The Political Psychology of Crisis Negotiations: An Experimental Design

决策者经常被他们必须考虑的大量信息所淹没。 由于所分析的情况的复杂性，他们往往被迫做出部分知情的决定，而忽略了关键问题。 这种趋势在国际危机局势中变得更加明显，其特点是基本价值受到威胁，反应时间有限（往往很短），卷入军事敌对行动的可能性增加。 所有这些因素都可能导致个别决策者被细节淹没，可能无法单独或集体确定最佳结果。 大量关于危机决策的文献表明，激烈的危机情况会导致注意力范围缩小、认知僵化和时间观扭曲。 这些因素联合收割机使得效用最大化难以实现。这里提出的研究试图解决这些结构性的问题，在危机中的决策集中在谈判过程中用于管理和解决争端，达到危机的比例。 危机谈判的决策支持系统的发展，提出了作为一种手段，降低复杂性，并协助评估与可能的结果相关的公用事业。 随着决策支持系统的到位，两个具体方面的谈判过程中有针对性的调查：（1）一般与特定领域的认知复杂性水平之间的差异影响谈判过程和结果的危机谈判，（2）的影响，各种类型的调解谈判的结果。 我们建议，当谈判者配备的工具，使他们能够作出预测和评估的效用与替代方案，再加上他们的认知能力，对手带来的谈判桌上的更好的理解，并与调解人的干预，他们提高了解决冲突的能力。 这些当事方应该从实现互利的经验中产生，从而为长期解决根本冲突奠定基础。 我们提出的实验设计是唯一能够促进更好地了解这些元素如何配合在一起，在一个高效和有效的冲突管理战略。这个研究计划建立在我们早期的工作中的谈判战略模型的发展。 最初开发的自治代理在分布式计算环境中实现合作的问题，这项工作导致了这个模型的应用，危机谈判和讨价还价的情况下，通过创建一个决策支持系统的危机谈判。 该决策支持系统已实施最近在人质危机模拟设置，以支持认知复杂性和危机结果的实验工作。 此外，我们已开始就第二种危机情景及其相关的决策支助系统开展概念性工作，该系统以渔业争端为基础，使我们能够更仔细地研究不同类型的调解在危机谈判中可发挥的作用。

Decisionmakers are overwhelmed frequently by the vast amounts of information which they must consider. They are forced often to make partially informed decisions which ignore critical issues because of the complexity of the situation being analyzed. This tendency becomes even more pronounced in international crisis situations, characterized by threat to basic values, finite (often short) time for response, and heightened probability of involvement in military hostilities. These elements all contribute to the possibility that individual decisionmakers are overwhelmed with detail and possibly unable to identify optimal outcomes, either individually or collectively. The vast literature on crisis decisionmaking shows that situations of intense crisis can create a reduced span of attention, cognitive rigidity, and a distorted perspective of time. These factors combine to make utility maximization difficult to attain. The research proposed here attempts to address these structural problems associated with decisionmaking in crisis by focusing on the negotiation process used to manage and resolve disputes which reach crisis proportions. The development of decision support systems for crisis negotiation is proposed as a means of reducing complexity and aiding in the evaluation of utilities associated with possible outcomes. With a decision support system in place, two specific aspects of the negotiation process are targeted for investigation: (1) the differential impact of general versus domain-specific cognitive complexity levels among crisis negotiators on negotiation processes and outcomes, and (2) the impact of various types of mediation on the outcome of negotiation. We propose that when negotiators are equipped with tools which allow them to make projections and evaluate the utilities associated with alternative proposals, coupled with their greater understanding of the cognitive capacities which adversaries bring to the negotiation table, and with the intervention of mediators, they increase their ability to resolve conflicts. Such parties should emerge from the experience having achieved mutual benefit, and therefore having laid the foundation for the long-term resolution of the underlying conflict. The experimental design which we propose is uniquely capable of facilitating a better understanding of how these elements fit together in an efficient and effective conflict-management strategy. This research program builds on our earlier work in the development of a strategic model of negotiation. Originally developed to address the problem of achieving cooperation among autonomous agents in distributed computational settings, this work led to the application of this model to crisis negotiation and bargaining situations through the creation of a decision support system for crisis negotiators. This decision support system has been implemented recently in a Hostage Crisis simulation setting to support experimental work on cognitive complexity and crisis outcomes. In addition, we have started conceptual work on a second crisis scenario and its associated decision support system, based on a fishing dispute, which allows us to look more closely at the role which different types of mediation can play in crisis negotiation.