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Conflict and Peacemaking Chapter 13 515

directly to their adversaries without fear that their constituents are second-guessing
what they are saying. The result? Those from both sides typically come to under-
stand the other’s perspective and how the other side responds to their own group’s
actions.

ARBITRATION
Some conflicts are so intractable, the underlying interests so divergent, that a mutu-
ally satisfactory resolution is unattainable. Conflicting claims to Jerusalem as the
capital of an independent Palestine versus a secure Israel have, so far, proven
intractable. In a divorce dispute over custody of a child, both parents cannot enjoy
full custody. In those and many other cases (disputes over tenants’ repair bills, ath-
letes’ wages, and national territories), a third-party mediator may—or may not—
help resolve the conflict.
If not, the parties may turn to arbitration by having the mediator or another third
party impose a settlement. Disputants usually prefer to settle their differences with-
out arbitration so that they retain control over the outcome. Neil McGillicuddy and
others (1987) observed this preference in an experiment involving disputants com-
ing to a dispute settlement center. When people knew they would face an arbitrated
settlement if mediation failed, they tried harder to resolve the problem, exhibited
less hostility, and thus were more likely to reach agreement.
In cases where differences seem large and irreconcilable, the prospect of arbitra-
tion may cause the disputants to freeze their positions, hoping to gain an advan-
tage when the arbitrator chooses a compromise. To combat that tendency, some
disputes, such as those involving salaries of individual baseball players, are settled
with “final-offer arbitration,” in which the third party chooses one of the two final
offers. Final-offer arbitration motivates each party to make a reasonable proposal.
Typically, however, the final offer is not as reasonable as it would be if each
party, free of self-serving bias, saw its own proposal through others’ eyes. Negotia-
tion researchers report that most disputants are made stubborn by “optimistic over-
confidence” (Kahneman & Tversky, 1995). Successful mediation is hindered when,
as often happens, both parties believe they have a two-thirds chance of winning a
final-offer arbitration (Bazerman, 1986, 1990).

Conciliation
Sometimes tension and suspicion run so high that even communication, let alone
resolution, becomes all but impossible. Each party may threaten, coerce, or retaliate
against the other. Unfortunately, such acts tend to be reciprocated, escalating the
conflict. So, would a strategy of appeasing the other party by being unconditionally
cooperative produce a satisfying result? Often not. In laboratory games, those who
are 100 percent cooperative often are exploited. Politically, a one-sided pacifism is
usually out of the question.

GRIT
Social psychologist Charles Osgood (1962, 1980) advocated a third alternative, one that
is conciliatory yet strong enough to discourage exploitation. Osgood called it “gradu-
ated and reciprocated initiatives in tension reduction.” He nicknamed it GRIT, a label GRIT
that suggests the determination it requires. GRIT aims to reverse the “conflict spiral” Acronym for “graduated
by triggering reciprocal de-escalation. To do so, it draws upon social-psychological and reciprocated initiatives
concepts, such as the norm of reciprocity and the attribution of motives. in tension reduction”—a
GRIT requires one side to initiate a few small de-escalatory actions, after announc- strategy designed to
ing a conciliatory intent. The initiator states its desire to reduce tension, declares each de-escalate international
conciliatory act before making it, and invites the adversary to reciprocate. Such tensions.
announcements create a framework that helps the adversary correctly interpret
what otherwise might be seen as weak or tricky actions. They also bring public
pressure to bear on the adversary to follow the reciprocity norm.

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516 Part Three
“I AM NOT SUGGESTING
THAT PRINCIPLES OF
INDIVIDUAL BEHAVIOR
CAN BE APPLIED TO
THE BEHAVIOR OF
NATIONS IN ANY DIRECT,
SIMPLEMINDED FASHION.
WHAT I AM TRYING TO
SUGGEST IS THAT SUCH
PRINCIPLES MAY PROVIDE
US WITH HUNCHES ABOUT
INTERNATIONAL BEHAVIOR
THAT CAN BE TESTED
AGAINST EXPERIENCE IN
THE LARGER ARENA.”
—CHARLES E. OSGOOD (1966)
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Social Relations
Next, the initiator establishes credibility and genuineness by carrying out, ex-
actly as announced, several verifiable conciliatory acts. This intensifies the pressure
to reciprocate. Making conciliatory acts diverse—perhaps offering medical help,
closing a military base, and lifting a trade ban—keeps the initiator from making a
significant sacrifice in any one area and leaves the adversary freer to choose its own
means of reciprocation. If the adversary reciprocates voluntarily, its own concilia-
tory behavior may soften its attitudes.
GRIT is conciliatory. But it is not “surrender on the installment plan.” The
remaining aspects of the plan protect each side’s self-interest by maintaining retalia-
tory capability. The initial conciliatory steps entail some small risk but do not jeop-
ardize either one’s security; rather, they are calculated to begin edging both sides
down the tension ladder. If one side takes an aggressive action, the other side recip-
rocates in kind, making clear it will not tolerate exploitation. Yet the reciprocal act
is not an overresponse that would re-escalate the conflict. If the adversary offers its
own conciliatory acts, these, too, are matched or even slightly exceeded. Morton
Deutsch (1993) captured the spirit of GRIT in advising negotiators to be “ ‘firm, fair,
and friendly’: firm in resisting intimidation, exploitation, and dirty tricks; fair in
holding to one’s moral principles and not reciprocating the other’s immoral behav-
ior despite his or her provocations; and friendly in the sense that one is willing to
initiate and reciprocate cooperation.”
Does GRIT really work? In a lengthy series of experiments at Ohio University,
Svenn Lindskold and his associates (1976 to 1988) found “strong support for the
various steps in the GRIT proposal.” In laboratory games, announcing coopera-
tive intent does boost cooperation. Repeated conciliatory or generous acts do breed
greater trust (Klapwijk & Van Lange, 2009; Shapiro, 2010). Maintaining an equality
of power does protect against exploitation.
Lindskold was not contending that the world of the laboratory experiment mir-
rors the more complex world of everyday life. Rather, experiments enable us to
formulate and verify powerful theoretical principles, such as the reciprocity norm
and the self-serving bias. As Lindskold (1981) noted, “It is the theories, not the indi-
vidual experiments, that are used to interpret the world.”
REAL-WORLD APPLICATIONS
GRIT-like strategies have occasionally been tried outside the laboratory, with pro-
mising results. During the Berlin crisis of the early 1960s, U.S. and Russian tanks faced
each other barrel to barrel. The crisis was defused when the Americans pulled back
their tanks step-by-step. At each step, the Russians reciprocated. Similarly, in the 1970s,
small concessions by Israel and Egypt (for example, Israel allowing Egypt to open up
the Suez Canal, Egypt allowing ships bound for Israel to pass through) helped reduce
tension to a point where the negotiations became possible (Rubin, 1981).
To many, the most significant attempt at GRIT was the so-called Kennedy exper-
iment (Etzioni, 1967). On June 10, 1963, President Kennedy gave a major speech,
“A Strategy for Peace.” He noted that “Our problems are man-made . . . and can be
solved by man,” and then announced his first conciliatory act: The United States
was stopping all atmospheric nuclear tests and would not resume them unless
another country did. Kennedy’s entire speech was published in the Soviet press.
Five days later Premier Khrushchev reciprocated, announcing he had halted pro-
duction of strategic bombers. There soon followed further reciprocal gestures: The
United States agreed to sell wheat to Russia, the Russians agreed to a “hot line”
between the two countries, and the two countries soon achieved a test-ban treaty.
For a time, these conciliatory initiatives eased relations between the two countries.
Might conciliatory efforts also help reduce tension between individuals? There
is every reason to expect so. When a relationship is strained and communication
nonexistent, it sometimes takes only a conciliatory gesture—a soft answer, a warm
smile, a gentle touch—for both parties to begin easing down the tension ladder, to a
rung where contact, cooperation, and communication again become possible.
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Conflict and Peacemaking Chapter 13 517

SUMMING UP: How Can Peace Be Achieved?

• Although conflicts are readily kindled and fueled
by social dilemmas, competition, and mispercep-
tions, some equally powerful forces, such as con-
tact, cooperation, communication, and conciliation,
can transform hostility into harmony. Despite some
encouraging early studies, other studies show that
mere contact (such as mere desegregation in schools)
has little effect upon racial attitudes. But when con-
tact encourages emotional ties with individuals
• Sometimes tensions run so high that genuine com-
identified with an outgroup, and when it is struc-
tured to convey equal status, hostilities often lessen.
• Contacts are especially beneficial when people
work together to overcome a common threat or to
achieve a superordinate goal. Taking their cue from
experiments on cooperative contact, several research
teams have replaced competitive classroom learn-
ing situations with opportunities for cooperative
learning, with heartening results.
• Conflicting parties often have difficulty commu-
nicating. A third-party mediator can promote
communication by prodding the antagonists to
replace their competitive win-lose view of their
conflict with a more cooperative win-win orienta-
tion. Mediators can also structure communications
that will peel away misperceptions and increase
mutual understanding and trust. When a negoti-
ated settlement is not reached, the conflicting par-
ties may defer the outcome to an arbitrator, who
either dictates a settlement or selects one of the two
final offers.
munication is impossible. In such cases, small
conciliatory gestures by one party may elicit recip-
rocal conciliatory acts by the other party. One such
conciliatory strategy, graduated and reciprocated
initiatives in tension reduction (GRIT), aims to
alleviate tense international situations. Those who
mediate tense labor-management and interna-
tional conflicts sometimes use another peacemak-
ing strategy. They instruct the participants, as this
chapter instructed you, in the dynamics of conflict
and peacemaking in the hope that understanding
can help former adversaries establish and enjoy
peaceful, rewarding relationships.

POSTSCRIPT:
The Conflict Between Individual
and Communal Rights
Many social conflicts are a contest between individual and collective rights. One
person’s right to own handguns conflicts with a neighborhood’s right to safe
streets. One person’s right to smoke conflicts with others’ rights to a smoke-free
environment. One industrialist’s right to do unregulated business conflicts with a
community’s right to clean air.
Hoping to blend the best of individualist and collectivist values, some social “THIS IS THE AGE OF THE
scientists—myself included—have advocated a communitarian synthesis that aims INDIVIDUAL.”
to balance individual rights with the collective right to communal well-being. Com-
munitarians welcome incentives for individual initiative and appreciate why Marx- —PRESIDENT RONALD
ist economies have crumbled. “If I were, let’s say, in Albania at this moment,” said REAGAN, ADDRESS ON WALL
communitarian sociologist Amitai Etzioni (1991), “I probably would argue that
STREET, 1982
there’s too much community and not enough individual rights.” But communitari-
ans also question the other extreme—the rugged individualism and self-indulgence
of the 1960s (“Do your own thing”), the 1970s (the “Me decade”), the 1980s (“Greed
is good”), and the 1990s (“Follow your bliss”). Unrestrained personal freedom, they
say, destroys a culture’s social fabric; unregulated commercial freedom, they add,
has plundered our shared environment and produced the recent economic collapse.
During the last half-century, Western individualism has intensified. Parents
have become more likely to prize independence and self-reliance in their children
and are less concerned with obedience (Alwin, 1990; Remley, 1988). Children more
often have uncommon names (Twenge & others, 2010). Clothing and grooming
styles have become more diverse, personal freedoms have increased, and common
values have waned (Putnam, 2000; Schlesinger, 1991).

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518 Part Three Social Relations

Communitarians are not advocating a nostalgia trip—a return, for example, to

the more restrictive and unequal gender roles of the 1950s. Rather, they propose a
middle ground between the individualism of the West and the collectivism of the
East, between the macho independence traditionally associated with males and the
caregiving connectedness traditionally associated with females, between concerns
for individual rights and for communal well-being, between liberty and fraternity,
between me-thinking and we-thinking.
As with luggage searches at airports, smoking bans on planes, and sobriety
checkpoints and speed limits on highways, societies are accepting some adjust-
ments to individual rights in order to protect the public good. Environmental
restraints on individual freedoms (to pollute, to whale, to deforest) similarly
exchange certain short-term liberties for long-term communal gain. Some indi-
vidualists warn that such constraints on individual liberties may plunge us down
a slippery slope leading to the loss of more important liberties. If today we let
them search our luggage, tomorrow they’ll be knocking down the doors of our
houses. If today we censor cigarette ads or pornography on television, tomorrow
they’ll be removing books from our libraries. If today we ban handguns, tomor-
row they’ll take our hunting rifles. In protecting the interests of the majority, do
we risk suppressing the basic rights of minorities? Communitarians reply that
if we don’t balance concern for individual rights with concern for our collective
well-being, we risk worse civic disorder, which in turn will fuel cries for an auto-
cratic crackdown.
This much is sure: As the conflict between individual and collective rights con-
tinues, cross-cultural and gender scholarship can illuminate alternative cultural
values and make visible our own assumed values.

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