Integrating conflict resolution training and consultation: A cyprus example

Conclusion The Cyprus situation is an example of a protracted social conflict now frozen in time with a ceasefire but no long-term resolution. Many current violent conflicts, such as those in the former Yugoslavia, may soon enter such a phase, and intervenors will be looking for appropriate methodologies to help move them toward resolution. In that vein, both projects described here are relevant and useful interventions in their own right. However, the interface between them demonstrates a greater potential for effective collaboration and synergy which can bring added value to the parties in conflict.A collaborative approach to interventions can be part of a powerful model of a systems approach to peace. Thus, collaboration is enhanced among different external intervenors, among official and unofficial actors, and among external and internal change agents. To increase coordination and usefulness, it is incumbent upon external intervenors to build collaboration into their planning and funding proposals. There is much potential for more systematic and sophisticated integration of different methods than exists at present in the field of conflict resolution.     

Improvisation and Mediation: Balancing Acts

Improvisation can be an important element of mediation practice, and there are several ways in which mediation practice correlates to improvisational performance. In this article, two mediation experts and two skilled jazz musicians explore the improvisational aspects of mediation. Two central themes emerge: (1) mediators often use improvisational techniques, and (2) by being improvisational, mediators can create environments that would encourage the parties themselves to be improvisational. We argue that practitioners can enhance their effectiveness as mediators by mastering improvisational skills.     

Postwar changes in the income position of the aged

Since the war the relative number of aged persons with income from employment has declined, while the proportion with income from social insurance benefits has increased. Despite the fact that social insurance benefits yield a lower average income than do earnings, the averaged aged person's income in 1952 was higher in both current dollars and dollars of stable purchasing power than it was in 1945. The improvement is the result of several factors, including larger earnings by aged workers, increased benefits paid retired workers and their aged survivors under social insurance and related programs higher old-age assistance payments and the rise in the relative number of persons with money income. The growth in the average aged person's income, however, has been at a rate lower than that of the average income of the population as a whole. As a result the average person has had a smaller share in total consumer income in each of the years since 1945 that he had in that year.     

Can public information programs affect risk perceptions?

This article provides the first controlled evaluation of how different information materials explaining the risks from radon influenced people's perceptions of these risks. Using a panel study, it was possible to observe how stated risk perceptions responded to information about indoor radon concentrations and brochures explaining the radon readings. The findings indicate that risk communication policies can be effective in modifying risk perceptions. Moreover, they have three specific implications for radon policy: (1) Public officials should not adopt strategies that provide minimal risk information to the public as a means of avoiding undue alarm, for this can have the reverse effect; (2) measures of the effectiveness of risk communication will depend on how education and behavior change are defined; (3) categorical guidelines about risk without quantitative information can lead people to treat the levels as thresholds, creating an artificial discontinuity in their responses to small changes in risk perceptions.     

Increasing Cognitive Load to Facilitate Lie Detection: The Benefit of Recalling an Event in Reverse Order

In two experiments, we tested the hypotheses that (a) the difference between liars and truth tellers will be greater when interviewees report their stories in reverse order than in chronological order, and (b) instructing interviewees to recall their stories in reverse order will facilitate detecting deception. In Experiment 1, 80 mock suspects told the truth or lied about a staged event and did or did not report their stories in reverse order. The reverse order interviews contained many more cues to deceit than the control interviews. In Experiment 2, 55 police officers watched a selection of the videotaped interviews of Experiment 1 and made veracity judgements. Requesting suspects to convey their stories in reverse order improved police observers' ability to detect deception and did not result in a response bias.