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Introduction:
How are we to make sense of another party's seemingly unreasonable positions, expectations or narratives? Why is there sometimes such fundamental disagreement about what is relevant to a conflict or its resolution? Jayne Docherty of Eastern Mennonite University suggests that there may be different types
of rationality at work, each of which yields a particular way to approach conflict.
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This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Rationality
Jayne Docherty
Eastern Mennonite University
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Become very aware of different forms of rationality. That may answer the
other question. You know we work in a society that tends to define rationality
in only one way. People are rational when they are goal oriented, and they use
instrumental rationality, I'm at point a and I want to get to point b and the
most efficient, the most effective way to accomplish that end is this, and that
is rational behavior. But in reality, that is only one form of rationality, Max
Weber defined 3 other types of rationality besides that. There is affective
rationality, where relationships are central and everything that flows out of
your life is about sustaining those relationships. And that has its own logic if
we use rationality to mean internal logic it makes for your behavior to make
sense and this is your core, most deepest commitment, and that's relationships
then you can predict people's behaviors in that sense, that's rational. Then
there's value rationality, I have these core rationalities and everything will be
done to sustain those. Even if it seems irrational, it's not. It's just
different rational.
The one is traditional rationality, we have always done it
this way, this is the way the world is and this is the way we must do it.
Everything follows logically. The truth of the matter is that every one of us
uses those 4 forms of rationality in combination at different times in our lives
and even in the same negotiation we may use smatterings of each kind of
rationality. For example, the police negotiators may decide that the value
commitment is to protect innocent lives, try to end this barricade without
violence if at all possible, and then the instrumental of that is use a
combination of pressure from the hostage rescue team or the SWAT team and talk
to do that. Yes, carrots and sticks. But notice the value part; that rationality
is there too. It's not one or the other. And people, like the Branch Davidians,
that you think are always oriented towards their ultimate value.
They actually
demonstrate that they can be quite problem solving oriented. As long as it
doesn't offend and disrupt their deepest value commitments. They can be rational
and analytical but know that people operate with those 4 types of rationality so
that when they flip away from instrumental rationality as in this case, you
don't say, "Oh my god, they've gone crazy! They're no longer
rational." Rather you say, "What form of rationality are they
operating with now?" And that's a window into their minds.
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