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Samenvatting van het hele boek: Negotiating the Nonnegotiable How to Resolve Your Most Emotionally Charged Conflicts
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Negotiating theNonnegotiable
Daniel Shapiro
How to resolve your most emotionally charged conflicts
The Tribes Effect
The Hidden Power of Identity
Tribe: Group to which we see ourselves as similar in kind. We feel connected
and are emotionally invested. The tribe exercises evokes emotional dynamics
intrinsic to real world conflict. Tribal entrenchment puts the entire human race at
risk, considering how no solution can be created based on a mere tribe
character. It is hard to notice such dynamics when caught in them.
The book is about resolving emotionally charged conflicts. There are three key
dimensions of conflict resolution, perceived as independent but neurologically
interrelated:
1. Rationality – Homo Economicus
People are seen as rational actors. People’s main motivation is to get
interests met as efficiently as possible. The search for an agreement that
maximizes mutual gains/ satisfying your interests without worsening those
of the counterpart. Limits:
a. Even though rationality is always there, it is hard to grasp
2. Emotions – Homo Emoticus
You are not just rational decision making; beyond reasoning lies an
emotional domain which animates your actions and thoughts. You are able
to listen to what the others are telling you. Emotions alert you to unmet
psychological needs. They are messengers, signaling. Limits:
a. It can also hinder resolution. Negative emotions amplified tribal
differences
3. Identity – Homo Identicus
Human beings seek meaning in their existence. Emotionally conflicts get
charged because it implicates fundamental aspects of one’s identity. It
threatens you. Human beings can attach strongly to any issue, imbuing it
with deep importance. Such conflicts are impossible to solve without
taking one’s identity in consideration.
It does not only contain your individual identity, but also the space
between one and the other side. Such space shapes one’s relationship just
as an emotional space.
Your own identity can only be known through reflection.
,The Dual Nature of Identity
When you perceive an identity to be fixed, negotiation in which parties have to
compromise their identity becomes a win-lose proposition. However, when it is
entirely flued, there is no assurance of the parties that an agreement will be
honored.
Identity is both fixed and fluid. In a conflict, it is easy to lose sight of this fact:
fixed identity fallacy: When your identity is threatened, you hunger down in
self-defense and conceive of it as a single, immutable whole. In such fallacy, you
demand the other party to fall for your identity. If this is a mutual feeling,
conflicts feel intractable. Looking at a conflict as insoluble makes it insoluble.
However, an orientation towards the idea that all parts of identity can be
effective, even though one is easier than another, is far more efficient.
Identity: The full spectrum of persistent and fleeting characteristics that define
you. These characteristics integrate to make you one. These characteristics
define you, but you also define them. You make yourself. It is the story about
yourself you tell to and feel about yourself (William James):
1. Me: The story you tell yourself
2. I: your embodied experience
Everything experienced during a conflict will not only be felt and lived, but also
narrated to you by you.
Two facets of identity are critical for resolving an emotionally charged conflict:
1. Core Identity
The Spectrum of characteristics that define you as an individual or as a
group. It is the platform from which you synthesize your experiences into a
coherent sense of self with both continuity and clear ideals. It includes:
a. Personal preferences;
b. Personality traits;
c. Identification with social groups – multiple
In a conflict, you must decide which social identity is the most important.
Others might make you very aware of a unique identity (social labelling).
You are not powerless against labelling, considering that you can ‘choose’
your social identity. The most meaningful aspects of a core identity is the
five pillars of identity:
1. Beliefs: convictions, principles and morals;
2. Rituals: Meaningful customs and ceremonial acts;
3. Allegiances: Deep loyalties towards a person, place or thing
(whether real or mythical);
4. Values: ideals which can be explicit or embodied in a
memorable narrative;
5. Emotionally meaningful experiences: intense events,
positive or negative, that define a part of your identity.
A threat to any of these pillars give rise to an existential crisis considering
your core identity is endangered. The sooner you realize which of your
own pillars feel threatened, the more readily you can address those
vulnerabilities and refocus on resolving your conflict. The importance of an
identity is to find a meaning in life. The five pillars give meaning to
existence.
, If there is an emotionally charged conflict, see which Pillar is endangered.
Think what might be at stake for the other side. Neither party will commit
to an agreement that threatens one’s core identity.
Core identity is not completely fixed, but the deepest pillars of identity are
extremely entrenched. A group's core identity may also change. They are
constantly negotiating the boundaries of their identities, deciding who is in
and who is out (what that even means). There is also a change in the
definition of fundamental meanings of social labels.
2. Rational Identity
The Spectrum of characteristics that define your relationship with a
particular person or group. It seeks meaning to coexistence. You have the
power to shape it. Even though your core identity remains distinct, your
core identity is not of only importance regarding conflict solution, but also
how it relates to your rational identity. Those characteristics that define
one’s rational identity are more abstract and there is no quantitative
measure that defines your relationship with another. However, there are
two dimensions of it:
a. Affiliation
Emotional connection with a person or group. Stable, constructive
connections tend to produce positive emotions and a desire to
cooperate. The flip side is rejection, which is experienced as
physical pain. You will resist cooperating and resolving conflict
becomes far more difficult.
b. Autonomy
The ability to exercise your will. If someone limits your autonomy,
this might boil up and take over the substantial problem of the
conflict. There are differences of opinion on how much autonomy is
allowed. Those rules that are there to hold society in place can also
tear it apart, generating discontent with civilization (Freud).
In a conflict, the core rational challenge is to figure out how to satisfy your desire
to be simultaneously one with the other party (affiliation) and one apart from the
other party (autonomy). Both autonomy and affiliation are intrinsic to any
relationship and your ability to keep them in balance is of paramount importance
to harmonious relations. The ability to transcend the tension of autonomy and
affiliation represents life’s central ethical challenge. Confucius did understand
this well. He argued that we live in a singular universe of heaven, earth and
humankind: the Great Whole. There are different spheres of existence that
deepen every layer:
1. Natural world;
2. Ego;
3. Social Order;
4. Great Whole – transcending autonomy and affiliation in pursuit of the good
of all.
By better understanding how each side’s core identity is at stake, you can
overcome fixed-identity fallacy and uncover fundamental sources of discontent +
hidden wishes and fears. By reshaping your rational identity as cooperative, you
build closer ties of connection.
, A Way Forward
Tribes effect: If you believe conflict is negotiable, you open yourself to
opportunities for connecting with the other side and finding creative pathways to
resolution. But threats to identity often elicit a divisive mindset that transforms
disagreement from a workable problem into a seemingly insurmountable one. A
threat to identity can elicit this effect and create a ‘me versus you’ scenario.
Evolutionary, such a mindset was important for protection. It spurs you to make
a devaluation of the other’s perspective simply because it is theirs. The effect is
there to protect your identity, but it often results in a psychological state that
diminishes the prospects of collaboration. It drives you to prioritize short-self-
interests over long-term cooperation. This results in the core paradox: you
collude in reinforcing the conflict you aim to resolve because of the creation of
systems bound to clash.
How do you know when you are in it? - The effect is fundamentally:
● Adversarial: It magnifies differences and minimizes similarities –
relationship amnesia. Thou 🡪 It (Martin Buber)
● Self-righteous: Our perspective is not only right but also morally
superior. Legitimacy is on your side and we can rationally defend it. It is
easy to recognize in others, but less obvious in your own behavior;
● Closed: it molds our identity into a fixed identity. Parties are
characterized as immutable. We critique the parties’ perspective and
condemn their character. Self-critique is a no go due to the fear of being
disloyal to our own identity.
What triggers the Tribes Effect? – When our identity is threatened, we react in
the form of a threat response: a rigid set of behaviors that can be simple or
more complex. However, the part of identity that feels threatened has to be
meaningful. Narcissism of minor differences: even a seemingly small
disagreement can elicit a strong emotional reaction. Respect of identity produces
harmonious relations.
The more deeply you are enveloped in the emotional folds of the effect, the more
difficult it becomes to resist its pull. In a conflict, this is visualized through five
emotional dynamics, the Five Lures of the Tribal Mind:
1. (Consequence) Vertigo: warped state of consciousness in which a
relationship consumes your emotional energies;
2. Repetition compulsion: self-defeating pattern of behavior you feel
driven to repeat;
3. (During) Taboos: social prohibitions that hinder cooperative relations;
4. Assault on the sacred: attack on the most meaningful pillars of your
identity;
5. (Incite) Identity politics: manipulation of your identity for another’s
political benefit
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