Resolving Conflicts Between People and Over Time in the Transformation Toward Sustainability: A Framework of Interdependent Conflicts

Abstract

Transformative and mutually beneficial solutions require decision-makers to reconcile present- and future interests (i.e., intrapersonal conflicts over time) and to align them with those of other decision-makers (i.e., interpersonal conflicts between people). Despite the natural co-occurrence of intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts in the transformation toward sustainability, both types of conflicts have been studied predominantly in isolation. In this conceptual article, we breathe new life into the traditional dialog between individual decision-making and negotiation research and address critical psychological barriers to the transformation toward sustainability. In particular, we argue that research on intrapersonal and interpersonal conflicts should be tightly integrated to provide a richer understanding of the interplay between these conflicts. We propose a novel, unifying framework of interdependent conflicts that systematically structures this interplay, and we analyze how complex interdependencies between the social (i.e., conflict between decision-makers) and temporal (i.e., conflict within a decision-maker) dimensions pose fundamental psychological barriers to mutually beneficial solutions. Since challenges to conflict resolution in the transformation toward sustainability emerge not only between individual decision-makers but also frequently between groups of decision-makers, we scale the framework up to the level of social groups and thereby provide an interdependent-conflicts perspective on the interplay between intra- and intergenerational conflicts. Overall, we propose simple, testable propositions, identify intervention approaches, and apply them to transition management. By analyzing the challenges faced by negotiating parties during interdependent conflicts and highlighting potential intervention approaches, we contribute to the transformation toward sustainability. Finally, we discuss implications of the framework and point to avenues for future research.

Nine Degrees of Uncertainty in Negotiations

“…Formal and informal rules might change over time due to societal change, external influences, or changes in personnel holding positions of power. Especially in negotiations over a long period, the counterparts that parties face during the negotiation of a contract might differ from those faced during implementation of the contract (Majer et al 2021). Comparably, in political negotiations, democratic elections or other forms of regime change could alter both formal and informal rules of an ongoing negotiation process in unpredictable ways.…”

From Claiming to Creating Value: The Psychology of Negotiations on Common Resource Dilemmas

“…Therefore, agents must take the negative long-term consequences of resource consumption into consideration (e.g., nuclear waste resulting from the production of nuclear energy). From a psychological perspective and as indicated by an extensive body of psychological research, this dynamic alterability of resources may foster negotiators' tendency to neglect longterm, time-delayed consequences of their decisions, and instead concentrate on immediate outcomes (i.e., temporal discounting [37][38][39]106]). This tendency can be found across a variety of contexts and outcome domains, such as economic and environmental outcomes (e.g., [37,39,107]).…”

“…The importance of this perspective is also reflected in the well-established definition of sustainability as a "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs" found in the Brundtland Report [113]. This definition points out that the decision-makers in sustainability-related negotiations are challenged to meet the interests of different social groups within and between generations [106,114]. We, therefore, specify social justice as a normative standard of sustainable agreements in negotiations on common resource dilemmas (for reviews, see [115,116]).…”

Negotiating Sustainability Transitions: Why Does It Matter? What Are the Challenges? How to Proceed?

“…Negotiation can help manage both our social interdependencies and the systemic social-ecological interdependencies that must be acknowledged and managed for successful transitions. Given the negotiations' prominent role in the management of transitions and processes of policy design, it is surprising that insights from psychological and behavioral negotiation research have rarely been applied to inform and facilitate the management of sustainability transitions (see for exceptions: [10][11][12][13]) and processes of policy design [14].…”