WHO WILL PREVAIL? When people hold some values "sacred," new rules of negotiation apply.
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The Wisdom of Psychopaths
In this engrossing journey into the lives of psychopaths and their infamously crafty behaviors, the renowned psychologist Kevin Dutton reveals that there is a...
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Consider the classic hypothetical scenario: Your house is on fire and you can take only three things with you before the entire structure becomes engulfed in flames. What would you take? Laptops and external hard drives aside, people’s responses to this question differ wildly. This diversity results from people’s flexibility in ascribing unique value to objects ranging from a hand-scrawled note from a loved one to a threadbare t-shirt that others might consider worthless.
The critical quality that leads people to treat rookie cards like rosaries is that of the sacred, whereby an object becomes worthy of boundless reverence, commitment, and protection. As diverse as people are in ascribing sacred status to possessions, they are equally varied in which values they consider sacred, a diversity that can breed substantial conflict. The abortion debate, for example, often presents a divide between those who consider woman’s “right to choose” sacred versus those who consider a fetus’ “right to life” sacred.
A recent study in the journal for Judgment and Decision Making assessed how the Iranian nuclear defense program has become a sacred value and how this affects negotiation over Iranian disarmament, an issue of growing global concern. Just last month Iran defied the United Nations in beginning to enrich its uranium supply to bolster its nuclear program. The recent study on this topic by Morteza Dehghani and colleagues, offers two key insights. It demonstrates how a relatively recent issue, one that—unlike abortion—lacks any longstanding historical or religious significance, can become sacred. And it suggests, surprisingly, that offering material incentives in exchange for sacred values may backfire badly. The work is a reminder that sacred values are tremendously influential in disputes both international and interpersonal, but that our negotiating instincts can lead us away from common ground.
What truly distinguishes sacred values from secular ones is how people behave when asked to compromise them. When people are asked to trade their sacred values for values considered to be secular—what psychologist Philip Tetlock refers to as a “taboo tradeoff”—they exhibit moral outrage, express anger and disgust, become increasingly inflexible in negotiations, and display an insensitivity to a strict cost-benefit analysis of the exchange. What’s more, when people receive monetary offers for relinquishing a sacred value, they display a particularly striking irrationality. Not only are people unwilling to compromise sacred values for money—contrary to classic economic theory’s assumption that financial incentives motivate behavior—but the inclusion of money in an offer produces a backfire effect such that people become even less likely to give up their sacred values compared to when an offer does not include money. People consider trading sacred values for money so morally reprehensible that they recoil at such proposals.
Psychologist Jeremy Ginges and his colleagues identified this backfire effect in studies of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in 2007. They interviewed both Israelis and Palestinians who possessed sacred values toward key issues such as ownership over disputed territories like the West Bank or the right of Palestinian refugees to return to villages they were forced to leave—these people viewed compromise on these issues completely unacceptable. Ginges and colleagues found that individuals offered a monetary payout to compromise their values expressed more moral outrage and were more supportive of violent opposition toward the other side. Opposition decreased, however, when the other side offered to compromise on a sacred value of its own, such as Israelis formerly renouncing their right to the West Bank or Palestinians formally recognizing Israel as a state. Ginges and Scott Atran found similar evidence of this backfire effect with Indonesian madrassah students, who expressed less willingness to compromise their belief in sharia, strict Islamic law, when offered a material incentive.
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16 Comments
Add CommentIt seems suspicious to me that an analysis of an Eastern culture's perspective of their nuclear policies by psychologists representing a Western culture would consider that the Eastern culture's view was based on religious rhetoric.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps the Easterner's perception of the value of their nuclear activities has simply been enhanced by the value placed on it by Westerners.
My own perception of the value of my extensive collection of Scientific American magazines has not been enhanced.
economies and the economics of feeling are really on my mind at the moment...more soon, but in the meantime have a look at Lear I.1 in which finance capital gets compared to rhetoric...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIsn't this "story" just politics wrapped in a pseudo-scientific approach?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisjtdwyer,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think you're missing the point - the article is not using the word "sacred" in a religious sense, but a psychological one (take the examples towards the beginning of the article about precious T-shirts, etc.).
This is fascinating stuff, and parallels a slang term frequently used in business negotiations. When one side needs needs to convey that a certain negotiating point will be hung up on something other than business logic, it's referred to as a "religious issue." By which is meant not literally a religious issue, but one that the company has a more than logical relationship to, with the result that the company is unlikely to change its position regardless of the merits of any arguments to the contrary.
Tucker M - Thanks, but I actually do realize that it was auspiciously intended to represent an item that is personal and highly valued. At best this is an unfortunate and insensitive terminology given the consensus religious distinctions between geopolitical groups.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe consequences of evoking religious imagery will not assist our efforts to negotiate with a religious state and society. I would have hoped psychologists would have sensitive to this, but if they recognized it as an issue, they must have been advocating the use of an antagonistic approach.
does this link with morality and how when we make moral judgements we are very strong in our opinions as in moral judgements have very high emotional weighting?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is something about these sacred values that hold strong in a person's identity. And not just to the identity of the individual directly, but to the culture, history, and ancestry that psychologically binds that individual to his world.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOffering monetary value in exchange for this sacred value, no matter what the real cost, becomes an insult on that person's identity which most consider as invaluable. An example we all probably feel in our everyday lives is our own families. Objectively, from a completely rational non-religious perspective, the values of our parents and brothers and sisters can be placed on the material wealth they provided us as we grew up, the knowledge that was imparted on us, and the happiness that was gifted to us. However, our family members are sacred to us, because they represent some part of ourselves, and care for us as we care for ourselves. Exchanging a family member to slavery for instance, would be unacceptable under any circumstances because of the sacred value they have to us.
Dr. LIC, how does your article apply to LeBron's pending free agency? Will this be expanded upon in a future FD post?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting how many of the responses are emotional. It seems people bristle at even the subject of sacredness, which has itself been imbued with sanctity. Why, one wonders? Is there a perceived danger in examining the idea of the sacred?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismskele - That's right, and we haven't yet even informed Iran that they're simply treating nuclear power as a sacred issue. I'd be most interesting to see how they'd respond.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the other hand, it would have been fairly simple for these expert social researchers to have chosen a more descriptive technical term, such 'personalization' that would have been inoffensive to almost everyone.
Interesting topic and results which could lead to large improvements in some of our more intransigent disagreements. Sort of ironic then that the topic is named in a way that causes some people to reject it. Maybe these could be called non-economic values? Or something which does not provoke emotional response before people even get a chance to consider the topic. Though I suspect that anyone whose "sacred values" include rejecting psychological and social science will still react the same.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisVery interesting. It has implications in terms of 'framing'. Also worthy of exploration is the formation of sacred values. Social pressure, commitment heuristics etc. could come into play here. If we know the source of the formation of scared values, the application of correct framing would be effective.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFantastic.
Fantastic stuff. Opens up routes to many seemingly unresolvable issues. The question that remains is the route to formation of sacred values. How do they get formed. Commitment heuristics, social approval what else. The source is critical to re-framing the offer for breaking down the sacred values, if at all it merits.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@retardedracoon,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisActually in many poor countries, people sell their family members into slavery.
It should be a sacred thing that Americans put America first. I cannot help but notice that Jewish influence in our government, media, financial institutions, education, magazines, including and especially scientific ones, results in the promotion of Jewish interests.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPrevious Jewish "scientists" forced the idea that any white American who sought the interest of their own race and nation were mentally ill. All the while Jews seek only their own interests. This article strikes me as not being any more scientific then previous propaganda.
No article would be allowed at this site if it promoted White Nationalism or Palestinian rights. I wonder if my comment will be allowed?
I do not believe that the United States should be siding with Israel against Iran. Obviously none of this would be happening if not for Jewish power and influence and we would not have to deal with Iran nor terrorism.
Can we not read about science without being propagandized by Zionists? Is that too much to ask? Can we expect science from great American scientific institutions. It makes me sad that America has fallen so far when we should be first in science among nations. We don't need this.
jtdwyer - science is not meant to be inoffensive, politically correct, or socially sensitive. Your point is well taken, but for future thought. That is, the study was to examine the relationship, if there was one, between language (the already common use of "religious" and "sacred") and behavior/reactions. Being sensative to the sacredness, if you will, of these terms is activity yet to be discovered. That the scientists weren't being sensative to it, doesn't make the study wrong or worthless.
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