Culture in negotiation is more than the familiar interpretation of national entities. The Righteous Mind: Why Good People Are Divided by Politics and Religion by psychologist Jonathan Haidt (reprint edition, 2013) provides the attuned negotiator an additional, and indeed required, dimension for understanding behavior.
The Righteous Mind establishes a model of six universal groupings by which people view the world around them. Based upon decades of research in analyzing how people behave around the globe, Haidt’s system incorporates “cognitive modules upon which cultures construct moral matrices.”
Flavors for Our Behaviors
Haidt develops a concept of morals, i.e. governing behaviors. The system includes the selfish motivations from our ancient animal instincts for survival and protection and imperatives created by social groups both small and large. He provides context for the concept by stating, “the righteous mind is like a tongue with six taste receptors.”
The Righteous Mind describes spectrums of behavior. One of the most ancient motivations is that for Care and its opposite, Harm (Care / Harm). Equally basic is the desire for fairness, in the sense of equality, which he named Liberty, and its opposite, authoritarian Oppression (Fairness-equality [Liberty] / Oppression).
Haidt found that the older, equality-based form of fairness was altogether different from a more recent definition of fairness in terms of proportionality, which developed from social interactions. Haidt called this newer motivation Fairness, in the sense of being relative, and its opposite, Cheating. Three more complete the model: Loyalty / Betrayal, Authority (legitimate) / Subversion, and Sanctity / Degradation.
Primary but Not All Defining
The Righteous Mind gives the skilled negotiator a system for understanding behaviors beyond a country or region. Sociologist Charles Horton Cooley (1864 – 1929) defined our deeper motivations and values as primary and those more visible as secondary. Haidt’s primary behaviors are central, although influenced by the context-dependent secondary behaviors.
Haidt also reminds us, “intuitions come first, strategic reasoning second.” However, he might take the idea a bit too far when coining the metaphor “the mind is divided, like a rider on an elephant, and the rider’s job is to serve the elephant.” Intuition certainly dominates our behaviors, but that does not render us unable to train them with experience and practice.
Like traditional culture systems, Haidt’s model includes assigning varying proportions of ‘taste’ to describe an individual’s behaviors. Likewise, the assignments are neither right nor wrong: people only judge something when considered against their own reference. We move between associations primary and secondary, and along with their scales, to gain understanding.
Pivoting for Agreement
Negotiating a solution to a mutual problem requires sharing a common fate, with primary motivations often being more influential than secondary. My early career as a chemist coincided with a jarring change in the chemical industry, with mergers and acquisitions changing associations daily.
Our R&D group sought out novel products, as well as supported manufacturing. Discoveries were farther and fewer between, with long-term goals whittled down to short-term objectives … both for a sister operation and our external customers.
One colleague staunchly rejected using precious resources to develop a custom product for that sister plant, despite the opportunity for rich profits. For him, the benefits of a single internal product could not compete with those for the mass market. The day after one such debate, our businesses went up for sale.
Our business unit president called everyone together, explaining the situation. We listened, legs fidgeting and fingers tapping, feeling powerless to control our fate. His compelling message: let’s take control of our destiny. Afterward, we all drifted back to work, anxious but with a glimmer of hope.
My resistive colleague and I chatted along the way. Momentarily, he paused. He met my eyes and exclaimed, “If our plant wants a new product, let’s do it!” In a flash, our loose secondary association had collapsed into a primary one with a shared, tangible, fate.
Understanding’s Second Building Block
The Righteous Mind gives negotiators a narrow, focused model for assessing how close parties are in sharing the intense common bonds of a primary group. Successful agreements require an environment where primary relationships can develop, and The Righteous Mind provides a tight definition for communities inclined toward mutually beneficial solutions.