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David Myers
11e
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Chapter Thirteen
 Conflict and Peacemaking
 What creates conflict?
 How can peace be achieved?
 Postscript: The conflict between individual and
communal rights
 What social situations feed conflict?
 How do misperceptions fuel conflict?
 Does contact with the other side reduce conflict?
 When do cooperation, communication, and mediation
enable reconcillation
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What Creates Conflict?
 Social Dilemmas
 Social trap

Situation in which the conflicting parties, by each rationally
pursuing its self-interest, become caught in mutually
destructive behavior
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What Creates Conflict?
 Social Dilemmas
 The “Prisoners Dilemma”

What would you do?
 confess to be granted immunity? Deny guilt?
 What role does communication / not being able to play here?
 “Tragedy of the Commons”
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Fishers, crabbers in the Chesapeake Bay
Global warming / water in California
 Fundamental attribution error
 Evolving motives- Vietnam & Iraq wars
 Non-zero-sum games- e.g. Prisoners dilemma
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What Creates Conflict?
 Social Dilemmas
 Resolving social dilemmas
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Regulation (Government)
 Safeguard the common good
Make the group small –visibility/ accountability
 What’s the optimal size?
Communication – Robyn Dawes’ experiment (1980)
 30% vs. 80%
Change the payoffs
 Carpools –how does this change the payoffs?
Appeal to altruistic norms (social norms)
 Why did 1/3 cooperate in “Wall Street Game” vs. 2/3 in
“Community Game”?
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What Creates Conflict?
 Competition (group identification is a prerequisite)
 Realistic group conflict (Sherif, 1966)
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Win-lose competition
Negative images of the outgroup
Strong ingroup cohesiveness
Pride
 What are some real life examples?
 Of superordinate goals that bring groups together?
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What Creates Conflict?
 Perceived Injustice
 People perceive justice as equity

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Ratio of outcomes to inputs for self and other
Distribution of rewards in proportion to individuals’
contributions
 If one contributes more and benefits less, he will feel exploited
 As equality?

E.g. family distributions of resources
 Does it depend upon equity or equality
 Other examples?
 Should it apply to poverty in America?
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What Creates Conflict?
 Misperception
 Of other’s motives and goals
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Iran and U.S.
Israel and Palestinians
 Seeds of misperception
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Self-serving bias
Tendency to self-justify
Fundamental attribution error
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What Creates Conflict?
 Mirror-Image Perceptions
 Reciprocal views of each other often held by parties in
conflict

Example
 Each may view itself as moral and peace-loving and the other
as evil and aggressive
 Iran, U.S.
 Russia, U.S.
 Baltimore Police, Black youth/community
 Others?
 Evil leader–good people illusion
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What Creates Conflict?
 Simplistic Thinking
 When tension rises rational thinking becomes more
difficult
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Views of the enemy become more simplistic and stereotyped
 Shifting Perceptions
 The same processes that create the enemy’s image can
reverse it when the enemy becomes an ally
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How Can Peace Be Achieved?
 Contact…generally predicts tolerance
 Predicts decreased prejudice
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Friendship
 Those who form friendships with outgroup members develop
more positive attitudes toward the outgroup
 Minimize outgroup identity
 How can this be done?
Equal-status contact
 Contact on an equal basis
 To reduce prejudice, interracial contact should be between
persons equal in status
 Who have perceived choice in associating with one another
Multiculturalism or Assimilation? Which is it?
 Hutu & Tutsi? Or just Rwandan?
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How Can Peace Be Achieved?
 Cooperation
 Common external threats build cohesiveness
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E.g. army in Vietnam
 Superordinate goals foster cooperation
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Shared goal that necessitates cooperative effort
 Cooperative learning improves racial attitudes
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Aronson’s “jigsaw” technique
 Group and superordinate identities
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How Can Peace Be Achieved?
 Communication
 Bargaining

Seeking an agreement to a conflict through direct negotiation
between parties
 Tough bargaining may lower the other party’s expectations,
but can sometimes backfire
 Bush and Hussein
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How Can Peace Be Achieved?
 Communication
 Mediation

Attempt by a neutral third party to resolve a conflict by
facilitating communication and offering suggestions
 Integrative agreements
 Win-win agreements that reconcile both parties’ interests to
their mutual benefit
 Unravel misperceptions with controlled communications
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How Can Peace Be Achieved?
 Communication
 Arbitration

Resolution of a conflict by a neutral third party who studies
both sides and imposes a settlement
 Final-offer arbitration
 Motivates each party to make a reasonable proposal
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How Can Peace Be Achieved?
 Conciliation
 GRIT (Osgood, ‘62)

Acronym for “graduated and reciprocated initiatives in
tension reduction”—a strategy designed to de-escalate
international tensions
 Real world applications
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Berlin crisis in 60’s
Kennedy and Khrushchev ‘63
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