined by Professor Wade (failure to listen effectively, being unclear in their own interests, bringing the wrong people to negotiation and staying on difficult questions for too long). The ability to avoid these common mistakes will depend on the mediator’s own metacognition. 


Metacognition is defined as “knowledge about how the mind thinks and the ability to control and reflect on one’s own thought processes.” ³ With such knowledge, negotiators can develop strategies for altering their thought processes, biases and perspectives to avoid making the same mistakes over and over again. For example, instead of setting time limits for discussing certain “difficult” questions, understanding why we tend to ineffectively persist may naturally lead us to change our behaviours as we realize our motivations do not coincide with the outcome of our actions.


The majority of the sources will be from the PsycInfo database. If you are a student or staff member at the University of British Columbia, you can take a look at: http://resources.library.ubc.ca/159/


Thank you for reading, and I hope you're looking forward to reading our next post!


Full citations:

¹ Halevy, N., Chou, E. Y., & Murnighan, J. K. (2011, September 12). Mind Games: The Mental Representation of Conflict. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology. Advance online publication. doi: 10.1037/a0025389

² Trotschel, R., Loschelder, D. D., Huffmeier, J., & Schwartz, K. (2011). Perspective Taking as a Means to Overcome Motivational Barriers in Negotiation When Putting Oneself Into the Opponent’s Shoes Helps to Walk Toward Agreements. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 101(4), 771-790.

³ Boyd, D., Bee, H., & Johnson P. (2009). Lifespan Development (3^rd ed.). Toronto, Ontario: Pearson Education Canada.