- 11 Oct 2017
- Working Paper Summaries
Crime and Violence: Desensitization in Victims to Watching Criminal Events
Findings from an experiment show that victims of crimes become desensitized to violence in biological and cognitive ways. These results may help explain a troubling contradiction in Latin America: rising crime along with decreasing public concern about it. As the rate of crime victimization increases, a larger group of the population shares this increased desensitization.
- 20 Aug 2009
- Working Paper Summaries
A Decision-Making Perspective to Negotiation: A Review of the Past and a Look into the Future
The art and science of negotiation has evolved greatly over the past three decades, thanks to advances in the social sciences in collaboration with other disciplines and in tandem with the practical application of new ideas. In this paper, HBS doctoral student Chia-Jung Tsay and professor Max H. Bazerman review the recent past and highlight promising trends for the future of negotiation research. In the early 1980s, Cambridge, Massachusetts, was a hot spot on the negotiations front, as scholars from different disciplines began interacting in the exploration of exciting new concepts. The field took a big leap forward with the creation of the Program on Negotiation, an interdisciplinary, multicollege research center based at Harvard University. At the same time, Roger Fisher and William Ury's popular book Getting to Yes (1981) had a pronounced impact on how practitioners think about negotiations. On a more scholarly front, a related, yet profoundly different change began with the publication of HBS professor emeritus Howard Raiffa's book The Art and Science of Negotiation (1982), which for years to come transformed how researchers would think about and conduct empirical research. Key concepts include: Even as it has transitioned from decision analysis to behavioral decision research to social psychology, the decision perspective to negotiation has remained central to practitioners and academics alike, offering both practical relevance and the foundation for exciting new lines of research. Some of the most recent directions being pursued are surprises that early contributors to the decision perspective could have never predicted, as negotiation scholars engage with other disciplines and draw insights from diverse fields ranging from philosophy to neurobiology. Such collaboration is a healthy sign for an ongoing line of negotiation research. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.
- 02 Sep 2008
- Research & Ideas
Indulgence vs. Regret: Investing in Future Memories
Good news for makers of $20,000 watches and other luxury goods and services. Recent research from Harvard Business School professor Anat Keinan and a colleague suggest that we often regret not indulging ourselves earlier in life. Key concepts include: People can be too farsighted, or hyperopic, leaving wistful regrets of missing out on life's pleasures when they look back at how they spent their time. It's possible to motivate consumers to indulge themselves by simply asking them what they think they will regret in 10 years. Marketers can convince consumers that buying their product is actually a farsighted behavior, an investment in future memories. Closed for comment; 0 Comment(s) posted.
Framing Violence, Finding Peace
Using data collected in a 2016 survey of 1,120 Syrian refugees in Turkey, this study finds that 1) framing civilians’ wartime ordeal as suffering or sacrifice influences their attitudes about ending the conflict, and 2) the identity of who advocates for peace affects civilians’ attitude about supporting it. These results suggest new possibilities for reconciliation processes.