INTEREST ANALYSIS II:Principles and values, Basic Human Needs

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Conflict Management HRM624

Lesson 15

INTEREST ANALYSIS II

Quotations:

It is easier for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle if it is lightly greased.

Kehlog Albran

I do not love the money. What I do love is the getting of it...What other interest can you suggest to me? I

do not read. I do not take part in politics. What can I do?

Philip D. Armour (1832 - 1901) U.S. business executive

Interpretation: Philip may like to gift away money but will probably not like to let any body else win in a

business conflict. Deeper interest here is the personal success of an individual in a negotiation.

Principles and values

Conflict participants have underlying principles and values at play in their motivations.

Disputants may express principles and values disingenuously, as rationalization for a position, rather than as

honest expressions of deeply held beliefs. A conflict diagnostician must be able to distinguish between

legitimately held principles and values and those that are trotted out as argument.

Principles and values are closely tied to basic human needs. The need for the esteem of others and a stable,

positive sense of self are among the most important and deeply seated basic human needs.

Justice and basic principles/values

Principles and values are almost always one element of a disputant's interest tree.

The need for justice is one of the basic human needs. A sense of justice, of having and doing justice, is an

intrinsic part of almost all interpersonal conflict. Each participant in a conflict seeks justice for him or

herself, and an outcome that violates a participant's sense of justice is almost sure to fall apart later on.

Justice scholars generally identify two major type of justice: distributive justice and procedural justice.

Distributive justice is concerned with whether the outcome of a conflict is fair. According to the scholarly

research on justice, there are three basic principles generally called upon to determine distributive justice,

each of which tends to the more important in particular sorts of situations. Equity considerations, which

allocate resources based on the contributions of the participants, are often most relied upon when groups of

people must be motivated as a group. Equality considerations, which indicate that resources should be

allocated equally, are generally most prominent when there is a high need for group cohesion.

Finally, need considerations just that resources should be allocated to those who need them most, as when a

judge orders child support to a child based on the need of the family the child is living with. Many decisions

about distributive justice are a combination of two or even all three, considerations.

Procedural justice refers to the fairness of the process used to reach a given outcome. Procedural justice is

extremely important in lending a sense of legitimacy to a conflict resolution process that imposes an out

come, or exerts some other sorts of pressure or influence, on the disputants.

Basic Human Needs

Lying even more deeply at the heart of the conflict onion than principles and values are basic human needs.

People are not able to verbalize easily the basic human needs that lie at the heart of a conflict onion: they

must be inferred from what people say and do and the circumstances they are in.

A good interest analysis should include basic human needs. Basic human needs are basic, and a failure to

deal with and address them creates pressure for them to be expressed in other ways.

Theories about human development and human drives provide a conflict diagnostician with guidance about

basic human needs.

Conflict Management HRM624

Conflict Onion

Positions

Aspirations

Underlying interests

Principles, values

Basic human

needs

Interests and the Conflict Onion

Kind of Interest

Definitions

Position

The demand the disputant makes to others

Aspiration

The bottom line the disputant is looking for

Underlying

The reasons for the aspirations

Interests

Principles and

Beliefs and moral codes that influence the

Values

interests

Basic Human

Underlying needs that drive the motivations of

Needs

the disputant

Conflict Management HRM624

Mazlow's Needs

Self-Actualization Needs:

Theory

Truth, goodness, beauty,

aliveness, individuality,

perfection, necessity,

completion, justice, order,

simplicity, richness,

playfulness, effortlessness,

Self-esteem

self-sufficiency,

Intermediate

Esteem of others

meaningfulness

Needs

Love and Belongingness

Safety and security

Deficiency

Needs

Air, water, food, shelter, sleep

Mazlow's Need Theory

Abraham Mazlow, a psychologist working in the first half of the twentieth century presented a theory to

explain the behaviour and development of mentally healthy adults. Mazlow theorized that people have a

drive to satisfy human needs and these needs are organized hierarchically. He believed that the most basic

needs are the physiological needs (such as needs for air, food, shelter and sleep) and that, until these needs

are satisfied, people are not motivated to address other needs or desires. The next most basic need on

Mazlow hierarchy is for safety and security.

Mazlow believed that one is not motivated to satisfy the higher needs until and unless more basic needs are

satisfied. On the other hand, one might expect that, when a need is "just barely" satisfied, one might be

motivated to consolidate that need even while addressing higher level needs.

Erik Erikson's Theory

Another theory that can illuminate the deep seated motivations of persons involved in conflict is the

psychological theory of Erik Erikson. Erikson's theory, which is based fundamentally on the work of

Sigmund Freud, posits that healthy development over the human life span follows a set course of

development, in which a particular life stages are associated with particular sets of overriding concerns.

Thus, knowing Erikson's theory and the approximate ages of the individuals involve can provide some clues

into deep seated motivations.

People at different stages of life have predictable motivations or drives or interests.

Poorly resolved stages can get people "stuck" at various positions. These underlying motivations often drive

irrational conflict and prevent fair, rational resolution of conflicts

A legal professional can deal with the underlying motivation as s/he is trained to look into that.

Conflict Management HRM624

Erik Erikson's Life Span Stages

Birth-1 yr

Trust vs. Mistrust

1-3 yr

Autonomy vs. Shame, Doubt

3-6 yr

Initiative vs. Guilt

6-12 yr

Industry vs. Inferiority

Adolescence

Identity vs. Role Confusion

Intimacy vs. Isolation

Young adult

Middle age

Generativity vs. Stagnation

Late adult

Ego Integrity vs. Despair

8 Stages of Erik Erikson's Psychosocial Development

Stage1 (birth to 1 year) "trust versus mistrust." The individual's life challenge is to develop a healthy and

realistic ability to trust others in his or her world, particularly an ability to trust the primary caregiver.

Stage 2 (1 to 3 years) "autonomy versus doubt and shame." The individual's life challenge is to learn to

act in an autonomous manner, to exercise control over him- or herself.

Stage 3 (3 to 6 years) "initiative versus guilt." The individual's life challenge is to develop a sense of

potency over his or her environment, to be able to act on the environment in creating situations and plans,

without impinging on the rights and needs of others in the social system. It is here that the developing

individual first confronts the limits of social organization and interpersonal conflict first appears.

Stage 4 (6 years to adolescence) "industry versus inferiority." The individual's life challenge is to develop

a mastery of the academic, social, and vocational skills that will be needed in adulthood.

Stage 5 (adolescence and very young adulthood) "Identity versus role confusion." The individual's life

challenge is to develop a strong and stable sense of self with clear values,

a sense of vocational identity, a social identity, and so forth.

Stage 6 (young adulthood) "intimacy versus isolation." The individual's life challenge is to develop

enduring intimate relationships, such as marriages.

Stage 7 (middle adulthood) "generativity versus stagnation." The individual's life challenge is to find a

way to make a lasting contribution to others and to society in general.

This stage often includes an emphasis on procreation and the raising of children.

Conflict Management HRM624

Stage 8 (late adulthood) "ego integrity versus despair." The individual's life challenge is to find a way to

reconcile and find peace and satisfaction with the manner in which he or she has lived life and to find

meaning for the experience.

Summary

In summary, we need to understand the dynamics of human behavior. What are the fundamental and

superficial factors that move an individual to act in a certain direction? If we understand the human-related

drives to move in particular direction, we have to understand about these drives. This explanation can help

modify human behaviors in the desired directions.

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