“You can apply pressure in the direction where you want people to go, or you can ask a very different question, which is: Why aren’t they going there by themselves?” —Daniel Kahneman
Speaking on a March 2019 podcast with Sam Harris, professor, best-selling author, and Nobel Prize-winning economist and psychologist Kahneman discusses a key idea in behavioral psychology that is highly relevant in negotiation and mediation settings. There are two essential ways of changing human behavior. On the one hand, you can apply pressure, including promises, threats, and arguments; on the other, you can make choices easier for people by removing obstacles, conflict, and stress.
Kahneman, referencing social psychology pioneer Kurt Lewin, observes that when you make it easier for people to do the right thing they are more likely to, perhaps even effortlessly and without conflict. Kahneman notes that pressure creates conflict, and removing obstacles diminishes conflict, reduces stress, and generally makes things easier for people. Kahneman lauds the basic, albeit non-intuitive, psychological rule that if you want people to behave in a certain way, you make it easy for them. This is the best way to effect change.
The distinction between applying pressure and removing obstacles to make behavior easy can be seen, for example, in the difference between “opt-in” and “opt-out” organ donation choices people make on drivers’ license applications. Since it takes less effort to opt out than to opt in, people will tend to follow the path of least resistance and be more likely to donate organs if they can do so without having to make an affirmative election.
And why is all of this important to mediators and negotiators? It implicates another idea central to behavioral economics Kahneman has studied extensively and, as he put it: “You should choose the frame that leads to the better decision and to the better outcome.”
Polished negotiators and mediators know this “framing” principle, understand it well, and use it to guide them in resolving conflict. Frame your proposals in the way that makes it easiest for the recipients to act in the way you would like them to. Instead of asking yourself how you can pressure – or even incentivize – your counterpart to act, consider why they aren’t going there themselves. When you have an answer to that question, remove the obstacles you reasonably can and give the other side an easy choice.
If you are unaware of how framing impacts decision-making, you become vulnerable to cognitive biases that can steer us to sub-optimal choices. Of course, being conscious of framing and other heuristics doesn’t immunize us from making cognitive errors, as Kahneman is quick to acknowledge, but we should at least be aware of those predictable tricks our minds want to play on us.
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