A biological approach to understanding resistance to apology, forgiveness, and reconciliation in group conflict

Law and Contemporary Problems

Volumn 72, Issue 2, 2009, Pages 63-81

  Yarn, Douglas H ^a   Jones, Gregory Todd ^a  

^a GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY   (United States)

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EID: 77950777863     PISSN: 00239186     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: None     Document Type: Article

References (122)

1. The former might be categorized as part of the alternative dispute resolution (ADR) movement, and the latter are more likely to identify with the peace or peacemaking movement. Of course, the development of the field is a more complex story. Indeed, many practitioners do both interpersonal and intergroup work. In addition, some practitioners who engage in intergroup work, such as those who do environmental and public-policy consensus-building or work as diplomats, are unlikely to identify themselves with the individuals and NGOs who consider themselves part of the peace movement.
2. In this sense, it is distinguishable from a mere resolution or settlement. Both resolution and settlement do not necessarily entail the end of a dispute or of the underlying conflict.
3. See DOUGLAS H. YARN, DICTIONARY OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION 375, 380, 392 (1999) (defining reconciliation as "[r]enewal of applicable relations between persons who have been at variance," resolution as "[s]olution or the act of solving," and settlement as "[a]greement or arrangement ending a dispute"). In animal behavior, reconciliation refers to friendly reunions between former opponents and implies a behavior that serves the function of restoring social relationships and reducing social tension due to aggressive incidences.
4. See NATURAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION 397 (Filippo Aureli & Frans B.M. de Waal eds., 2000).
5. For our purposes, a social group is simply two or more individuals in a cooperative relationship
6. Morton Deutsch, Justice and Conflict, in THE HANDBOOK OF CONFLICT RESOLUTION 41, 61 (Morton Deutsch & Peter T. Coleman eds., 2000).
7. See generally JOHN PAUL LEDERACH, BUILDING PEACE: SUSTAINABLE RECONCILIATION IN DIVIDED SOCIETIES (1997)
8. Truth and reconciliation commissions (TRCs) are organizations designed to investigate alleged human-rights violations in a particular locale in an attempt to resolve longstanding intergroup conflict so as to enable future peace
9. See generally PRISCILLA B. HAYNER, Fifteen Truth Commissions-1974 to 1994: A Comparative Study, 16 HUM. RTS. Q. 597 (1994).
10. The most famous commission was undoubtedly South Africa's TRC. Organized in 1995, the TRC was a court-like body that attempted to ease South Africa's transition to democracy by holding hearings into the human-rights abuses of apartheid. For an overview.
11. see ALEX BORAINE, A COUNTRY UNMASKED: INSIDE SOUTH AFRICA'S TRUTH AND RECONCILIATION COMMISSION (2001)
12. See generally JOHN BRAITHWAITE, RESTORATIVE JUSTICE & RESPONSIVE REGULATION (2002)
13. For a theoretical defense of restorative justice and a comparison to traditional theories of punishment
14. see Zvi D. Gabbay, Justifying Restorative Justice: A Theoretical Justification for the Use of Restorative Justice Practices, 2005 J. DISP. RESOL. 349 (2005).
15. For a proposal that elements of restorative justice should be implemented into American criminal procedure
16. see Stephanos Bibas & Richard A. Bierschbach, Integrating Remorse and Apology into Criminal Procedure, 114 YALE L.J. 85 (2004).
17. According to Haas, There is at least one common denominator to all these approaches to reconciliation. They all are designed to lead individual men and women to change the way they think about their historical adversaries. As a result, reconciliation occurs one person at a time and is normally a long and laborious process.
18. Charles Haas, Reconciliation, in BEYOND INTRACTABILITY (Guy Burgess & Heidi Burgess eds., 2003), available at http://www.beyondintractability.org/essay/reconciliation/?nid=1224.
19. Lederach describes the goal as "building and healing the torn fabric of interpersonal and community lives and relationships."
20. John Paul Lederach, Civil Society and Reconciliation, in TURBULENT PEACE: THE CHALLENGES OF MANAGING INTERNATIONAL CONFLICT 841, 842 (Chester A. Crocker, Fen Osler Hampson & Pamela Aall eds., 2001) (emphasis added).
21. A tremendous number of theoretical perspectives on emotions have emerged in various fields over the course of time
22. See, e.g., Susan A. Bandes, Victims, "Closure," and the Sociology of Emotion, 72 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 1 (Spring 2009).
23. The perspective adopted by Bandes most nearly reflects a neurobiological theory with an evolutionary perspective. For a useful overview of the neurobiological theory of emotion.
24. see JOSEPH E. LEDOUX, THE EMOTIONAL BRAIN: THE MYSTERIOUS UNDERPINNINGS OF EMOTIONAL LIFE (1996).
25. Each individual's unique psychological profile results from a combination of species-typical brain, other inherited characteristics, and the effects of experience and environment on the brain
26. See John Tooby & Leda Cosmides, The Psychological Foundations of Culture, in THE ADAPTED MIND: EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND THE GENERATION OF CULTURE 19, 68 (Jerome H. Barkow, Leda Cosmides & John Tooby eds., 1995).
27. For an exploration of the proximate and ultimate causes of empathy
28. see generally Stephanie D. Preston & Frans B.M. de Waal, Empathy: Its Ultimate and Proximate Bases, 25 BEHAV. & BRAIN SCI. 1 (2002).
29. This term was coined by John Bowlby in reference to his work in attachment theory
30. JOHN BOWLBY, ATTACHMENT (2d ed. 1999).
31. This is a fundamental principle of evolutionary psychology. Evolutionary biologists generally recognize an architectural element of an organism as a presumptive adaptation when "it solves an adaptive problem with 'reliability, efficiency, and economy.'".
32. Leda Cosmides & John Tooby, Evolutionary Psychology: A Primer (1997), http://www.psych.ucsb.edu/research/cep/primer.html.
33. For many biologists and evolutionary psychologists, "hard-wired" may be too strong a term to describe an inherited behavioral predisposition from which individuals can vary and are not predestined to behave
34. See ROBERT L. BETTINGER, HUNTER-GATHERERS: ARCHEOLOGICAL AND EVOLUTIONARY THEORY 158 (1991) (hunting efficiency).
35. ROGER LEWIN & ROBERT A. FOLEY, PRINCIPLES OF HUMAN EVOLUTION 168 (2004) (noting that social-group formation served as a defense against predation).
36. See generally DAVID BUSS, THE NEW SCIENCE OF THE MIND (2003) (detailing socialbehavior adaptations to the various challenges and problems present in the EEA)
37. See W.D. Hamilton, The Genetic Evolution of Social Behaviour I, 7 J. THEORETICAL BIOLOGY 1 (1964) (laying out a precise mathematical formulation of the tendency for altruistic behavior as a function of the percentage of genes shared). This is generally referred to as "inclusive fitness."
38. Robert L. Trivers, The Evolution of Reciprocal Altruism, 46 Q. REV. BIOLOGY 35, 35 (1971).
39. See RICHARD DAWKINS, THE SELFISH GENE 4-12 (1976)
40. The classical formulation of the prisoners' dilemma game is as follows: Two suspected criminals, A and B, are arrested. The District Attorney lacks sufficient evidence for a conviction, so she visits each of the suspects separately to offer the same deal: if one testifies for the prosecution against the other and the other remains silent, the betrayer goes free and the silent accomplice is sentenced to five years in jail. If both remain silent, both are sentenced to two years in jail. If each betrays the other, each is sentenced to four years in jail. Since the prisoners are unable to communicate with each other, how should they act? For a historical overview of the prisoners' dilemma.
41. see WILLIAM POUNDSTONE, PRISONER'S DILEMMA (1992)
42. In the iterated prisoners' dilemma, two players repeat the game, thereby enabling a range of new behavior
43. See generally ROBERT AXELROD, THE EVOLUTION OF COOPERATION (1984)
44. Negative reciprocity also may carry certain associated costs
45. See Douglas H. Yarn & Gregory Todd Jones, In Our Bones (or Brains): Behavioral Biology, in THE NEGOTIATOR'S FIELDBOOK: THE DESK REFERENCE FOR THE EXPERIENCED NEGOTIATOR 283, 287 (Andrea Kupfer Schneider & Christopher Honeyman eds., 2007) ("In dynamic environments where responses to social norms are in flux, decisions to punish may not only be costly in and of themselves, but may carry steep opportunity costs associated with failing to cooperate with a previous defector who has newly decided to cooperate.").
46. Computer simulations conducted in the Computational Laboratory for Complex Adaptive Systems at the Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution have shown that game-theoretic strategies employing forgiving, or generous strategies, defined by continuing to cooperate to some extent, even in the face of defection, are evolutionarily successful strategies. Research results are on file with the authors.
47. See generally The Consortium on Negotiation and Conflict Resolution, Nexus-The Biology of Conflict Resolution, http://www.cncrnet.org/nexus/research.html (last visited May 27, 2009).
48. Other social primates engage in conciliatory and consolation behaviors to restore important relationships after fights and other aggression
49. See, e.g., Josep Call, Filippo Aureli & Frans B.M. de Waal, Reconciliation Patterns Among Stumptail Macaques: A Multivariate Approach, 58 ANIMAL BEHAV. 165 (1999).
50. Frans B.M. de Waal, Primates: A Natural Heritage of Conflict Resolution, 289 SCIENCE 586 (2000) (primates generally).
51. Frans B.M. de Waal, Reconciliation Among Primates: A Review of Empirical Evidence and Unresolved Issues, in PRIMATE SOCIAL CONFLICT 111 (William A. Mason & Sally P. Mendoza eds., 1993) (primates generally).
52. Frans B.M. de Waal & Jennifer J. Pokorny, Primate Conflict Resolution and Its Relation to Human Forgiveness, in HANDBOOK OF FORGIVENESS 17 (Everett L. Worthington Jr. ed., 2005) (primates).
53. Frans B.M. de Waal & Angeline van Roosmalen, Reconciliation and Consolation Among Chimpanzees, 5 BEHAV. ECOLOGY & SOCIOBIOLOGY 55 (1979) (chimpanzees).
54. See generally NATURAL CONFLICT RESOLUTION (Filippo Aureli & Frans B.M. de Waal eds., 2000) (primates generally). These behaviors may be evolutionary antecedents of the human behaviors associated with seeking and granting forgiveness.
55. Social psychologists assert that forgiveness is related to empathy. For a good summary of this relationship.
56. see Loren Toussaint & Jon R. Webb, Gender Differences in the Relationship Between Empathy and Forgiveness, 145 J. SOC. PSYCH. 673 (2005).
57. Recent investigations of the functional neuroanatomy associated with empathy and forgiveness show, however, that they are distinct. Researchers in the United Kingdom used functional magnetic-resonance imaging (fMRI) to examine the neural correlates of making empathic and forgivability judgments.
58. Tom F.D. Farrow et al., Investigating the Functional Anatomy of Empathy and Forgiveness, 12 NEUROREPORT 2433 (2001).
59. These results suggest that "attempting to understand others is physiologically distinct from determining the forgivability of their actions.".
60. Although the two types of judgments shared activations in some areas of the brain, including the left frontal cortex, activation of the posterior cingulate gyrus was unique to forgiveness judgments
61. This is a region that has been associated with decisionmaking, attentional tasks, and problem-solving, including an awareness that other people may hold views distinct from our own
62. There seems to be a biological explanation for why we can put ourselves in another person's shoes without necessarily being able to forgive them
63. For full-color illustrations and more-detailed supplemental material, see http://www.cncrnet.org/nexus/yarnandjoneslcpsupplemental.pdf.
64. Recent theoretical scholarship suggests that apologetic behavior evolved for this purpose
65. See Erin Ann O'Hara, Apology and Thick Trust: What Spouse Abusers and Negligent Doctors Have in Common, 79 CHI.-KENT L. REV. 1055, 1066-67 (2004) ("Individuals who develop the emotional framework necessary for the effective use of apology and forgiveness are thus placed at a competitive advantage relative to those individuals who must incur the full costs of moralistic aggression.").
66. Erin Ann O'Hara & Douglas Yarn, On Apology and Consilience, 77 WASH. L. REV. 1121, 1147-53 (2002).
67. Computational studies recently performed at the Primate Research Institute at Kyoto University in Japan suggest that apology can play a role similar to altruistic punishment as a means of maintaining cooperation, as long as the apology, which signals a willingness to conform to social norms in the future, is sufficiently costly
68. Kyoko Okamoto & Shuichi Matsumura, The Evolution of Punishment and Apology: An Iterated Prisoner's Dilemma Model, 14 EVOLUTIONARY ECOLOGY 703, 713-15 (2000)
69. An in-group is a social group with which an individual identifies as a member and expresses a bias in favor of other members. In contrast, individuals are negatively biased toward others who are members of an out-group. The terms are identified with social-identity theory and are commonly used in sociology.
70. See generally Henri Tajfel & John Turner, An Integrative Theory of Intergroup Conflict, in THE SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY OF INTERGROUP RELATIONS 33 (William G. Austin & Stephen Worchel eds., 1979) (social-identity theory).
71. The terms may have originated with William Graham Sumner, who coined the term "ethnocentrism.".
72. WILLIAM GRAHAM SUMNER, FOLKWAYS: A STUDY OF THE SOCIOLOGICAL IMPORTANCE OF USAGES, MANNERS, CUSTOMS, MORES, AND MORALS 13 (1906)
73. See generally JONATHAN H. TURNER, ON THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN EMOTIONS: A SOCIOLOGICAL INQUIRY INTO THE EVOLUTION OF HUMAN AFFECT (2000).
74. See FRANS DE WAAL, GOOD NATURED: THE ORIGINS OF RIGHT AND WRONG IN HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS 69-70 (1997)
75. See generally DEAN FALK, PRIMATE DIVERSITY (2000)
76. Chimpanzees are territorial and attack male out-group members who wander into the ingroup's home range. Additionally, they patrol the edges of the group range.
77. See generally RICHARD WRANGHAM & DALE PETERSON, DEMONIC MALES: APES AND THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN VIOLENCE (1996). For comparisons with so-called primitive human society.
78. see Christopher Boehm, Segmentary 'Warfare' and the Management of Conflict: Comparisons of East African Chimpanzees and Patrilineal-Patrilocal Humans, in COALITIONS AND ALLIANCES IN HUMANS AND OTHER ANIMALS 136 (Alexander H. Harcourt & Frans B.M. de Waal eds., 1992).
79. For a discussion of the evolutionary foundations of learning mechanisms leading to fear of out-group members
80. see Terry A. Maroney, Unlearning Fear of Out-Group Others, 72 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 83 (Spring 2009).
81. For a good overview of the evolution of tribalism and warfare
82. see MATT RIDLEY, THE ORIGINS OF VIRTUE: HUMAN INSTINCTS AND THE EVOLUTION OF COOPERATION 150-93 (1996)
83. The relationship between feelings toward members of one's own group and those toward those in the outgroup are not necessarily directly related. That is, affiliative feelings toward one do not create hostility toward the other.
84. See Marilynn B. Brewer, The Psychology of Prejudice: Ingroup Love or Outgroup Hate?, 55 J. SOC. ISSUES 429 (1999) (A preference for members of the in-group, rather than direct animus toward an out-group, motivates discrimination against the out-group.).
85. Michael J. Lovaglia, Chana Barron & Jeffrey Houser, Social Development and Human Evolution: Managing the Ingroup Boundary 5 (Jan. 31, 2003) (unpublished presentation to the Theory Workshop, Dep't of Sociology, Univ. of Iowa) (on file with Law and Contemporary Problems).
86. See generally THE SOCIOBIOLOGY OF ETHNOCENTRISM: EVOLUTIONARY DIMENSIONS OF XENOPHOBIA, DISCRIMINATION, RACISM, AND NATIONALISM (Vernon Reynolds, Vincent Falger & Ian Vine eds., 1987).
87. GORDON ALLPORT, THE NATURE OF PREJUDICE (1954) is considered the seminal work on prejudice by most psychologists and sociologists but lacks reference to evolution. Similarly, much of the more influential social-psychology theories on prejudice and stereotyping lack an evolutionary perspective.
88. See, e.g., Alice H. Eagly & Valerie J. Steffen, Gender Stereotypes Stem from the Distribution of Women and Men into Social Roles, 46 J. PERSONALITY & SOC. PSYCH. 735 (1984) ("social role theory" of stereotyping).
89. Samuel L. Gaertner & John F. Dovidio, The Aversive Form of Racism, in PREJUDICE, DISCRIMINATION AND RACISM 61 (John F. Dovidio & Samuel L. Gaertner, eds., 1986) ("aversive racism" theory).
90. David L. Hamilton & Robert K. Gifford, Illusory Correlation in Interpersonal Perception: A Cognitive Basis of Stereotypic Judgments, 12 J. EXPERIMENTAL SOC. PSYCH. 392 (1976) ("illusory correlation" theory of stereotyping).
91. ("social identity" theory alternative to Allport). More recently, some social psychologists are integrating evolutionary explanations into their work.
92. See, e.g., HAROLD D. FISHBEIN, THE ORIGINS OF PREJUDICE 39-80 (2002).
93. See generally KENNETH J. ARROW, SOCIAL CHOICE AND INDIVIDUAL VALUES (1951) (laying out modern social-choice theory and showing that no social-choice rules exist to produce stable outcomes in large groups).
94. JAMES M. BUCHANAN & GORDON TULLOCK, THE CALCULUS OF CONSENT: LOGICAL FOUNDATIONS OF CONSTITUTIONAL DEMOCRACY (1962) (laying out publicchoice theory and the frailties of decisionmaking in large groups).
95. MANCUR OLSON, THE LOGIC OF COLLECTIVE ACTION: PUBLIC GOODS AND THE THEORY OF GROUPS (1965) (demonstrating that even where members of large groups share common interests, concerted, collective action cannot be assumed)
96. For a recent attempt to reconcile rational-choice and structural conceptions
97. see LUIS FERNANDO MEDINA, A UNIFIED THEORY OF COLLECTIVE ACTION AND SOCIAL CHANGE (2007)
98. Vinayak Eswaran, Henry Harpending & Alan R. Rogers, Genomics Refutes an Exclusively African Origin of Humans, 49 J. HUMAN EVOLUTION 1, 1-2 (2005).
99. See generally Donald Symons, On the Use and Misuse of Darwinism in the Study of Human Behavior, in THE ADAPTED MIND: EVOLUTIONARY PSYCHOLOGY AND THE GENERATION OF CULTURE
100. The important point is not the precise point in history at which our brain evolved, but that the environment in which it evolved is different than the environment of today
101. For full-color illustrations and more-detailed supplemental material, see http://www.cncrnet.org/nexus/yarnandjoneslcpsupplemental.pdf.
102. Our current work explores the relationship of local clustering to average degree and heterogeneity of degree in the promotion of cooperation
103. Gregory Todd Jones, Douglas H. Yarn, Reidar Hagtvedt & Travis Lloyd, Homogeneity of Degree in Complex Social Networks as a Collective Good, 24 GA. ST. U. L. REV. 931 (2008).
104. It may not be particularly surprising that high average degree is harmful to cooperation, given that it is well known that fully connected "mean field" simulations lead to pure defection when evolutionary replication dynamics are at play
105. A particularly important finding of our work is that heterogeneity of degree exerts an influence on cooperation that is statistically distinct from average degree
106. This question was developed in Allport's contact hypothesis
107. It was made famous by Shellling's models of segregation
108. See THOMAS C. SCHELLING, MICROMOTIVES AND MACROBEHAVIOR (1978).
109. See May Lim, Richard Metzler & Yaneer Bar-Yam, Global Pattern Formation and Ethnic/Cultural Violence, 317 SCIENCE 1540, 1542 (2007) (identifying a process of global pattern formation in which violence occurs at the boundaries of regions differentiated by culture)
110. Our work investigates the robustness of the contact hypothesis when subjected to various spatial conditions. Results of computer simulations show a nonlinear relationship between integration policy and the success of prejudicial strategies. Small modifications to interventions can therefore have disproportionate effects on prejudicial behavior.
111. For full-color illustrations and more-detailed supplemental material, see http://www.cncrnet.org/nexus/yarnandjoneslcpsupplemental.pdf.
112. An atomic pile 'goes critical' when a chain reaction of nuclear fission becomes self-sustaining; for an atomic pile, or an atomic bomb, there is some minimum amount of fissionable material that has to be compacted together to keep the reaction from petering out. ... The principle of critical mass is so simple that it is no wonder that it shows up in epidemiology, fashion, survival and extinction of species, language systems, racial integration, jaywalking, panic behavior, and political movements.
113. See generally GERALD MARWELL & PAMELA OLIVER, THE CRITICAL MASS IN COLLECTIVE ACTION (1993)
114. A phase transition is an abrupt change in a system, as when water, upon reaching its boiling point, suddenly becomes a vapor
115. For full-color illustrations and more-detailed supplemental material, see http://www.cncrnet.org/nexus/yarnandjoneslcpsupplemental.pdf.
116. For full-color illustrations and more-detailed supplemental material, see http://www.cncrnet.org/nexus/yarnandjoneslcpsupplemental.pdf.
117. For full-color illustrations and more-detailed supplemental material, see http://www.cncrnet.org/nexus/yarnandjoneslcpsupplemental.pdf.
118. For a summary of this criticism and citations to legal scholars voicing it
119. see Kevin Avruch & Beatriz Vejarano, Truth and Reconciliation Commissions: A Review Essay and Annotated Bibliography, 4 ONLINE J. PEACE & CONFLICT RESOLUTION 37, 38-39 (2002).
120. See Tom Tyler, Governing Pluralistic Societies, 72 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 187 (Spring 2009) (discussing how procedural justice promotes superordinate-group identification to manage intergroup conflict).
121. (suggesting that racial integration and increased contact can reduce evolutionarily-driven fear conditioning)
122. James L. Gibson, On Legitimacy Theory and the Effectiveness of Truth Commissions, 72 LAW & CONTEMP. PROBS. 123, 124 (Spring 2009).