Multidimensional analysis of confl ict mediator style

A RT IC L E S s Multidimensional Analysis of

Conflict Mediator Style Kenneth Kressel Tiffany Henderson Warren Reich Claudia Cohen

This study explores mediator stylistic variations in a sample of professional and novice mediators. Participants mediated the same simulated conflict and reported on their in-session thinking using a stimulated recall procedure. Mediators described themselves as stylistically eclectic, but this was not borne out by observational data. Multidimensional scaling identified two dimensions underlying mediator performance: stylistic orientation (relational versus settlement oriented) and level of empathic attunement. Qualitative analysis identified facilitative and evaluative variants of the settlement orientation and transformative and diagnostic variants of the relational orientation. The facilitative and diagnostic mediators performed more skillfully than their evaluative and transformative counterparts.

We would like to thank Monica Costa and Christine Wojnicz, who played the parts of the fighting roommates with dedication and skill, and Kristen Couce, Ursula Gener, Jonathan Jau, and Charlotte Mayanja for their able assistance with data collection and coding. We also greatly appreciate the assistance of Baruch Bush, Jonathan Hyman, and the New Jersey Association of Professional Mediators in recruiting mediators to the study. Jim Wall provided extremely helpful comments to an earlier draft of this article. We are also grateful to William Donohue and Linda Putnam for their useful perspective on the communication studies tradition of mediator behavior. Our greatest thanks go to the anonymous mediator participants who gave so generously of their time and energy.

Conflict Resolution Quarterly, vol. 30, no. 2, Winter 2012 © Wiley Periodicals, Inc. and the Association for Conflict Resolution Published online in Wiley Online Library (wileyonlinelibrary.com) • DOI: 10.1002/crq.21061

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T

he use of mediators to help disputing parties resolve their differences is a pervasive activity in the United States. It has been conservatively estimated that approximately a quarter of a million mediations occur annually in the United States civil court system (Wall & Chan-Serafin, 2009). Mediation has also become increasingly prominent in U.S. government agencies with the passage by Congress in 1990 of the Administrative Dispute Resolution Act, authorizing alternative dispute resolution (ADR) mechanisms such as mediation in virtually any type of organizational dispute (Nabatchi, Bingham, & Moon, 2010).

It is well established that mediation is often helpful and satisfying to disputants (Kressel, 2006). What is not nearly so clear is what mediators do to produce such results. One important take on this matter is the notion of mediator style, broadly defined as the practitioner’s overarching concept of what is to be achieved in mediation and the behaviors associated with pursuing these objectives. In the practitioner literature, depictions of facilitative, evaluative, and transformative styles are common (Bush & Folger, 1994; Kressel, 2006; Riskin, 1996), and proponents of one style or the other often argue about which style is “best” (Bush & Folger, 1994; Lande, 2000; Love, 1997; Winslade & Monk, 2006). Disputants and their attorneys are sometimes urged to select a mediator on the basis of the mediator’s stylistic orientation and to use the mediator’s stylistic leanings as a guide in preparing for mediation (Alexander, 2008; Goldfein & Robbennolt, 2007). Courts and agencies offering mediation services have been urged to decide what mediator style they wish to promote (Alexander, 2008). In one important instance—the U.S. Postal Service nationwide mediation program, the single largest mediation program in the world—this advice was explicitly followed (Nabatchi et al., 2010).

The practice community’s emphasis on mediator style is, conceptually speaking, well warranted for four reasons.

1. Mediator style is a useful guide to managing the ambiguities of the mediation role. It has long been recognized that the mediation role requires the practitioner to make some difficult choices. The primary tension is between task demands—notably the producing of settlements— and relational ones—for instance, maintaining rapport and fellowfeeling. This tension takes many forms. For example, the mediator may struggle with a desire to respect the parties’ autonomy on the one hand while overcoming their resistance to compromise on the other; worry about maintaining a respectful environment while also striving

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to encourage honest emotional communication; endeavor not to offend but feel the press of dealing with unrealistic or unreasonable demands. One can try to do all of these things, but that is a daunting challenge. The well-known stylistic prescriptions tend to weight these kinds of choices differently. Identifying with one or the other presumably helps mediators address the ambiguities of their roles with enhanced confidence and authority.

2. Mediator style is an important driver of mediator strategic and tactical behavior. The empirical literature on mediator behavior has tended to focus on identifying discrete mediator strategies and tactics rather than on overarching mediator styles, thinking, and behaviors (Donohue, 1991; Jones, 1989b; Kressel & Pruitt, 1989; Wall, Stark, & Standifer, 2001). However, there is good reason to think that it is the global stylistic scripts, or schema, that mediators hold in their heads that underlie their strategic and tactical behavior. In their in-depth case studies of ombuds-mediators at the National Institutes of Health, Kressel and Gadlin (2009) put it this way: “Strategies and tactics are clearly the subordinate unit of [ombuds] cognition. The implicit scripts organize, propel, and give coherence to the conscious choice of tactics” (335). The few other ethnographic studies of mediator style lead to a similar conclusion about the primacy of an overarching stylistic conception as the driver of mediator tactical behavior (Kolb, 1983; Kressel, Frontera, Forlenza, Butler, & Fish, 1994; Silbey & Merry, 1986).

3. Mediator style is a guide to decision making under conditions of ambiguity and stress. Mediation may be thought of as a repetitive decisionmaking task of considerable complexity: When and how should I intervene? Now that I have intervened, given the parties’ response, what should I do next? Stay quiet? Continue on the same tack?

Change course? This decision making typically occurs under conditions of stress and uncertainty, precisely the conditions under which well-instantiated if implicit stylistic schema are likely to be useful (Fiske & Taylor, 1991; Kahneman & Klein, 2009; Klein, 1998; Ross, Shafer, & Klein, 2006). Such schemas conserve mediator mental energy and help focus mediator attention. They also have a downside.

Mediator stylistic thinking and behavior may become dominated by a single style because of repeated success in using the model in the same or similar contexts. (Most mediators specialize in a given type of Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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dispute, and 60–70% of all mediations settle.) If a mediator’s stylistic schema is a poor fit to the case at hand, the result may be interventions that ill serve the parties.

4. Mediator style, not textbook models of mediation, is what disputants experience. It has been evident since the work of Donald Schon (1983) on reflective professional practice and the application of his ideas to mediation (Kressel, 1997; Kressel & Gadlin, 2009; Lang & Taylor, 2000) that what clients experience is not some formal model of practice as articulated in a book or inculcated in a training program but the “translation” of the formal model by the individual practitioner, conditioned by that practitioner’s personality, experiences, and general beliefs and values, interacting with the specific characteristics of the dispute at hand and the context in which mediation is occurring. The scope for these idiosyncratic stylistic variants is especially great since formal mediation training is typically not very intensive (e.g., in New Jersey, forty hours of training is sufficient to qualify a mediator to receive court-directed referrals). As Lang and Taylor (2000) have noted, it is also likely to be the case that mediators are only partially in touch with their actual stylistic proclivities. Cognitive psychologists have provided extensive evidence that the wellsprings of behavior typically are lost to conscious awareness for any oft-repeated activity (Kahneman, 2011; Wegner & Bargh, 1998), and this has also been demonstrated repeatedly in studies of professional expertise in a variety of domains (Kahneman & Klein, 2009; Klein, 1998). We should not expect mediation to be an exception.

Research on Mediator Style Despite the compelling reasons to believe that mediator style is critical in determining what happens in mediation, we are still in the very early stages of understanding its nature and impact.

Since the groundbreaking ethnographic studies of mediator behavior decades ago that first made clear the importance and ubiquity of stylistic inclinations in the life of practicing mediators (Kolb, 1983; Silbey & Merry, 1986), there have been, by our search, only five observational studies of this central phenomenon (Charkoudian, de Ritis, Buck, & Wilson, 2009; Golann, 2000; Kruk, 1998; Tracy & Spradlin, 1994; Wall & Chan-Serafin, 2010).1

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The extant research also suffers from a number of methodological shortcomings. The most rigorous self-report studies (e.g., Baker & Ross, 1992; Shapiro, Drieghe, & Brett, 1985) use a very small number of closedended questionnaire items to identify mediator style, and there is a de facto narrowing in many such investigations around the facilitative/evaluative stylistic dichotomy, probably because this has become something of a flashpoint among legal scholars since the influential paper by Riskin (1996).

Coding methods that are poorly described (e.g., no convincing data on reliability) or that involve only a single coder are another limitation. While self-report data can provide useful information, there is also good evidence that mediator self-reports are highly unreliable guides to mediator behavior (Charkoudian et al., 2009; Pruitt, McGillicuddy, Welton, & Fry, 1989; Wall & Chan-Serafin, 2010). Of the five observational studies, the sample sizes in two are very small (Golann, 2000; Tracy & Spradlin, 1994), and precise information on coding schemes and the reliability of stylistic assignment are missing in all but one (Wall & Chan-Serafin, 2007).

Perhaps the greatest problem from our perspective is the absence of attention to the stylistic cognitions of mediators, particularly those that lie outside of conscious awareness and that are poorly accessible via traditional questionnaires and interviews. Work on reflective mediation practice (Kressel & Gadlin, 2009; Lang & Taylor, 2000) and the study of expert practitioners in other domains (Kahneman & Klein, 2009; Posner, 2008) indicate clearly that such implicit thinking is at the core of much professional activity.

This Study The purpose of this investigation was to see what could be learned about mediator stylistic thinking and behavior using a clear definition of mediator style, a reasonably large sample of mediators, systematic research procedures, and multiple observers. Several specific questions about mediator style were of particular interest to us: 1. Given a relatively simple, low-intensity conflict, will most experienced professionals use the same stylistic orientation? If there is no modal style, do the stylistic variants correspond clearly to the styles familiar in the practitioner and research literatures, or will there be stylistic “surprises”?

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2. How accurate are mediators’ explicit accounts of their stylistic leanings? If they differ from what trained observers see, what is the nature of the differences? To the extent that mediators claim to be stylistically flexible, what is the evidence for it?

3. Is there any relationship between mediator stylistic performance and the quality of their work as judged by disputants and trained observers?

4. Given our assumption that important elements of mediator cognition are lost to conscious awareness, will asking mediators to report on their thoughts as they watch themselves on videotape help mediators access these implicit cognitive elements? If it does, how well do the mediators’ retrieved thoughts reflect their stylistic behavior?

In pursuit of these goals, participants, most of whom were seasoned professionals, were asked to mediate the “Angry Roommates,” a dispute between two college women. The advantage of using a single simulated case was that it allowed for an exploration of mediator stylistic behavior and thinking while controlling dispute characteristics in some proximate fashion. Using a simulated dispute also allowed us to embed both concrete negotiable issues and important relational ones into the dispute scenario.

We also tried to be clear about the meaning of the term mediator style. Its definition has long been something of a muddle. As cognates of mediator style, scholars have referred to models (Donohue, 2006; Putnam, 2006); mental models (Kressel & Gadlin, 2009); cognitive frameworks or modes (Hyman, 2010); roles (Kolb, 1983); strategies (Jones, 1989b); approaches (Putnam, 2009); and techniques (Riskin, 1996). These seemingly interchangeable terms have referred at different times to ideas derived from the practitioner literature about the goals mediators should strive for and the behaviors they should use to reach those goals (e.g., Donohue; Hyman; Putnam); empirical findings about the behaviors that distinguish “successful” from “unsuccessful” mediators (e.g., Donohue, Allen, & Burrell, 1985; Donohue, Drake, & Roberto, 1994; Jones, 1989a); mediator self-reports about how they generally behave (e.g., Charkoudian et al., 2009; Picard, 2004) or behaved in a particular case (e.g., Kressel et al., 1994), and ethnographic studies of mediators at work (e.g., Kolb, 1983; Silbey & Merry, 1986).

Drawing on a common core of meaning in these various approaches, we have defined mediator style as a cohesive set of behavioral strategies and tactics that characterize the conduct of a case combined with, and inseparable from, an organized if often implicit cognitive framework for defining Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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the mediator role. At a minimum, the elements of the cognitive component include: (1) notions about the overarching objective(s) the mediator should strive to accomplish; (2) the types of interventions the mediator should use (or avoid using) in trying to reach those objectives; and (3) ideas about the dynamics of conflict (particularly dysfunctional dynamics) and associated variables (e.g., emotions) that the mediator should be prepared to address (or ignore).

We used multidimensional scaling (MDS) to model the behavioral component of mediator style and explore its underlying dimensions. MDS has been used to identify the self-reported conflict intervention strategies of corporate managers (Pinkley, Brittain, Neale, & Northcraft, 1995), the dimensions underlying labor mediators’ categorization of mediator tactics (McLaughlin, Carnevale, & Lim, 1991), and the strategies that categorize informal intervention in international conflict (Nan, Druckman, & El Horr, 2009). However, ours is the first investigation to use MDS to capture the holistic stylistic orientations of professional mediators based on observed behavior. The value of MDS is that it provides a way of integrating and quantitatively categorizing the intervention styles of mediators from an array of self-report and observational data, whose precise meaning might otherwise be unclear (Pinkley, Gelfand, & Duan, 2005).

To get at the cognitive underpinnings of mediator style, we asked the mediators to review a videotape of their performance and recall the thinking behind their activities. Such a procedure, referred to as stimulated recall, has been used to study the implicit thinking of other professionals, including teachers and psychotherapists (Gass & Mackey, 2000; Hill & O’Grady, 1985; Lyle, 2003; Morran, Kurpius, & Brack, 1989) but to our knowledge it has never been applied to the work of mediators.

Method Participants

Seventeen experienced and 5 novice mediators participated in the study.

Fourteen of the participants were women. The modal years of experience for the professional mediators were 14.2 years, and more than half of them had more than 10 years of mediation experience. They mediated in a wide range of conflict domains (e.g., divorce, business, employment) and had various training backgrounds, including law (36%), mental health/ counseling (41%), and business (9%). The experienced mediators were Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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recruited principally from the New Jersey Association for Professional Mediators; from a consortium of transformative mediators; and from other professional contacts of the first author. The novice mediators were firstand second-year Rutgers University law students receiving mediation training as part of their legal education.

Simulated Conflict

The mediators were asked to mediate the “Angry Roommates” dispute involving a conflict between two college roommates. Each mediator saw the same two female role-playing disputants for a single session with a thirty-minute time limit. Each session was videotaped. The mediators were instructed to handle the simulated session as if they were representatives of a campus mediation service. They were told that our primary interest was on how mediators approach a conflict and what they experience in the mediation role, not whether they could produce an agreement.

Conflict Scenario. The older roommate, “Christine,” was a senior, and the younger roommate, “Monica,” was a junior. They had originally met in a psychology course where they became good friends. The scenario involved the gradual deterioration in their relationship under the pressures of the semester’s workload and the very different personal habits and needs of the two roommates. Embedded in the dispute were both surface and latent features. The surface features involved the parties’ explicit disagreements about things like noise levels and neatness. The latent features included the unrecognized emotional and behavioral impact of the semester’s increasing workload on the girls’ relationship, Christine’s unarticulated anxiety about her future plans regarding graduate school, and the emotional distress Monica felt about an incident in the cafeteria when Christine had ignored her.

The role-players were thoroughly rehearsed in their roles in several pilot sessions. They were instructed to mention their friendship within the first 5 minutes of the mediation session and to mention the cafeteria incident within the first 10 minutes. Other latent aspects of the conflict were to be disclosed only if the mediator inquired in a relevant way. Additionally, the role-players were told to embody the behavioral and affective qualities of the characters they played: Christine being more aggressive and verbally fluent and Monica less assertive and more verbally timid. An experienced director of college residence life viewed a pilot video of the conflict scenario and felt it was highly believable and represented the kinds of roommate disputes frequently referred to her office.

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Mediator Self-Report Measures We describe here the characteristics of our mediator participants and the simulated conflict they were asked to deal with. We also describe our measures of the mediators’ stylistic performance and attitudes obtained from the mediators themselves, the three trained observers, and the role-play disputants.

Stimulated Recall Session

To assist the mediators in accessing the more implicit cognitive elements of their stylistic orientation, immediately following the mediation session each mediator observed the videotape of the session they had just conducted, with instructions to recall their in-session thoughts.

If more than three minutes passed without the subject reporting a thought, the videotape was paused and the mediator was asked if she could report any thoughts at that moment during the session. No additional probes were made during the video playback session to guard against additional reflection and analysis that may not have been part of the lived experience (Ericsson & Simon, 1980; Lyle, 2003). The playback session was audio tape-recorded for later transcription.

Exit Interview

At the conclusion of the stimulated recall session, each mediator was interviewed about the overall experience. The interview lasted between 20 to 45 minutes and combined open-ended questions and Likert scales. It was recorded for later transcription. Mediators were asked about their overall satisfaction with the mediation session and any agreements reached, what they felt was their most useful intervention during the session, what they would do differently, how good a representation of their approach to mediation this simulated session was, and their strategy for the next hypothetical meeting, if one had been agreed on. The respondents were also asked how believable and intense the conflict was, what they felt was the primary cause of the conflict, how likable they found each roommate, whether one roommate was more responsible for the conflict than the other, and the primary reason the parties could not resolve matters on their own.

Global Evaluation of Mediator Behavior Scale

At the end of the exit interview, mediators were asked to rate their typical approach to mediation using the Global Evaluation of Mediator Behavior Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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Scale (GEMS). The GEMS required the mediators to judge the similarity of their behavior to five hypothetical stylistic descriptions derived from a close reading of the mediation practitioner literature drawn from a number of principle sources (Bush & Folger, 1994; Kolb, 1983; Kressel, 2006; Riskin, 1996; Silbey & Merry, 1986).

Each hypothetical style was captured by three elements: the basic objective of mediation, the assumption the style makes about the primary cause of dysfunctional conflict, and the primary mediator interventions that characterize the style. The five GEMS descriptions included integrative, evaluative, transformative, facilitative, and latent cause styles, each identified only by an alphabetic label. For example, the integrative style description read: Style B mediators believe that a frequent cause of polarized conflict is the tendency of disputants to talk only about their respective positions, rather than the underlying needs and interests behind those positions. Consequently, mediators enacting style B give priority to helping the parties articulate what their respective needs and interests are and try to make use of this knowledge in helping them reach agreements.

Respondents were asked to say how good a description each of the five hypothetical GEMS styles was to their own predominant approach to mediation on a 7-point Likert scale. (See the Appendix for the complete GEMS scale.)

Observer Measures Three independent observers rated mediator behavior. Two of the observers were social psychologists as well as practicing mediators. Each had more than twenty years of mediation experience. The third observer was a doctoral student in Psychology. The observers completed three measures: a narrative account, GEMS, and behavior rating scales.

Narrative Account of Mediator’s Stylistic Orientation

After individually viewing the tape of the mediation session, each observer wrote a narrative account aimed at capturing both the behavioral and cognitive components of the mediator’s stylistic orientation. The stylistic narrative was to describe the mediator’s explicit and inferable mediation goal(s), the behavior used to accomplish the goal(s), and any additional Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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inferences that could be made about the mediator’s beliefs about conflict and the interventions appropriate for a mediator to use. Following a procedure developed for qualitative research on the behavior of psychotherapists (Hill, Thompson, & Williams, 1997), the three observers later came together to discuss their respective narratives. Disagreements in the individual narratives were discussed until agreement on a consensus stylistic narrative could be reached. The individual observer narratives were highly comparable, and a consensus narrative was reached in every case.

Global Evaluation of Mediator Behavioral Style

After completing their individual narrative of the mediator’s stylistic orientation, the observers completed an observer version of the GEMS (described earlier). The observer GEMS ratings were used as the input variable for the MDS analysis used to search for underlying dimensions of mediator stylistic behavior.

Mediator Behavior Rating Scales

Upon completing the GEMS, each of the three observers then filled out a 16-item questionnaire that asked them to rate the mediator’s degree of understanding of the latent sources of the conflict, the variability in the mediator’s intervention strategies, the degree of mediator settlement-focus, use of pressure tactics, the degree of rapport established with each disputant, any observable bias, and the observer’s overall satisfaction with the process and outcomes of the session. All items used 4-point scales.

Several months after the active data gathering phase, we identified several strategic issues not addressed in the initial rating scales that we considered of possible use in adding to our understanding of mediator stylistic variability. These included mediator emphasis on content versus process control; “surface” versus “depth” question asking; degree of neutrality; and relative emphasis on single versus multiple strategies. Team members independently reviewed the mediation videos again and rated each of these strategic activities on 7-point Likert scales.

Disputant Measures The role-play disputants were asked to evaluate their experience with each mediator.

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Role-Player Questionnaire

Immediately after the mediation session ended, the role-players completed a questionnaire that asked about their satisfaction with the mediation session and the agreements reached, and the perceived fairness of the mediator.

They were also asked how well the mediator developed an understanding of how to help them, how well the mediator gathered information about the conflict, and whether the mediator created a comfortable climate. All ratings were made on 7-point Likert scales.

GEMS

Last, role-players were asked to give their own impression of the mediator’s stylistic behavior using the GEMS.

Results We begin with an overview of the overall performance of our mediators as judged from the vantage point of the mediators themselves, the role-playing disputants, and the three observers. We then proceed to an analysis of mediator stylistic orientation.

Outcomes of Mediation

While the major concern of this study was to identify mediator stylistic variations, it may be useful to begin with a brief summary of the overall outcomes of the mediation. In all but a few cases, a highly similar compromise agreement was reached in which the younger roommate agreed to be neater and the older roommate agreed to be more tolerant.

Table 1 sets forth the disputants’ and the mediators’ assessment of the mediation. Overall, the mediators felt the conflict was believable although not particularly intense. Importantly they also felt that their performance was a good representation of their general approach to the mediation role.

Both role-players felt satisfied with the session, the agreements reached, and the ability of the mediator to understand them, create a constructive climate, and gather relevant information. The mediators’ satisfaction with the session and its outcomes was also generally favorable. Only two mediators rated their overall satisfaction with the session as “dissatisfied” (5 or 6 on the 7-point scale).

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Table 1. Disputants’ and Mediators’ Assessment of the Mediation Session Respondent “Monica”

“Christine”

Disputants Average

Quality of information gathering (7 = very thorough)

5.2

5.5

5.4

Understanding (7 = excellent)

5.1

4.9

5.1

Created comfortable climate (1 = definitely did)

2.5

2.0

2.3

Created unbiased atmosphere (1 = definitely did)

1.7

1.8

1.8

Scale

Mediators (n = 22)

Believability of conflict (7 = very believable)

6.0

Intensity of conflict (7 = very high)

3.1

Representative of mediator’s approach to mediation (7 = very representative)a

6.1

Satisfaction with session (1 = very satisfied)

2.3

3.1

3.1

3.1

Satisfaction with agreement (1 = very satisfied)b

2.7

2.7

2.9

2.8

Note: Judgments were made on 7-point scales. a Two mediators refused to answer this question. b Three mediators did not answer this question.

Neither the role-players nor the mediators were entirely pleased, however. Eight of the 22 mediators (36%) were judged by both disputants as having done something “unhelpful” during the session. The major complaints were about mediators who were too nondirective (four mediators), exerted too much pressure for settlement (three mediators), and failed to give sufficient attention to the roommates’ feelings about their friendship (three mediators). All but two of the mediators also expressed a degree of self-criticism. Their major disappointments were of talking too much (seven mediators); making interventions that lacked “depth” (seven mediators)—for example, failures to sufficiently probe meaningful utterances or get at core problems or “deeper” interests; and the use of injudicious language (four mediators).

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Analysis of Mediator Stylistic Orientation

We begin with an account of the mediators’ self-reported stylistic leanings.

A primary interest of this analysis is the degree to which these self-assessments are corroborated by the disputants and the observers. We then proceed to the MDS analysis to capture the underlying stylistic structure seen by the observers and use the observers’ and disputants’ reactions to the mediators’ performances to flesh out the meaning of the MDS results.

Finally, we turn to the mediators’ stimulated recall responses for information on the cognitions associated with the different stylistic orientations.

Mediator Stylistic Self-Reports

We attempted to capture the mediators’ own sense of their approach to mediation by means of the GEMS that each respondent completed at the end of the postmediation interview. Table 2 presents the results along with the observers’ and disputants’ GEMS ratings.

The integrative style, with its focus on identifying and reconciling interests and needs (the proverbial “win-win” style), was the most popular mediator self-description. However, collectively respondents portrayed themselves as highly eclectic, endorsing in significant numbers all five of the stylistic vignettes on which they were asked to rate themselves.

Neither observers nor disputants reported anything like the highly eclectic stylistic self-reports of the mediators. This is especially true of the observers. Interobserver reliability across the five GEMS items was acceptable: Intraclass correlations were 0.67 (latent causes), 0.85 (evaluative), 0.42 (integrative), 0.79 (transformative), and 0.74 (facilitative). Thus we averaged the three observers’ ratings on each of these items. As Table 2 indicates, observers reported seeing very little evidence of anything except a facilitative style, with its emphasis on mediator neutrality and the orchestration of an orderly exchange of proposals.

The disputants’ perceptions are closer to those of the mediators’ collective self-image in regard to perceiving latent cause stylistic propensities, but like the observers, they saw less evidence of the other stylistic orientations than the mediators claimed for themselves. (The disputants’ GEM ratings were positively correlated on all but the facilitative style, but only significantly so for the latent cause approach. Correlations on each of the five GEMS orientations ranged from −0.03 to 0.81, with a mean r = 0.33).

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Table 2. Mediator, Observer, and Disputant Ratings on the Global Evaluation of Mediator Behavior Scale (GEMS) Mediators

Observers

Disputants

“Describes me well”

Highest Rated

“Describes mediator well”

Highest Rated

“Describes mediator well”

Highest Rated

Integrative

68%

59%

14%

14%

14%

14%

Latent cause (“Strategic”)

50%

36%

5%

5%

32%

32%

Transformative

45%

41%

18%

18%

23%

27%

Facilitative

41%

41%

59%

55%

9%

18%

Evaluative

32%

5%

14%

18%

5%

14%

Style

Note: “Describes me/mediator well” = 6–7 rating on the GEMS 7-point Likert scale.

Highest rated = Style with the highest scale rating for the mediator, including styles rated equally highly. Percentages in bold indicate strong differences between mediator stylistic self-perceptions and the perceptions of observers and disputants.

MDS Analysis of Mediator Style

Table 2 provides a snapshot of the degree to which the mediators’ collective stylistic self-assessment corresponded to what others perceived. The MDS analysis provides a more informative look at these stylistic leanings.

We computed Euclidean distance scores between each pair of mediators on the basis of the mean observer rating for each mediator on each GEMS item. Scores were calculated as the square root of the sum of squares of the pairwise differences in the five averaged GEMS ratings. These scores constituted the dissimilarity matrix for the MDS analysis. A low score between any two mediators indicated that they were perceived by the observers to have exhibited similar stylistic behaviors across the five GEMS ratings; a high score indicated that they were perceived by the observers to have exhibited different stylistic behaviors. The resultant distance matrix was submitted to an MDS analysis (ALSCAL, SPSS 16.0). The stress values for the 1-, 2-, and 3-dimensional solutions were 0.26, 0.13, and 0.03, respectively (R2 = 0.81, 0.92, and 0.99). We ran a series of multiple regressions to investigate the fit of the external properties to the 3-dimensional space. The third dimension, while largely uncorrelated with the other two dimensions, was not meaningful in a way that could not be accounted for by Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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Figure 1. MDS-Derived Stimulus Configuration, Euclidean Distance Model Less Skillful Evaluators

Transformatives

Relationally oriented

Settlement oriented

Diagnosticians Facilitators More skillful

Note: Each point represents a single mediator.

dimensions 1 and/or 2. This pattern of results led us to adopt the more parsimonious two-dimensional MDS solution.

Figure 1 displays the distribution of our 22 subjects within this 2-dimensional space. The ovals identify clusters of cases that appear to have more in common with each other than with cases in other ovals. The descriptive labels for each oval are based largely on the observers’ qualitative consensual narrative.

Our next step was to empirically characterize the dimensions in the MDS output. To this end, we fitted external properties (i.e., variables not used in creating the MDS space) using a series of multiple regression equations. In this procedure, dimension 1 and dimension 2 values were entered as predictors of each external property in turn (Kruskal & Wish, 1978).

External properties included mediators’ self-ratings on the GEMS, their ratings of satisfaction with the mediation session, and their feelings about the roommates’ likability and responsibility for the conflict. Also included were the role-players’ averaged ratings of each mediator on the GEMS as well as their satisfaction with and judged fairness of the mediator and how well he or she developed an understanding of how to help them, gathered information about the conflict, and created a comfortable climate.

Finally, we included the observers’ averaged behavioral ratings of the mediators’ performance on the 20 items judging mediator strategic behavior.

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Table 3. Fit of External Properties to the Multidimensional Space β dim 1

β dim 2

R2

O Settle

0.92

−0.21

0.90

O Pressure

0.92

0.08

0.86

M Evaluative

0.81

0.20

0.68

O Does vs. Does Not Maintain Neutrality

0.71

0.44

0.68

−0.44

−0.67

0.63

0.68

−0.36

0.62

−0.27

−0.75

0.62

0.57

0.47

0.53

−0.04

0.72

0.53

0.09

0.67

0.46

−0.21

−0.65

0.46

0.63

0.26

0.45

−0.66

−0.08

0.44

0.09

0.66

0.44

−0.66

0.02

0.43

External Property

O Content vs. Process Control M Facilitative O Rapport O Favor R Satisfaction Session R Unbiased O Satisfaction Session R Evaluative M Transformative R Comfortable Climate R Transformative R Understand

0.23

−0.61

0.43

O Relationship

−0.54

−0.20

0.33

R Gather Information

−0.02

−0.57

0.32

R Facilitative

0.38

−0.40

0.31

O Reach Agreement

0.53

−0.15

0.31

−0.53

−0.16

0.30

O Worry

Note: O: Observer behavioral ratings. M: Mediator self-ratings. R: Role-player ratings.

R2 > 0.30 are significant at p < 0.05. Standardized Betas reflect the strength of association between external properties and dim 1 and dim 2, respectively, in the MDS space.

Of the 41 external ratings, 28 had standardized Betas that were significantly associated with the 2-dimensional solution. These are shown in Table 3, ordered by R2.

The emergent pattern strongly suggests that dimension 1 differentiates mediators performing in a more settlement-oriented style from those performing in a more relational style. Thus, mediators at the settlement end of dimension 1 were most strongly characterized by observer ratings that the mediator emphasized settlement, pressed the parties to agree, and displayed Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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less neutrality; disputant ratings that the mediator was well described by the evaluative style; and the mediators’ own identification with both the evaluative and facilitative styles. At the relational end of dimension 1 are mediators who identified with the transformative style and were seen that way by the disputants and by observer ratings that the mediator developed information about matters affecting the roommates’ relationship with one another (e.g., the impact on their relationship of the semester’s increasing workload) and the asking of “depth” rather than “surface” questions.

The multiple regression analysis indicates that dimension 2 (the vertical dimension in Figure 1) was defined by a constellation of features, including disputants’ and observers’ (but not mediators’ self-rated) satisfaction with the mediation session; disputant ratings of the mediator’s fairness, understanding, and information gathering; and observer judgments of the degree to which the mediator established rapport with the parties. Mediators on the lower end of the vertical axis were judged more thorough in gathering information and as having developed a better understanding of how to help and of creating better rapport, a more comfortable climate, and a fairer, more unbiased atmosphere.

The overall pattern revealed in Figure 1 thus suggests that mediators behaved in either a settlement-oriented style or a more relational one (dimension 1) but could perform either of these stylistic variants with relatively more or less empathic attunement and skill (dimension 2).

Our sample was too small to permit any significant analysis by professional experience or background, but we can note that all five of the novice law-student mediators were at the settlement-oriented end of dimension 1, while those at the relational end either had significant training in mental health disciplines or had been exposed to formal training in transformative mediation.

The observers’ consensual narratives of the mediators’ performances were used to clarify what mediators grouped in close proximity to one another in the MDS space had in common. These qualitative accounts suggest that the settlement and relational styles could be divided into the four stylistic subtypes, circled in Figure 1.

At the settlement-oriented end of dimension 1 were two stylistic subgroups, nominally labeled Facilitators (n = 11) and Evaluators (n = 5). For both subtypes, the mediators’ primary goal was to help the parties negotiate an agreement on the explicit issues they brought into mediation. There were, however, significant differences in emphasis.

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For facilitators, the primary vehicle for agreement making was creating a positive climate and structuring a negotiating agenda. Their signal characteristic was warmth, optimism, and energy in promoting the search for agreements. They showed little interest in latent causes of the students’ difficulties with each other, using an understanding of unspoken interests as a lever for fashioning agreement or exploring emotional aspects of the conflict. By and large, they also refrained from expressing their own opinion on substantive issues. The location of the group south of the horizontal line in Figure 1 indicates the generally positive regard in which their performance was held by both disputants and observers.

Like the facilitators, the focus of the evaluators circled in Figure 1 was agreement making. They also showed a similar lack of interest in exploring latent causes of conflict or underlying interests or addressing emotional concerns. The distinguishing element in their behavior was an inclination to confront the parties when mediators felt either one was being unreasonable. Their tone was less supportive than that of the facilitators, and at times it could be clearly judgmental. The location of the evaluators at the north end of the horizontal axis in Figure 1 indicates that these qualities negatively impacted the observers’ and disputants’ assessment of the mediators’ performance.

At the relational end of dimension 1 were two stylistic subvariants: the Diagnosticians (n = 2) and the Transformatives (n = 4). The two diagnosticians circled in Figure 1 shared some of the same willingness to help with agreement making that characterized the facilitators and evaluators. The emphasis that set them apart was an equal concern with exploring the interpersonal, emotional, and psychological sources of the conflict. One of the two diagnosticians was formally identified with the transformative model described by Bush and Folger, but her behavior was much more varied than others in the sample with that same background. Like the other mediator classified as a diagnostician, she was much more willing to work with the students around fashioning an agreement and creative in helping them find ways to talk more openly with each other about unspoken pressures and relational disappointments. The location of the two diagnosticians at the southern end of dimension 2 reflects the generally positive assessments their stylistic performance received from observers and disputants.

We have labeled the second cluster of relational oriented mediators circled in Figure 1 transformatives. All four were explicitly identified with Bush and Folger’s (1994) approach and enacted it in a highly similar style.

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Their most characteristic intervention was frequent summarizing of the parties’ statements and a determined effort not to express an opinion or influence the agenda in any way.

Cognitive Correlates of Mediator Style

An important objective of this investigation was to explore mediator cognitions associated with different stylistic orientations. The stimulated recall procedure provided a unique window for so doing. The audio recordings of each mediator’s stimulated recall session were transcribed, and each transcript was divided into utterance units. For the sample as a whole, this resulted in a total of 360 utterances that were sorted into 11 mutually exclusive categories by four research assistants. Two independent raters were then trained and sorted the 360 utterances into the 11 categories.

Inter-rater reliability was acceptable, r = 0.68, p < 0.05. Table 4 shows the results of this analysis, broken down for the sample as a whole and by the MDS division of the mediators into those with a settlement or a relational stylistic emphasis.

The preponderance of reported in-session thoughts were of two major types: Thoughts about intervention and evaluative thoughts about self and the parties. Mediators also reported occasional thoughts of being aware that the conflict was simulated; of memories of some other past mediation experiences; and of new thoughts about the session they had not previously been aware of (post-hoc realization).

Not surprisingly, for the sample as a whole, the three most frequent thought categories concerned thoughts about intervention strategies, including diagnostic understanding (e.g., thoughts about the current state of the parties’ relationship, the disputants’ willingness to comprise, the nature of any underlying issues); agreement making (e.g., the contemplation of pressure tactics, possible areas of compromise, the workability of a party’s proposal); and climate (e.g., thoughts about how to direct the flow of communication between the parties, the need to lighten tension with humor or by highlighting commonalties). Strategic thinking of these kinds represented considerably more than half (57%) of all recalled in-session thoughts.

Somewhat surprising is the relatively low level of reported thoughts about maintaining rapport. However, it is worth noting that negative thoughts about self were relatively high and many of these were worries connected to rapport (e.g., having sided more with one roommate than the Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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Table 4. Percentage of Mediators’ Stimulated Recall (SR) Thoughts by Categories Total Sample (n = 22)

SettlementOrientation (n = 16)

Relational Orientation (n = 6)

Diagnostic understanding

20

17

29

Rapport

08

09

04

Climate

18

16

23

Agreement making

19

23

08

Negative: self

13

13

14

Negative: disputants

04

05

03

Positive: self

02

02

03

Positive: disputants

04

04

04

Comparison to past experience

06

07

05

Simulation awareness

03

04

00

Post-hoc realization

03

02

06

Thought Category

Intervention

Evaluative

Note: Total SR utterances for sample as a whole = 360; total SR utterances for settlement-oriented mediators = 263; for relational mediators = 97.

other, having asked too personal a question, or having interrupted the parties prematurely).

Although none of the stimulated recall (SR) results were significantly associated with dimensions 1 or 2 in the MDS analysis, the stimulated recall data were broadly consistent with the MDS stylistic classification of the sample. Thus, mediators classified as settlement-oriented reported thinking more about agreement making (23% versus 8%), whereas relational mediators reported more thoughts about diagnostic understanding (29% versus 17%) and about the climate between the parties (23% versus 16%). Settlement-oriented mediators also reported thinking somewhat more about maintaining rapport (9% versus 4%), perhaps because their press toward getting agreements made rapport a somewhat more salient issue. In terms of stylistic subvariants, the diagnostic mediators reported a very high proportion of in-session thoughts about diagnostic matters, far exceeding the other stylistic subtypes in this regard (41% of all their reported thoughts versus from 24% to 14% for the other stylistic variants).

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about maintaining an appropriate climate (31% versus 19% to 6% for the other stylistic subtypes). As might be expected, they also reported the fewest in-session thoughts about agreement making (3% versus 24% to 15% for the other groups). The five evaluative mediators reported the most frequent self-criticisms (21% of their thoughts versus between 10% and 16% for the other stylistic variants). This may be because the evaluators were inherently more judgmental and/or recognized that their judgmental behavior was not being well received.

Discussion We have argued that mediator style is a seriously understudied subject.

Given the inherent ambiguity and tensions in the mediation role and the ambiguous, fast-moving, and stressful conditions under which mediators are obliged to intervene, it is extremely efficient, useful, and, dare we say, inevitable that practitioners are guided by an overarching stylistic orientation, albeit one whose true nature is likely to be partly hidden from them.

Despite these considerations, we need only one hand to count the observational studies of mediator stylistic behavior that have been reported in the last fifteen or so years. The collective record, while often intriguing, is also short on systematic methods and largely ignores the implicit mediator thinking that is arguably at the core of mediator behavior.

No single study can begin to answer all the questions about mediator style or resolve all the methodological challenges that such work poses.

Indeed, the current investigation has methodological limitations of its own. We believe, however, that our results are illuminating on a number of important counts, confirming some widely held beliefs and raising important questions about others. We consider these matters in terms of the four principle questions that informed this study.

1. Given a relatively simple, low-intensity conflict, will most experienced professionals use the same stylistic orientation? If there is no uniformity, do the stylistic variants correspond clearly to the styles familiar in the practitioner and research literatures, or are there stylistic surprises?

Our first question may be answered straightforwardly: Even in a simple conflict like the “Angry Roommates,” experienced professionals do not behave in a stylistically identical manner. There was clear stylistic variation within the sample, and the variations correspond well to the styles familiar in the practice and research literatures. The major division was between a Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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large, settlement-oriented group of mediators and a much smaller, relationally oriented group. The division of our mediators into those with a settlement versus relational stylistic orientation is consistent with the idea that one important function of stylistic choice is to help mediators deal with the inherent tension and ambiguity in the third-party role. Attending to both task and relational objectives simultaneously has been found difficult for leaders of any kind to accomplish (cf. Bales, 1958), and many mediators report coming down on one side or the other (Charkoudian et al., 2009; Kolb & Kressel, 1994; Picard, 2004; Wood, 2004).

Among the handful of observational studies, ours is only the second (after Silbey & Merry, 1986) to find behavioral evidence for a relational focus. The preponderance of the settlement orientation in our sample and in other observational studies is consistent with its long-standing prominence in the ADR field. Until the fairly recent emergence of transformative and narrative approaches, mediation as negotiated agreement making has been the de facto definition of the mediation role (Pruitt, 2006a).

There were, however, a few noteworthy stylistic surprises. The first concerns a substyle we did not see much in evidence. That is the integrative style (Style B on the GEMS). This approach, usually (and confusingly) referred to as the facilitative style in the practitioner literature, places heavy emphasis on the mediator as an agent of helping the parties move from positional bargaining to talking about their underlying needs and interests, thus expanding the potential for arriving at genuinely creative win-win agreements. This style has become the official mantra of much training in mediation and is prominently mentioned in much of the practice literature (cf. Moore’s 1996 widely influential text). Although this was far and away the most popular mediator self-endorsed style on the GEMS, observers and disputants felt it was an accurate description of what they saw for only one or two mediators.

The prevalent style that the observers reported was not genuine integrative mediation but a paler second cousin: a mediator focus on facilitating agreement making (hence the facilitative style) by providing encouragement, ideas, and structure for helping the parties respectfully exchange proposals around the surface issues in a search for compromises. The surfacing of deeper interests or needs and the emotional concerns connected to them in search of the proverbial win-win was decidedly not part of the facilitative stylistic thrust.

A second stylistic surprise was the evidence for a diagnostic relational style. The approach gets its name from the mediator’s attempts to search Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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for relevant but unrecognized sources of the conflict as a means for increasing mutual relational understanding and fostering agreement making. Our diagnostic stylistic variant has not been identified in any other behavioral study of which we are aware, although something like it has been described in self-report investigations of everyday informal approaches to conflict management (Pinkley, Brittain, Neale, & Northcraft, 1995; Sheppard, Blumenfeld-Jones, & Roth, 1989) and in a number of mediation case studies (Kressel & Gadlin, 2009; Kressel et al., 1994). The diagnostic style has not developed any highly visible champion among practitioners, but it appears to be an important reality, at least for a minority of mediators.

The final stylistic surprise was the suggestive finding that serious training in a formal model of professional practice may nonetheless express itself in strikingly different stylistic behavior. Five of the mediators in our sample had had extensive training in the transformative model as set forth

by Bush and Folger (1994). Four of them enacted this model in a highly similar stylistic fashion. All of them began by making it clear that their task was to create conditions for the parties to have a genuine dialogue and that it was the disputants’ job to decide what to talk about and for what purpose. Whenever the roommates’ deliberations halted (and, indeed, they seemed a bit nonplussed by these instructions) and they turned to the mediator for guidance, the mediator’s typical response was to throw the question back on them: What did they wish to discuss?

For the most part, mediator interventions were limited to asking questions and to summarizing the responses with only occasional probing for deeper feelings or meaning and few efforts at shaping the dialogue to help the roommates develop implicit relational themes. The mediators also tolerated relatively long silences, all ostensibly in the interest of respecting the parties’ autonomy.

The behavior of the fifth mediator with extensive training in Bush and Folger’s model was marked by considerably more variability, directiveness, and emotional engagement as well as much more comfort in deferring to the parties’ desire to stick with a negotiating agenda. She was classified as a diagnostic mediator in the MDS. Like the transformative mediators, she, too, asked the students to speak directly to one another, but she questioned them closely about their relationship. She carefully summarized their answers, looking for clues about possible reasons their relationship had deteriorated. She also seemed intent on slowing down the conversation in order to surface emotions and other unstated reactions. Throughout, she spoke in a warm manner, modulating her tone for emphasis and using Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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self-disclosure where appropriate (e.g., she, too, had had roommates and knew how stressful that could be).

In deference to the students’ wishes, nearly half the session was spent on practical discussions about reaching agreements. In the last 10 minutes, however, there was a dramatic shift into relational issues. The mediator helped Christine talk about the unspoken pressures she had been feeling about her graduate school applications and the worry she felt about her life after college. No agreements were reached, but the mediator made clear that she would like to see the students again to consider ideas for settling the immediate issues and also to talk more about their lost connection to each other.

Both students gave her very positive ratings. Christine was especially pleased, saying, “She really understood the problems we presented and sensed that our lack of communication was a problem and that our friendship was very important. She picked up on how our increased pressures created a wall between us and deepened our lack of communication.”

2. How accurate are mediators’ explicit accounts of their stylistic leanings?

If they differ from what trained observers see, what is the nature of the differences?

The answer here would appear to be “not very accurate.” We have already noted the significant discrepancy between what our mediators claimed was their allegiance to the integrative style and the near absence of that approach from the observers’ vantage point.

Another area of discrepancy was in regard to stylistic eclecticism. Mediator self-reported stylistic eclecticism would seem to be the norm (Charkoudian et al., 2009; McDermott & Obar, 2004; Picard, 2004) and our respondents followed this familiar pattern, claiming in significant numbers that each of the five stylistic choices on the GEMS described them well. However, the observers felt that four of the stylistic accounts were accurate descriptions for only a handful of the sample. In their ratings, only one style—the facilitative orientation—was identified as a good fit for a majority of the mediators.

It is possible, of course, that discrepancies between the mediators’ stylistic self-reports and observers’ judgments can be explained by the narrow window provided to the observers who watched a single 30-minute session involving a simulated conflict. The mediators, of course, have a much larger experience of themselves across very real and diverse cases. However, our findings are consistent with other studies that have found mediator self-descriptions to be unreliable guides to mediator behavior (Pruitt et al., Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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1989), including stylistic orientation (Charkoudian et al., 2009; Wall & Chan-Serafin, 2010). Similar discrepancies between claimed and observed stylistic orientation have been reported for psychotherapists (Lambert, Bergin, & Garfield, 2004; Miller & Rose, 2009).

3. Is there any relationship between mediator stylistic performance and the quality of their work as judged by disputants and trained observers?

No single study can presume to answer the question of whether or under what conditions some stylistic variants are “better” than others. The MDS analysis observer judgments about mediator stylistic orientation included a dimension related to judged quality of performance, including success at gathering information, establishing rapport, and creating a constructive climate. These differences were associated with stylistic subtypes.

Among the settlement-oriented mediators, the facilitators were judged more favorably than the evaluators; among the relationally oriented group, the two diagnosticians were judged more favorably than the four transformatives.

The meaning of these results is open to a number of interpretations.

One is that mediator stylistic variation is indeed an important determinant of mediation outcomes. With regard to the differences between facilitators and evaluators, our results are consistent with several prior investigations, in which disputing parties have been found to be more satisfied with a facilitative approach than a more evaluative one (Alberts, Heisterkamp, & McPhee, 2005; McDermott & Obar, 2004; Wissler, 2002). In an as-yet unpublished study (Gener, Harber, Butts, & Kressel, 2010), undergraduates viewing videos of the “Angry Roommates” taken from the current study rated the facilitative exemplars consistently more favorably than the evaluative ones.

It may also be the case that the impact of mediator stylistic variation is a function of which outcomes are at issue. The present investigation involved a simulated conflict in which money was not among the disputed issues. In real-world conflicts involving significant financial concerns, measures such as settlement rates and dollar amounts gained (for plaintiffs represented by counsel) have favored more aggressive, evaluative mediator behaviors (McDermott & Obar, 2004; Wall & Chan-Serafin, 2010) than facilitative kinds.

A third possibility is that the pattern in the MDS results is best explained not by the superiority of some stylistic approaches over others but by characteristics of competent mediator performance that are distributed across styles. The observers’ qualitative narratives of the exemplars of the facilitative Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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and diagnostic orientations suggest what some of these shared factors may be. They include mediator energy, warmth, and optimism; a nonjudgmental stance; and a willingness to adapt to the inclinations and needs of the parties. Mediators of either a relational or settlement-oriented stance who had these qualities were judged more favorably by observers and disputants than those of either orientation who did not.

These preliminary findings suggest that mediator competence may be less a function of the mediator’s style and more a function of the kinds of general (or “common”) qualities just noted. Gale, Mowery, Hermann, and Hollett (2002) report that some of these same qualities were associated with a particularly competent mediator performance in a simulated divorce conflict setting. Research in psychotherapy is also instructive for contemplating these possibilities. While mediation is not the same thing as therapy, its practitioners share the similar challenge of exerting constructive influence under conditions of tension and uncertainty. In the psychotherapy domain, there is considerable evidence that the therapist variables that matter most may not be model based (e.g., psychodynamic or cognitive behavioral) but involve “common factors” similar to those identified in the present investigation (Sexton, Alexander, & Mease, 2004; Sprenkle, Davis, & Lebow, 2009). There are also psychotherapy studies that indicate that therapist style does matter but that the most successful practitioners of a therapeutic style are those who use it flexibly, adapting to the immediate reactions of the client rather than pursuing their stylistic inclinations no matter what (Castonguay, Boswell, Constantino, Goldfried, & Hill, 2010; Miller & Rose, 2009). The location of the more flexible transformatively trained mediator at the “more skillful” end of dimension 2 compared to the “less skillful” location of her other, more behaviorally rigid transformative colleagues is supportive of this possibility.

4. Given our assumption that important elements of mediator cognition are lost to conscious awareness, is stimulated recall a useful procedure for helping mediators access these implicit cognitive elements?

An important inspiration for this study was evidence that the mental models that underlie expert performance, in mediation and elsewhere, are often inaccessible to conscious reflection and require special conditions if they are to be revealed (Crandall, Klein, & Hoffman, 2006). We adopted the stimulated recall procedure as a vehicle for getting at such implicit thinking. Our results were only modestly informative. The finding that mediator in-session cognition was dominated by thoughts about diagnostic understanding, how to improve the climate during the session, and Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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steps toward agreement making closely parallels one well-known taxonomy of mediator activity drawn from mediator self-reports of a traditional kind (Carnevale, Lim, & McLaughlin, 1989; Kressel, 1972; Kressel & Pruitt, 1989). Our results also suggest that mediators with settlement versus relational styles were thinking along different lines during the session, lending a measure of support to the multidimensional scaling results, but this evidence was not strong—none of the thought categories was significantly related to the MDS results.

The biggest disappointment was that our stimulated recall results were not particularly illuminating about the implicit dimension of mediator thinking, probably because we respected the methodological caution not to probe too extensively so as not to conflate mediator post-hoc thinking with what the mediators were actually thinking during the session. In hindsight, we might well have risked introducing some cognitive distortion into the mediators’ reports of their mental activity by probing more assertively about critical in-session decision points. We would urge such a procedure in future studies. Such probing has been deeply rewarding in the study of expert decision making in other real-world domains (Klein, 1998) and is likely to be particularly useful in the early stages of clarifying the implicit details of any stylistic approach to working with people (cf. Miller & Rose, 2009, 527–528, for how this happened accidentally in the development of the motivational interviewing style). Kressel and Gadlin (2009) used such probes to develop an interesting and detailed mental map of the thinking of ombuds-mediators using mediator self-reports about casebased material.

Limitations and Future Directions Because we used a convenience sample of mediators, chosen to some degree to represent a diversity of perspectives, we cannot say to what degree our findings are representative of the wider world of mediation practice. Other downsides of our methodological choices are more conceptual in nature.

We note three of them.

1. How stylistically flexible are mediators? We found little evidence of mediator stylistic flexibility, the eclectic self-images of our mediators notwithstanding. Although there were notable exceptions, the consensual narratives of the observers suggest that whatever stylistic orientation mediators began with tended to strongly dominate their Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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approach throughout the session. The finding is in line with most other observational studies, particularly in regard to the settlementoriented style (Kolb, 1983; Kruk, 1998; Wall & Chan-Serafin, 2010).

Stylistic rigidity is also consistent with the working of automaticity (Wegner & Bargh, 1998) as a result of frequent and consistent experience in a situational domain. However, our decision to control for dispute familiarity by selecting a type of conflict new to the mediators and the 30-minute time frame may have significantly cramped our mediators’ stylistic range. Stylistic flexibility in real-world settings has been occasionally reported (Kressel & Gadlin, 2009; Shapiro et al., 1985; Silbey & Merry, 1986). Many such studies are needed.

2. What are the forces that shape mediator style? This is an important question. We explicitly ruled out an ability to explore it by bringing mediators into the laboratory—the classic trade-off between aspirations for experimental control and generalizability. Part of the answer to the question is likely to be training and prior experience. In our investigation, all the novice mediators were settlement oriented, doubtless reflecting their law school experience, and those at the relational end of dimension 1 had significant training in mental health or transformative mediation. Kressel (2006) has argued that mediator style is also likely to be shaped in important ways by contextual forces, such as the type of conflict, the amount of time available, the degree to which consultation with other mediators is available, and whether the mediator is “embedded” in the institutional context from which cases are referred. Butts (2010) has provided some evidence from a national survey of mediator stylistic self-identification that supports this view.

Targeted research comparing the stylistic behavior and thinking of mediators in sharply contrasting settings is needed for a more definitive answer to Kressel’s expansive claim that “all mediation is local.”

3. How much does mediator style actually matter? In the eyes of the observers (and disputants), some of our mediators were clearly performing more skillfully than others, and these differences were associated with stylistic subtypes. Our small sample size and our research design do not permit us to say much more. It is assumed in the practitioner literature that what the mediator does is crucial to mediation outcomes—and style is among the most crucial of the things that are usually cited. (But see Wall and Chan-Serafin, 2010, for data that suggest that disputant characteristics are actually more Conflict Resolution Quarterly • DOI: 10.1002/crq

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determinant.) However, as has been noted for some time, there are no randomized designs that pit one mediator style against another (Beck & Sales, 2001; Kressel, 2006; Pruitt, 2006b). Such designs are the gold standard for answering questions about whether and under what conditions one mediation style produces superior results than another. These kinds of studies are long overdue. The striking divergence in stylistic enactment by one of our transformatively trained mediator from that of her four transformative colleagues is a reminder that such studies must rely on the practitioners’ actual style, not their espoused one.

Conclusion We have argued that the improvement of mediation practice depends significantly on empirical studies of how mediators think about and enact the mediation role—that is, with the study of mediator style. For reasons that are beyond the scope of this article, we still have far too few such investigations. The current results, along with a handful of related studies by others, indicate that such styles are relatively small in number; represent markedly different views of what mediators should be doing and why; are easily activated, even by a very simple conflict; and are only partially and unevenly related to mediator conscious awareness or identification with formal schools of mediation. Their continued investigation remains an exceedingly attractive subject for researcher–practitioner collaboration.

Note 1. We have not included the important research programs of Donohue (1991) and Jones (1989a, 1989b) on the strategic behaviors distinguishing “successful” and “unsuccessful” divorce mediators. Both programs utilize sophisticated analyses of the audio transcripts of mediation sessions and tell us much that is useful about effective intervention within a clearly settlement-oriented style, but they are not properly speaking about mediator stylistic variation.

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Kenneth Kressel is a professor in the Department of Psychology at Rutgers University–Newark and a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the Association for Psychological Science. His primary research area is mediator behavior and thinking.

Tiffany Henderson holds a PhD in psychology from Rutgers University– Newark. She is a program manager at Abt SRBI in Silver Spring, Maryland.

Warren Reich is a social psychologist whose interests include conflict, mediation, and program evaluation. He is an adjunct professor in psychology at Rutgers University–Newark.

Claudia Cohen is the associate director of the International Center for Cooperation and Conflict Resolution at Teachers College, Columbia University.

She has many years of experience as an organizational ombudsman and a civil court mediator.

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Appendix: Global Evaluation of Mediator Behavior Scale (GEMS) Style

Description

Style A: Latent Cause

Mediators believe that a frequent cause of polarized conflict are important latent sources of difficulty in the parties’ relationships or circumstances of which they are unaware (e.g., a flawed communication pattern, unrecognized need for resources). Consequently, mediators enacting Style A give priority to determining whether such latent causes are fueling the conflict. If diagnostic inquiry suggests that this is the case, the mediator tries to make use of this knowledge to help the parties reach agreements.

Style B: Integrative

Mediators believe that a frequent cause of polarized conflict is the tendency of disputants to talk only about their respective positions rather than the underlying needs and interests behind those positions. Consequently, mediators enacting Style B give priority to helping parties articulate what their respective needs and interests are and try to make use of this knowledge in helping them reach agreements.

Style C: Evaluative

Mediators believe that a frequent cause of polarized conflict is the tendency of disputants to have unrealistic confidence in the validity and reasonableness of their respective positions. Consequently, mediators enacting Style C give priority to providing the parties with a balanced and realistic evaluation of their respective positions and, if necessary, in marshaling arguments in favor of particular solutions.

Style D: Transformative

Mediators believe that a frequent cause of polarized conflict is the failure of disputants to see that disputes can be viewed as opportunities for moral growth and transformation.

Consequently, mediators enacting Style D do not see their primary role as producing agreements; they give priority to helping each party attain a degree of personal empowerment (e.g., by becoming aware of their range of options or developing a new awareness of personal strengths or resources) and a degree of recognition of the other (e.g., by acknowledging the situation of the other or offering a genuine apology to the other).

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Style E: Facilitative

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Mediators believe that a frequent cause of polarized conflict is the parties’ inability to focus on the ongoing dispute because of the absence of a constructive and structured format for dialogue and problem solving. Consequently, mediators enacting Style E see their role as primarily to assist the parties’ own problem-solving exchanges. They do this by emphasizing their own strict neutrality on substantive issues and by trying to foster an orderly and respectful exchange of proposals (e.g., helping develop an agenda for the exchange of ideas, summarizing each side’s views to the other, urging the parties to brainstorm possible solutions).

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