Emotion in Mediation: Implications, Applications, Opportunities, and Challenges

Source: (2006) In, Harrman, Margaret S., editor, Handbook of Mediation: Bridging Theory, Research, and Practice. Blackwell Publishing pp.277-300

This chapter argues for a communication perspective on emotion in mediation to extend beyond heavily psychological orientations dominating recent emotion and negotiation theory and research. The implications of emotion for mediation are discussed in a brief overview of the nature of emotion and the centrality of emotion in conflict and mediation. Applications and opportunities are addressed by detailing ways in which mediators can improve their ability to identify disputants’ critical identity-based emotions, use elicitive questioning to help disputants achieve a better understanding of their emotional experience underlying the conflict, and help disputants formulate reappraisals that change their emotional experience of the conflict. Opportunities come with challenges, and those challenges are introduced in the last section of the chapter, including consideration of strategic or manipulative emotional and cultural differences in emotional experience and expression. (excerpt)