PSY4018
Problem 6
Iris task 2 come up with exam question
1. What is crisis negotiation and how does it work?
2. What is Restorative Justice?
Different forms for which cases?
3. How effective is restorative Justice?
Keep in mind the different DVs in the studies
4. What is mediation?
5. How effective is it?
For which cases does it work (or not)?
1. What is crisis negotiation, and how does it work?
Wells, S., Taylor, P. J., & Giebels, E. (2013). Crisis negotiation: From suicide to terrorism
intervention. In M. Olekalns & W. L. Adair (Eds.), Handbook of research on negotiation (pp. 473-
496). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
Limited.
Crisis negotiations are on the extreme dynamics of
emotional arousal and anxiety. Negotiators must listen
carefully, resist temptation to react defensively, and
work to build trust and cooperation.
Timeline (fig. 1)
- First few minutes of interaction to crisis negotiation critical to how a crisis incident becomes
framed and how it then unfolds. This period is characterized by extreme emotions and mistrust,
with perpetrators struggling for dominance and protecting their face rather than exchanging
information or bargaining.
Instant impression (first 30 s)
Opening gambit (5-10 min)
- Latter periods: focus on communication behaviors.
Negotiators do have control over what they are going to say.
Michigan state police model = 4 phases of development
1. Establishing initial dialogue
2. Building rapport
3. Influencing
4. Surrender
Center on defusing the intense emotions of the perpetrator to achieve a calmer, more rational
conversation about the issues at hand.
From the initial conscious effort to create a good first impression and set expectations about how the
interactions is going to process, to later stages where the interaction dynamic is more normative and
dependent on the content of what is said.
First Impressions
,PSY4018
- Negotiators can give a summary of what they could see, as opposed to what is being said by the
perpetrator. Communicating about what can be seen, rather than inferring the likely feelings of
the perpetrator. Be careful to avoid making assumptions or suggesting a degree of familiarity
that may cause conflict.
- Negotiator can propose peaceful ways of accomplishing a goal without challenging the
perpetrator’s underlying belief system.
Do not go along with aggression of the perpetrator, respond to such intensity in an
emphatic and calm manner. allows the police to align their dialogue with issues important
to the perpetrator.
- Subtle nuances in language have significant impact on the receiver’s perceptions of the
communicator
To reduce perpetrators sense of being told what to do by an authority figure
Shape role dynamic to ‘moving with’ rather than ‘moving against’
Face attack often used by perpetrators
Language intensity is highest in early changes of incident, where unfamiliar and
overwhelming police responses can trigger flight/fight reaction.
Also later in negotiations, when the ‘crunch point’ where a decision has to be made is
reached.
Do not use ‘why’ questions within the fist 5 minutes, because it may be perceived as a
challenge to the perpetrator’s legitimacy.
Initial impression impacts expectations and willingness to cooperate. Impressions are made quickly
(within 500ms) and with minimal effort. Social signals play a role in crisis negotiation too:
- Smell
- Sound of voice
Thin slicing: ‘the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and people based on very
narrow ‘slices’ of experience”. These thin slices are predictive of later conflict in long-term
relationships. Conversational engagement, prosodic emphasis and vocal mirroring during the first 5
min of a simulated employment negotiation predicts on average 30% of the variance in negotiator’s
individual outcomes.
First time that perpetrator finds himself in such a situation act according to beliefs about the
accepted social roles in such contexts, and may they may be responsive to the actions of others.
Police negotiators may play a ‘pro-active’ role in guiding the actions of perpetrators in early stages.
Rapport Development
After the first moments of the situation are handled, negotiators must begin a protracted interaction
in which the aim is to promote calm and good rapport.
- Active listening:
Begin response to the other party with a paraphrased summary of what the person has said
Advantages:
Summary shows that the other side’s opinion and position is being respected
Listening creates a positive perception on clients and leads to better long-term
practitioner-client relations
It allows for the correction of errors in what the negotiator understands about the
situation. Negotiator builds an accurate understanding of the other’s position and
thinking over time
It can help dissipate the emotion and confrontation within the incident through the
process of emotional labelling; a technique that relies on the negotiator observing
the speaker’s emotions, as displayed through intonation, word use, and body
language, and then commenting on them. By using responses that acknowledged a
, PSY4018
particular emotion, the police negotiator learns more about the affective basis for
the perpetrator’s behaviour.
- Focused listening
Pay attention to the nature and content of what the perpetrator is saying in order to be able
to accurately reflect back what it is they are trying to communicate
- Responsive listening
Ensure that perpetrator is able to say what her wishes are without being interrupted or
forced into changing content as a result of the listener’s behaviour.
- Communication encouragers
Listening using minimal encouragers will communicate positive back feeds such as ‘uh-huh’,
‘ok’, and ‘go on’ to demonstrate to the speaker that s/he is paying attention.
Another predictor of negotiation success: mimicry; refers to occasions when one person matches the
speech patterns, facial expressions, post gestures and mannerisms of their interlocutor.
- Language mimicry
Lexical matching (common word choice) & Syntactic matching (common structuring of
language early periods of interactions
Semantic matching (common matching of meaning) & Situational matching (common
framing of the situation) later stages of interactions when starting to deal with
substantive issues surrounding the crisis.
Cooperation emerges from a bottom-up process of synchrony as much as it does a top-down coming
together of cognitive representations of the conflict and its possible solutions. It reinforces the
importance of language choice and the behaviour techniques such as active listening promote.
Sensemaking
Conceptual accounts that provide frameworks for helping negotiators make sense of the actions of
the perpetrators.
- Conversations centred on the future & what options might allow the perpetrator/victim to make
his life more tolerable
Difficulties:
Make sense of perpetrator’s dialogue in order to understand his underlying motivations
and goals
Present pertinent issues in a persuasive way in an effort to alter the perpetrators
attitudes and/or behaviours.
- Crisis negotiations are characterized by a unique paradox of low affiliation but high
interdependence, with both parties needing to find a way to interact with a disliked other party.
Cylinder mode (Taylor)l – make sense of variations in language using 3 distinctions
1) Spine of cylinder differentiates a negotiator’s overall orientation to interaction as either:
Avoidant orientation: characterized by retractions from substantive discussion and a refusal
to accept responsibility for events in the crisis.
Occurs because of overwhelming nature of the situation, or because of a strategic wish
to stonewall the negotiation’s progress.
Competitive orientation: expressed by behaviours that attack
the other party’s position, or threats credibility, while
simultaneously restoring a personal position through positional
arguing, boasting and the rejection of compromises.
Often in hostage crises; where natural response is to being
surrounded is to push back (=one-down effect).
Co-operative orientation: associated with behaviours such as
concessions, compliments and messages aimed at building
Problem 6
Iris task 2 come up with exam question
1. What is crisis negotiation and how does it work?
2. What is Restorative Justice?
Different forms for which cases?
3. How effective is restorative Justice?
Keep in mind the different DVs in the studies
4. What is mediation?
5. How effective is it?
For which cases does it work (or not)?
1. What is crisis negotiation, and how does it work?
Wells, S., Taylor, P. J., & Giebels, E. (2013). Crisis negotiation: From suicide to terrorism
intervention. In M. Olekalns & W. L. Adair (Eds.), Handbook of research on negotiation (pp. 473-
496). Cheltenham, UK: Edward Elgar Publishing
Limited.
Crisis negotiations are on the extreme dynamics of
emotional arousal and anxiety. Negotiators must listen
carefully, resist temptation to react defensively, and
work to build trust and cooperation.
Timeline (fig. 1)
- First few minutes of interaction to crisis negotiation critical to how a crisis incident becomes
framed and how it then unfolds. This period is characterized by extreme emotions and mistrust,
with perpetrators struggling for dominance and protecting their face rather than exchanging
information or bargaining.
Instant impression (first 30 s)
Opening gambit (5-10 min)
- Latter periods: focus on communication behaviors.
Negotiators do have control over what they are going to say.
Michigan state police model = 4 phases of development
1. Establishing initial dialogue
2. Building rapport
3. Influencing
4. Surrender
Center on defusing the intense emotions of the perpetrator to achieve a calmer, more rational
conversation about the issues at hand.
From the initial conscious effort to create a good first impression and set expectations about how the
interactions is going to process, to later stages where the interaction dynamic is more normative and
dependent on the content of what is said.
First Impressions
,PSY4018
- Negotiators can give a summary of what they could see, as opposed to what is being said by the
perpetrator. Communicating about what can be seen, rather than inferring the likely feelings of
the perpetrator. Be careful to avoid making assumptions or suggesting a degree of familiarity
that may cause conflict.
- Negotiator can propose peaceful ways of accomplishing a goal without challenging the
perpetrator’s underlying belief system.
Do not go along with aggression of the perpetrator, respond to such intensity in an
emphatic and calm manner. allows the police to align their dialogue with issues important
to the perpetrator.
- Subtle nuances in language have significant impact on the receiver’s perceptions of the
communicator
To reduce perpetrators sense of being told what to do by an authority figure
Shape role dynamic to ‘moving with’ rather than ‘moving against’
Face attack often used by perpetrators
Language intensity is highest in early changes of incident, where unfamiliar and
overwhelming police responses can trigger flight/fight reaction.
Also later in negotiations, when the ‘crunch point’ where a decision has to be made is
reached.
Do not use ‘why’ questions within the fist 5 minutes, because it may be perceived as a
challenge to the perpetrator’s legitimacy.
Initial impression impacts expectations and willingness to cooperate. Impressions are made quickly
(within 500ms) and with minimal effort. Social signals play a role in crisis negotiation too:
- Smell
- Sound of voice
Thin slicing: ‘the ability of our unconscious to find patterns in situations and people based on very
narrow ‘slices’ of experience”. These thin slices are predictive of later conflict in long-term
relationships. Conversational engagement, prosodic emphasis and vocal mirroring during the first 5
min of a simulated employment negotiation predicts on average 30% of the variance in negotiator’s
individual outcomes.
First time that perpetrator finds himself in such a situation act according to beliefs about the
accepted social roles in such contexts, and may they may be responsive to the actions of others.
Police negotiators may play a ‘pro-active’ role in guiding the actions of perpetrators in early stages.
Rapport Development
After the first moments of the situation are handled, negotiators must begin a protracted interaction
in which the aim is to promote calm and good rapport.
- Active listening:
Begin response to the other party with a paraphrased summary of what the person has said
Advantages:
Summary shows that the other side’s opinion and position is being respected
Listening creates a positive perception on clients and leads to better long-term
practitioner-client relations
It allows for the correction of errors in what the negotiator understands about the
situation. Negotiator builds an accurate understanding of the other’s position and
thinking over time
It can help dissipate the emotion and confrontation within the incident through the
process of emotional labelling; a technique that relies on the negotiator observing
the speaker’s emotions, as displayed through intonation, word use, and body
language, and then commenting on them. By using responses that acknowledged a
, PSY4018
particular emotion, the police negotiator learns more about the affective basis for
the perpetrator’s behaviour.
- Focused listening
Pay attention to the nature and content of what the perpetrator is saying in order to be able
to accurately reflect back what it is they are trying to communicate
- Responsive listening
Ensure that perpetrator is able to say what her wishes are without being interrupted or
forced into changing content as a result of the listener’s behaviour.
- Communication encouragers
Listening using minimal encouragers will communicate positive back feeds such as ‘uh-huh’,
‘ok’, and ‘go on’ to demonstrate to the speaker that s/he is paying attention.
Another predictor of negotiation success: mimicry; refers to occasions when one person matches the
speech patterns, facial expressions, post gestures and mannerisms of their interlocutor.
- Language mimicry
Lexical matching (common word choice) & Syntactic matching (common structuring of
language early periods of interactions
Semantic matching (common matching of meaning) & Situational matching (common
framing of the situation) later stages of interactions when starting to deal with
substantive issues surrounding the crisis.
Cooperation emerges from a bottom-up process of synchrony as much as it does a top-down coming
together of cognitive representations of the conflict and its possible solutions. It reinforces the
importance of language choice and the behaviour techniques such as active listening promote.
Sensemaking
Conceptual accounts that provide frameworks for helping negotiators make sense of the actions of
the perpetrators.
- Conversations centred on the future & what options might allow the perpetrator/victim to make
his life more tolerable
Difficulties:
Make sense of perpetrator’s dialogue in order to understand his underlying motivations
and goals
Present pertinent issues in a persuasive way in an effort to alter the perpetrators
attitudes and/or behaviours.
- Crisis negotiations are characterized by a unique paradox of low affiliation but high
interdependence, with both parties needing to find a way to interact with a disliked other party.
Cylinder mode (Taylor)l – make sense of variations in language using 3 distinctions
1) Spine of cylinder differentiates a negotiator’s overall orientation to interaction as either:
Avoidant orientation: characterized by retractions from substantive discussion and a refusal
to accept responsibility for events in the crisis.
Occurs because of overwhelming nature of the situation, or because of a strategic wish
to stonewall the negotiation’s progress.
Competitive orientation: expressed by behaviours that attack
the other party’s position, or threats credibility, while
simultaneously restoring a personal position through positional
arguing, boasting and the rejection of compromises.
Often in hostage crises; where natural response is to being
surrounded is to push back (=one-down effect).
Co-operative orientation: associated with behaviours such as
concessions, compliments and messages aimed at building
