Most dispute resolution is between employers and employees, family or friends, neighbors, and other groups who have continued contact after they leave the courtroom, mediator's office, or agree to contract terms. Because of such ongoing relationships, the investigator argues that a vital component of any kind of dispute resolution is how conflicting parties feel about each other after the process is over. Although previous conflict resolution research focuses primarily on the fairness of the third-party, process or outcome, this dissertation research centers on how the two parties engaged in the process perceive each other and their relations. Specifically, the research asks how intermediaries' intervention in a resolution process affects disputing individuals' perceptions of fairness of one another. The co-PI draws on two extensive literatures - procedural justice and attribution theory - to formulate predictions regarding the effects of third party involvement on perceptions of fairness. From procedural justice the project examines how an intermediary affects the participants' perception of process and decision control. Using attribution theory, the study investigates how a third-party ameliorates or deflects the salience of conflict of interests inherent in the process. The investigator will collect data in an experimental setting varying both the level of third-party intervention (high, low, absent) and an individual's relative power position in the dispute (advantaged, disadvantaged, equal), but holding outcomes constant through programmed behavior of computer simulated actors.
The study will contribute to an extension of social exchange theory by exploring how the presence of a third party influences the affective outcomes of exchange. The project also adds to conflict resolution research by investigating the effect of varying levels of intervention in resolution procedures on perceptions of fairness of conflicting parties, bringing the negotiating parties back to the center of the study of conflict resolution. Alternative forms of dispute resolution are entering the courtrooms and gaining popularity and it is important for research to investigate the effects of this trend. Research findings have implications for the ongoing relations between parties engaged in dispute resolution, especially whether the rise of mediation for disputes will have the positive effects predicted, or whether it comes at certain costs to social relationships.
