We live and work in an increasingly complex and dynamic world. The demands of working in such environments require that negotiators understand situations of conflict and work with these situations in correspondingly complex and dynamic ways. Dynamical systems theory offers important insights and tools to enhance the understanding of difficult social conflicts, including the conceptualization of ongoing destructive conflicts as strong attractors: a particular form of self‐organization of multiple elements comprising the mental and social systems associated with conflict. This article describes the pedagogical use of a computer simulation of conflict attractors (the attractor software) that allows participants to visualize and work interactively with the dynamics of conflict as they unfold over time. It further describes a negotiation workshop that employs the simulation to enhance participants' understanding of complex long‐term dynamics in conflict and presents the findings of two outcome studiescomparing the effectiveness of a workshop that employed the simulation with one that employed a traditional integrative problem‐solving method. While not definitive, these studies suggest that an understanding of the dynamical approach to conflict, supported by use of the attractor software, can promote the generation of more sustainable solutions for long‐term conflicts.

A formal model that captures the basic processes at work in the development and transformation of intractable conflict is presented. The formal model translates the insights of Deutsch's Crude Law of Social Relations, which distills the principles underlying a highly diverse set of research findings into parameters that can be explored through computer simulations. The results of the simulations show emergent consequences that were not anticipated in the verbal version of the law. Local mechanisms are found to be crucial for determining global dynamics of conflict. Conflicts grow exponentially in places with the highest incompatibility of interests, and spread from these places. Conflicts escalate to intractability by altering social orientations in

No abstract

No construct is more central to personality than the person's self-concept. Higherorder domains of self-assessment, including self-perceived skills, traits, and values, are expressed in action and provide frames of reference for deciding whether to accept or reject personally relevant social feedback. To perform these functions in a consistent manner, the domains of self-concept need to achieve coherence, with the components of each domain sufficiently integrated to provide an unequivocal platform for decision making and behavior. This depiction implies two functions of self-reflection-one focused on forging coherence in self-concept and the other focusing on the expression of domains that have achieved coherence. We refer to these two modes of self-reflection, respectively, as integration and expression. Both modes can be understood in terms of a spotlight of attention that focuses on different regions of the self-structure. In the integration mode, the spotlight converges on incoherent regions of self-concept to eliminate inconsistencies among the lower-level components. In the expression mode, the spotlight converges on coherent regions of self-concept that can provide an unequivocal platform for decision making and effective action. Using agent-based modeling, we illustrate the operation of both modes, discuss the conditions that differentially activate them, and develop their implications for personality dynamics.

No abstract