Shelter’s Edge

There never seems to be enough time or money for all of the important work in animal welfare. But one thing there is no shortage of in our field is disagreement. And all too often it seems that we deal with disagreement either through escalation (louder and nastier attack behavior) or splintering (walking away with our resources to start our own groups). What a waste! Both of these behaviors drain resources from our ultimate aim – i.e., helping animals.

Duke University professor Dan Ariely teaches Behavioral Economics – which examines the ways that human social factors disrupt traditional economic theories. For example, why people frequently make choices against their own self interest, yet believe – even in the face of evidence to the contrary – that their decisions are in their best self interest.

In this sobering little clip, Ariely discusses research that may help explain why it is so difficult to achieve conflict resolution. Ariely and associates have been able to prove that our expectations of a situation are powerful enough to change our physiology. What’s more, our expectations – or belief systems – shape our reality.

Say, for example, that you think cats are the best pets and I think dogs are. When we sit down to negotiate, we are actually approaching the situation from two distinctly different realities. That’s right – our thinking and beliefs have created our own sense of reality. And according to Ariely, it is not likely that we’re actually going to be able to understand each other’s reality enough to come to a mutually satisfying conclusion.

Obviously this isn’t a big deal when arguing something trivial. But what happens when we sit down to discuss – say – adoption policies? Let’s say, for example, that I believe that cats should never be declawed, and therefore I want an adoption policy to deny adoptions to anyone who intends to declaw. And let’s say you believe that discharging cats alive takes precedence over whether cats will be declawed. How would we arrive at an adoption policy that we are both happy with? More importantly, how would we arrive at an adoption policy that is in the best interests of the cats and communities we serve?

Ariely concludes that the best approach is for both parties to recognize and acknowledge their biases, and to turn the conflict over to a neutral third party to determine the resolution. Perhaps, but I’m actually more interested in that interim step of recognizing our biases.

I think there would be tremendous value to our field if we all refined the skill of understanding – first of ourselves, and then of each other. What if we started asking ourselves questions like: Where did this belief of mine come from? What events and people influenced my belief? What if my belief is true? What if it’s false? And then, imagine if we took the time to walk each other through the story of how we formed our beliefs. I think we’d reach a whole new level of understanding and respect for each other.

Personally, I’m less interested in finding the one correct answer (in part because I think anything involving humans is too complex for there to be one correct answer) than in seeing our field mature in a way that we can debate respectfully. Who knows what solutions we might begin to uncover with an expanded view of “reality”!

Tags: bias, conflict, debate

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