David G. Myers_ Jean M Twenge - Social Psychology-McGraw-Hill Education (2018)-compressed[263-417]-compressed (2) (2)[152-155]

Conflict and Peacemaking Chapter 13 389

• “We want peace and security.” “So do conflict
we, but you threaten us.” A perceived incompatibility
of actions or goals.
• “We want more pay.” “We can’t afford it.”
• “I’d like the music off.” “I’d like it on.” As civil rights leaders know, cre-
atively managed conflicts can
An organization or a relationship with- have constructive outcomes.
out conflict is probably apathetic. Conflict
signifies involvement, commitment, and ©ANONYMOUS/AP Images
caring. If conflict is understood and recog-
nized, it can end oppression and stimulate peace
renewed relationships. Without conflict, A condition marked by low
people seldom face and resolve their levels of hostility and
problems. aggression and by mutually
beneficial relationships.
Genuine peace is more than the sup-
pression of open conflict, more than a
fragile, superficial calm. Peace is the out-
come of a creatively managed conflict.
Peace is the parties reconciling their per-
ceived differences and reaching genuine accord. “We got our increased pay. You
got your increased profit. Now each of us is helping the other achieve the organi-
zation’s goals.”

WHAT CREATES CONFLICT?

Explain what creates conflict.

Social-psychological studies have identified several ingredients of conflict. What’s striking
(and what simplifies our task) is that these ingredients are common to all levels of social
conflict, whether intergroup (us versus them) or interpersonal (me versus us).

Social Dilemmas social trap

Many problems that threaten our future—nuclear arms, climate change, overpopulation, low A situation in which the
stocks of ocean fish—arise as various parties pursue their self-interests—but, ironically, to conflicting parties, by each
their collective detriment. One individual may think, “It would cost me a lot to buy expen- rationally pursuing its self-
sive greenhouse emission controls. Besides, the greenhouse gases I personally generate are interest, become caught in
trivial.” Many others reason similarly, and the result is a warming climate, melting ice cover, mutually destructive behavior.
rising seas, and more extreme weather. Examples include the Prisoner’s
Dilemma and the Tragedy of the
When individually rewarding choices become collectively punishing, we have a dilemma: Commons.
How can we reconcile individual self-interest with communal well-being?

To isolate and study that dilemma, social psychologists have used laboratory games that
expose the heart of many real social conflicts. “Social psychologists who study conflict are
in much the same position as the astronomers,” noted conflict researcher Morton Deutsch
(1999). “We cannot conduct true experiments with large-scale social events. But we can
identify the conceptual similarities between the large scale and the small, as the astronomers
have between the planets and Newton’s apple. That is why the games people play as subjects
in our laboratory may advance our understanding of war, peace, and social justice.”

Let’s consider two examples of a social trap (a situation when conflicting parties are
caught in mutually destructive behavior): the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Tragedy of the
Commons.

390 Part Three Social Relations

THE PRISONER’S DILEMMA

The prisoner’s dilemma originated from a story about two suspects questioned separately
by the district attorney (DA), the lawyer who can bring charges against suspects (Rapoport,
1960). The DA knows they are jointly guilty but has only enough evidence to convict them
of a lesser offense. So the DA creates an incentive for each one to confess privately:

▯ If Prisoner A confesses and Prisoner B doesn’t, the DA will grant immunity to A
and will use A’s confession to convict B of a maximum offense (and vice versa if B
confesses and A doesn’t).

▯ If both confess, each will receive a moderate sentence.
▯ If neither prisoner confesses, each will be convicted of a lesser crime and receive a

light sentence.

The matrix of Figure 1 summarizes the choices. If you were a prisoner faced with such
a dilemma, with no chance to talk to the other prisoner, would you confess?

Many people say they would confess, even though mutual nonconfession elicits lighter
sentences than mutual confession. Perhaps this is because (as shown in the Figure 1 matrix)
no matter what the other prisoner decides, each is better off confessing than being con-
victed individually.

University students have considered variations of the Prisoner’s Dilemma in lab experi-
ments, with the choices being to defect (choosing not to cooperate) or to cooperate, and the
outcomes being chips, money, or grade points. As Figure 2 illustrates, on any given decision,
a person is better off defecting (because such behavior exploits the other’s cooperation or
protects against the other’s exploitation). However—and here’s the rub—by not cooperating,
both parties end up far worse off than if they had trusted each other and thus had gained a
joint profit. This dilemma often traps each one in a maddening predicament in which both
realize they could mutually profit. But unable to communicate, and mistrusting each other,
they often become “locked in” to not cooperating. Outside the university, examples abound:
seemingly intractable and costly conflicts between Israelis and Palestinians over borders,
political parties over taxation and deficits, and employers and striking employees over pay.

Punishing another’s lack of cooperation might seem like a smart strategy, but in the
laboratory it can be counterproductive (Dreber et al., 2008). Punishment typically triggers
retaliation, which means that those who punish tend to escalate conflict, worsening their
outcomes, while nice guys finish first. What punishers see as a defensive reaction, recipients

FIGURE 1 Prisoner A

The Classic Prisoner’s Confesses Doesn’t
Dilemma 5 years confess
In each box, the number above
the diagonal is prisoner A’s 10 years
outcome. Thus, if both prisoners
confess, both get five years. If Confesses
neither confesses, each gets a
year. If one confesses, that Prisoner B 5 years 0 years
prisoner is set free in exchange 0 years 1 year
for evidence used to convict the Doesn’t
other of a crime bringing a confess 10 years 1 year
10-year sentence. If you were
one of the prisoners, unable to
communicate with your fellow
prisoner, would you confess?

Conflict and Peacemaking Chapter 13 391

Person A FIGURE 2

Response 1 Response 2 Laboratory Version of
(defect) (cooperate) the Prisoner’s Dilemma
The numbers represent some
0 –6 reward, such as money. In each
box, the number above the
Response 1 diagonal lines is the outcome
(defect) for person A. Unlike the classic
Prisoner’s Dilemma (a one-shot
0 12 decision), most laboratory
versions involve repeated plays.
Person B

Response 2 12 6
(cooperate) –6 6

see as an aggressive escalation (Anderson et al., 2008). When hitting back, they may hit Tragedy of the Commons
harder while seeing themselves as merely returning tit for tat. In one experiment, volunteers
used a mechanical device to press back on someone else’s finger after receiving pressure The “commons” is any shared
on their own. Although they tried to reciprocate with the same degree of pressure, they resource, including air, water,
typically responded with 40% more force. Thus, touches soon escalated to hard presses, energy sources, and food
much like a child saying “I just touched him, and then he hit me!” (Shergill et al., 2003). supplies. The tragedy occurs
when individuals consume more
THE TRAGEDY OF THE COMMONS than their share, with the cost of
their doing so dispersed among
Many social dilemmas involve more than two parties. Climate change stems from deforesta- all, causing the ultimate
tion and from the carbon dioxide emitted by vehicles, furnaces, and coal-fired power plants. collapse—the tragedy—of the
Each car contributes infinitesimally to the problem, and the harm is diffused over many commons.
people. To model such social predicaments, researchers have developed laboratory dilemmas
that involve multiple people.

A metaphor for the insidious nature of social dilemmas is what ecologist Garrett Hardin
(1968) called the Tragedy of the Commons. He derived the name from the centrally located
grassy pasture in old English towns. Imagine 100 farmers surrounding a commons capable
of sustaining 100 cows. When each grazes one cow, the common feeding ground is opti-
mally used. But then a farmer reasons, “If I put a second cow in the pasture, I’ll double
my output, minus the mere 1% overgrazing” and adds a second cow. So does each of the
other farmers. The inevitable result? The Tragedy of the Commons—a mud field and fam-
ished cows.

In today’s world the “commons” can be air, water, fish, cookies, or any shared and
limited resource. If all use the resource in moderation, it may replenish itself as rapidly as
it’s harvested. The grass will grow, the fish will reproduce, and the cookie jar will be
restocked. If not, there occurs a tragedy of the commons.

Likewise, environmental pollution is the sum of many minor pollutions, each of which
benefits the individual polluters much more than they could benefit themselves (and the
environment) if they stopped polluting. We litter public places—dorm lounges, parks, zoos—
while keeping our personal spaces clean. We deplete our natural resources because the
immediate personal benefits of, for instance, taking a long, hot shower outweigh the seem-
ingly inconsequential costs. Whalers knew others would exploit the whales if they didn’t,
and that taking a few whales would hardly diminish the species. Therein lies the tragedy.
Everybody’s business (conservation) becomes nobody’s business.

Is such individualism uniquely American? Kaori Sato (1987) gave students in a more
collective culture, Japan, opportunities to harvest—for actual money—trees from a simulated

392 Part Three Social Relations

forest. The students shared equally the costs of planting the forest.
The result was like those in Western cultures. More than half
the trees were harvested before they had grown to the most profit-
able size.

Sato’s forest reminds me [DM] of my family’s cookie jar, which
was restocked once a week. What we should have done was con-
serve cookies so that each day we could each enjoy two or three.
But lacking regulation and fearing that other family members would
soon deplete the resource, what we actually did was maximize our
individual cookie consumption by downing one after the other. The
result: Within 24 hours the cookie glut would end, the jar sitting
empty for the rest of the week.

When resources are not partitioned, people often consume more
than they realize (Herlocker et al., 1997). As a bowl of mashed
potatoes is passed around a table of 10, the first few diners are
more likely to scoop out a disproportionate share than when a
platter of 10 chicken drumsticks is passed.

The Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons
games have several similar features.

THE FUNDAMENTAL ATTRIBUTION ERROR

It’s tempting to hoard a resource that other people will also First, both games tempt people to explain their own behavior situation-
want. But if everyone hoards, the resource is soon depleted. ally (“I had to protect myself against exploitation by my opponent”)
You’re not going to be able to carry all of those cookies and to explain their partners’ behavior dispositionally (“she was
anyway. greedy,” “he was untrustworthy”). Most never realize that their coun-
terparts are viewing them with the same fundamental attribution
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error (Gifford & Hine, 1997; Hine & Gifford, 1996).

When Muslims have killed Americans, Western media have attributed the killings to evil

dispositions—to the primitive, fanatical, hateful terrorists. When an American soldier killed

16 Afghans, including 9 children, he was said to be experiencing financial stress, suffering

marital problems, and frustrated by being passed over for a promotion (Greenwald, 2012).

Violence explanations vary by whether the act is by or toward one’s side.

EVOLVING MOTIVES

Second, motives often change. At first, people are eager to make some easy money, then to
minimize their losses, and finally to save face and avoid defeat (Brockner et al., 1982; Teger,
1980). These shifting motives are strikingly similar to the shifting motives during the
buildup of the 1960s Vietnam War. At first, President Johnson’s speeches expressed con-
cern for democracy, freedom, and justice. As the conflict escalated, his concern became
protecting America’s honor and avoiding the national humiliation of losing a war. The same
happened in the Iraq war, which initially was justified as destroying Saddam Hussein’s
weapons of mass destruction and then (when none were found) as deposing Hussein.

non-zero-sum games OUTCOMES NEED NOT SUM TO ZERO

Games in which outcomes Third, most real-life conflicts, like the Prisoner’s Dilemma and the Tragedy of the Commons,
need not sum to zero. With are non-zero-sum games. The two sides’ profits and losses need not add up to zero. Both
cooperation, both can win; with can win; both can lose. Each game pits the immediate interests of individuals against the
competition, both can lose (also well-being of the group. Each is a diabolical social trap that shows how, even when each
called mixed-motive situations). individual behaves rationally, harm can result. No malicious person planned for the earth’s
atmosphere to be warmed by a carbon dioxide blanket.

Not all self-serving behavior leads to collective doom. In a plentiful commons—as in the
world of the eighteenth-century capitalist economist Adam Smith (1776, p. 18)—individuals
who seek to maximize their own profit may also give the community what it needs: “It is
not from the benevolence of the butcher, the brewer, or the baker, that we expect our
dinner,” he observed, “but from their regard to their own interest.”