The research suggests we could avoid many conflicts with more deliberate thought and consideration of future consequences.
“People are often motivated by retribution, even if they themselves don’t realize that,” says senior author Boaz Keysar, a professor of psychology at the University of Chicago. “This is not something that’s always in our consciousness, but it tends to be a very strong motivator for behavior.”
Going with Our Guts
The new study, which appears in the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, relied on a series of seven experiments conducted in public places in Chicago. In every experiment, the researchers used financial incentives to simulate the stakes of real-life conflicts, offering participants opportunities to give or take money from someone else.
Analyzing the behavior of more than 1,000 participants across the seven experiments, the scholars found that encouraging deliberation led to fewer examples of conflict escalation—taking more money in response to a perceived slight. Indeed, they discovered that even asking very simple questions would alter the participants’ behavior, reducing the likelihood of a negative response.
“These retributive responses only emerge when you aren’t thinking that hard about the issue,” says senior author Nicholas Epley, a professor of behavioral science in the Booth School of Business. “You’re instead acting on your immediate emotional response.”
Police Work Connection
Researchers based the experiments on the doctoral dissertation of first author James VanderMeer. For the past four years, VanderMeer has worked as a patrol officer with the Metropolitan Police Department in Washington, DC. He was drawn to that job, in part, because he saw an intersection between psychology and the strategi ..
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