Comments from the Survey Questions

So many of the written responses to the question “please explain your answer” focus on the idea that even if the five core capacities are part of being human, they can each be enhanced or diminished through our environment. That environment may be long-term learning or it may be a single catastrophic event that takes away or diminishes the capacity. One respondent writes, “With these core capacities intact the crime rate would greatly be reduced and the community more peaceful.” That one sentence sums up an enormous segment of the responses. Sure, there may be a capacity that the people we are working with had at one point, but through various circumstances some or all of the capacities have been diminished. Some of the responses also point to the idea that their clients come to them deficient in these behaviors and the enhancement of the behaviors is a large part of what the mediator must do to help the parties make progress. Could it be that those people most likely to end up in a conflict requiring help are lacking in these skills and capacities or perhaps the ability to access these skills and capacities? If everyone in conflict could magically find these capacities, would there be fewer conflicts?

Appendix A is a collection of the written survey responses. As extrapolated from the results in Chart #1 & 2 there are strong opinions on many sides of each question. The one additional idea that runs across most of the answers is that of complexity in human behavior. The overlap in answers and constant referrals back to other questions and capacities shows an interlocking set of ideas around the human capacity to resolve conflicts without violence. I would like to think that identifying five particular capacities narrows the complexity, but that may not be the case. The literature review, and now the survey data, show an interrelated aspect to at least some of the capacities. The next phase of this research may need to add some capacities while removing others.

Several other behaviors, or core capacities, have been proposed by participants in the survey as integral to resolving conflicts. Some of those include basic ideas like: having the abilities to talk, listen, learn, see, reason, recognize social norms, etc., while others are more complex like: being present, being able to translate complex thoughts, and having a base recognition of negotiating techniques. Some of the most complex involve ideas of: compassion, self-awareness, self-preservation, self-interest, self-reflection, spiritual awareness, humility, ability to imagine a positive future, need to love and be loved, and a recognition of control over outcomes. Of all of these potential other base capacities, compassion and self-awareness appeared most frequently. Would it be worth further review to determine if they are natural abilities? Both compassion and self-awareness may have similar roots when compared with the other five core capacities and thus may be worth studying further to try to understand if they could be predictable capacities.

Conclusion Phase 1

It is quite clear from the literature reviewed so far that humans are hard-wired to resolve conflicts non-violently. Even without the argument that we are innately capable, it is hard to argue that we do not have at least the natural ability to learn very quickly how to approach and deal with conflict in a positive way. This project set out to answer the question, what are the universal human core capacities, desires, and innate abilities people in conflict possess that cross-cultural peacemakers can always count on to help parties resolve conflicts? I believe that the five underlying emotional and cognitive capacities outlined in this paper: reconciliation, cooperation, forgiveness, relationships, and empathy, are powerful underpinnings for resolving conflicts in a non-violent way and do start to answer the project question. Reconciliation behavior allows us to repair wounds, heal, and make-up with a former enemy. Understanding the need for cooperation has the potential to set up a future looking scenario for people in dispute with a focus on what they can accomplish together and to see what they cannot accomplish without one another. Forgiveness is that powerful ability to let go of a past harm and acts as a true foundation for a real and long-term reconciliation processes. Understanding the need for relationships forces us to consider the other person’s point of view for the benefit of both. And, finally, empathy is a window into another person’s mind, which allows us to feel what he or she feels and understand why they do what they do. The peacemaker survey results and comments indicate that conflict managers are experiencing the five core capacities in most of their clients in one fashion or another during conflict and these survey results support the view in the current literature that says these capabilities are common, and universal in most humans.

Building a solid foundation in cross-cultural conflict management strategies has never been so important as it is at this very moment in time. If we can be certain that these abilities are within most every human, the question then becomes how can we use this knowledge to help resolve conflicts, especially as we turn our attention to conflicts that run across cultures? This cultural layer is where the answers presented in this paper can become blurred and masked by differences that are hard to see beyond. Are there tools or methods peacemakers would use more if they knew that everyone in the room had some access to the same core capacities? Would they choose to boldly model specific behaviors or create exercises that blatantly elicit these capacities? Are there tools they would decide to use later in the process, rather than early? Does the conflict system in front of them change with the knowledge that everyone has something in common that they cannot ignore because it is part of them? The five core capacities are in many cases intertwined with one another and can be enhanced or diminished with experience and environmental input. This learning element, and the identification of the core capacities could also help guide child and adult learning programs that focus on teaching conflict resolution.

Since no strategy for managing conflict can be based on an assumption, some may find these findings too cloudy to be helpful. Others may find further proof here for ideas they already felt had merit in their practices. Still others may be sparked to take on further research in these areas. There is a need for more research in this important base area of conflict resolution and peacemaking. Because the literature reviewed here is almost entirely limited to Western researchers and sources and the underlying questions being posed involve cross-cultural conflicts, the need to expand the literature review, personal interviews, and surveys to more parts of the world is important. If similar conclusions are drawn in an expanded, beyond Western study, a further step may be to embark upon quantitative research that will help to reinforce the ideas presented in this paper. Phase two of this research should be embarked upon with vigor.

“Social behavior is in all species a blend of inborn tendencies, experience, and intelligent decision making.” Frans De Waal

Chart # 2

What appears to be significant for this study is that more respondents report that the capacities are strictly innate than those who report that they are strictly learned. In some cases, as with cooperation and relationships, twice as many people believe that the capacity is innate, while with empathy and forgiveness four to five times as many people believe that the capacity is innate. This doesn’t necessarily mean that the capacities are innate, but it may show that some peacemakers find behaviors related to the capacities to be an integral part of how their clients function. Empathy in particular shows up in the data as one capacity worthy of much closer examination. The data shows a very large proportion of the respondents believe that empathy is an innate human capacity. This is consistent with the literature review and points to the empathy capacity as one that could be predictable.

The heavy weight placed on the learned and predominantly learned answers of all the capacities, but especially cooperation and relationships, works both for and against the idea that these are common capabilities. For example, Chart 1 shows that understanding the reciprocal nature of relationships is found to be common by 91.3% of the peacemakers while at the same time, most of the same peacemakers believe that the capability is learned. While this may mean that humans all have the ability as a core capacity, and it may be nurtured to a point of being useful, it may also mean that the capability is only learned and that we may find people that have no concept of the behavior if the study were to be expanded. The answers may also reflect the “book learning” of the respondents rather than the actual make-up of their clients. This perception among peacemakers may open up an entirely new area to be studied, rich in ideas about what we as peacemakers bring to the table.

Survey Results and Synthesis (Continued)

With empathy being one of the areas that current literature points to as common among most humans that are not sociopaths, it is surprising that 8.5% of the peacemakers believe that empathy does not exist in most people. Does this mean that some peacemakers are working in segments of the population that do not have or use empathy, or does it mean that some peacemakers are not able to sense this in their clients for some reason (perhaps a lack of empathy in the peacemaker), or is it something else? The ramifications of the “no” answers in all five questions are as rich in information as the “yes” answers are because they highlight the peacemaker’s personality, ability, and perhaps even their style in using and enhancing that with which their clients arrive.

The questions and the data tend to simplify a very complex set of human behaviors. This simplification may be useful in some complex conflict situations, however we must be careful not to make assumptions at this point in the research. The questions were designed specifically to steer the respondents to these five capacities only, with the realization that there may be other core capacities and that all capacities may or may not be inter-related. In trying to root out a way to tabulate behavior, the questions related to reconciliation asked about the “desire” or “want” to reconcile rather than asking about the capacity to reconcile differences. Those questions assumed that the “desire” itself might be the innate capacity. Future research may refine the questions to try to define some of the ambiguity in the data. A great deal of further study is needed to test conflict managers and their clients in this area.
Questions and their answer data reported in Chart # 2 test the idea that some of the capacities may be innate while others may be learned. The questions were phrased in a way that allowed the respondents to answer in only one of four categories. As is the case with many nature vs. nurture discussions, the answers often straddle the divide. In the design of the questions, I wanted to allow answers on all sides of the spectrum. In interpreting the data, one could add the results of say “innate” and “predominantly innate” and make a comparison to the “learned” and “predominantly learned” total. This would set-up a competition between learned and innate, which is tempting, but not altogether useful here. For example, this competition in the data might leave out the person who believes that a capacity is “predominantly learned” and “innate.”

Chart # 1 describes the results of the questions that asked whether or not the peacemakers find each core capacity in their clients. Each question forced a “yes” or “no” response. I find it interesting that four of the five capacities are so prevalent as “yes” and that the one capacity, the desire to reconcile, falls so much lower on the scale of prevalence in comparison to the others. This may highlight some of the earlier literature findings that matched ongoing relationships and closeness of the combatants, to reconciliation behavior. It may also mean that although the capacity to reconcile is there, the desire to reestablish relations is not present, at least at the point in the conflict timing that the peacemakers are generally seeing their clients. It may also mean that in our individualist Western society there may not be a perceived, or real, need to reconcile differences when moving out of conflict.

The answers for the bottom four categories fall more in line with what the literature reviews and previous studies would have predicted. The prediction being that these core capacities would be found in most people, in most conflict situations. The answers do not indicate that these capacities were used to help resolve the conflicts encountered, but they do give weight to the idea that peacemakers are experiencing these capabilities on a very regular, and perhaps predictable, frequency. Can we draw from these results the conclusion that most people we encounter in conflict will have these core capacities and that we can plan to work with those capacities? Probably not. Although the data would seem to point us in that direction, too many unanswered questions remain. At what points in the conflict do these capacities become most available to parties? Do they emerge in all parties at the same time? Are they always present, or do they come and go as the process follows its path? Are the levels of each capacity matched within the people in conflict so they can be useful? What role does the mediator play in eliciting these behaviors and does the behavior depend upon the expertise of the mediator?

Survey Results and Synthesis:

First, I want to thank those who spent their valuable time taking the survey associated with this phase of this research. A high enough value cannot be put on the energy and thoughtfulness that those who took the survey put into their responses. The comments alone are very thought-provoking and full of rich information and experiences. We work in a community of good people. Thank you.

The balance of this paper will explore the five common capacities through a survey of cross-cultural mediators, peacemakers, conflict managers, and facilitators. The goals of this Phase 1 stage are:

· Get a sense as to whether practitioners experience these same five core abilities in their clients
· Explore the possible innate vs. learned origin of each capacity
· Explore other possible core capacities missed in this review
· Understand how practitioners would use the capacities to help their clients, if they knew these capacities existed.

The quantitative data will be presented first, with a summary of the qualitative aspects to follow.
A fourteen-question survey was developed to answer and explore the above-mentioned goals. Eighty-four mediators/conflict managers were identified from a variety of different disciplines. Commonalities in those surveyed include a mostly North American orientation: 70 are members of Mediators Beyond Borders – a non-profit conflict resolution group working throughout the world and 83 consider themselves mediators. Conflict management experience levels vary from new mediators and students of mediation to some of the most experienced international mediators and coaches in the world. The survey was conducted through the on-line service Survey Monkey. It was confidential, individually delivered via e-mail, and only available on-line. The total response rate was 56% for a total of 47 responses from 84 participants. Although the results presented here are adequate for getting a sense of what some peacemakers generally believe, the relatively low number of people surveyed along with the unknown experience levels of those that answered the survey, make the results here a “healthy start” rather than a comprehensive study.

The following data and analysis of each section is meant to show trends in the thinking of peacemakers as to the capacities of their clients. The information is meant to inspire further thinking about the potential commonalities in most people and how those commonalities may be used to help resolve conflicts. Fourteen questions were posed. Five “yes” or “no” style questions were asked centering on the ideas and the core capabilities outlined in this paper so far. Respondents were asked whether or not they believe that their clients possess these capabilities. Five more questions were asked, centering on those same capabilities. These second tier questions were meant to elicit ideas and feelings as to whether the capacities are the result of nature or nurture. Each respondent was given the opportunity to explain each of their answers in a “please explain” area of the survey. Respondents were also asked whether or not they would use these capabilities if they knew their clients all came to the conflict with them. Respondents were then asked for other core capabilities they see in their clients that were not mentioned in the previous questions. They were also asked to explain how they would use any or all of the five core capacities to help their clients. The results are as follows: