General Theory-Building
Overview
INI articulates concepts and language through various theory-building frameworks to help people in a conflict understand their situation, recognize emotional dynamics affecting their behavior, and deal with those dynamics more effectively. Books and papers have been written, or are in process, on many aspects of the emotional dimension of conflict:
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Beyond Reason: Using Emotions as You Negotiate. (by Roger Fisher and Daniel Shapiro, Viking/Penguin, 2005). This popular book describes five key triggers of emotion and cooperative behavior.
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The Relational Identity Framework. INI identifies identity-based concerns that emerge from relational interactions and that impact people's emotions and behavior (e.g., see D. Shapiro's 2002 article "Negotiating Emotions").
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Vertigo. INI has conceptualized the conflict experience of "vertigo," wherein a person in the midst of a conflict becomes so enmeshed in that conflict as to lose all sense of time and space (e.g., see Shapiro and Liu, 2005, "Psychology of a Stable Peace")
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Transformative Mythologies. INI's general theory-building team, alongside Steve Nisenbaum of Harvard Medical School, is developing the concept of "Transformative Mythologies" as a way of understanding how to modify constructively the way people in conflict view their situation.
To Return to the List of Theory Building Projects, click here.