MEMORIES
On Sunday, March 8, 2009, the television show – 60 Minutes – had a really interesting segment on the inaccuracy of our visual memory. Entitled “Eyewitness: How Accurate Is Visual Memory,” Leslie Stahl reported about how a rape victim identified the wrong man as her assailant even though she took pains to study and memorize his features during the assault. Because of the victim’s identification of him, the assailant was found guilty and imprisoned for eleven years. Even on re-trial and with the true assailant also sitting in the courtroom, the alleged assailant was found guilty again: the victim once again identified him, instead of her true assailant. Only DNA evidence set him free. A DNA test performed eleven years into his prison term exonerated him. The test proved that the true assailant (also sitting in the courtroom at the re-trial but not identified by the victim) was indeed the guilty one.
It turns out that more than 230 men nationwide have been exonerated by DNA evidence. In more than 75% of these cases, the men were wrongly convicted, partially due to faulty eyewitness testimony. (Page 4.)
What does this show? That the memory is very fragile, “. . . malleable, full of holes, easily contaminated and susceptible to suggestion.” (Page 4.) “. . . [M]emory is not like a videotape recorder – you don’t just record an event and play it back.” (Id.).
In addition, “reinforcement alters memory.” (Page 5.) That is, if the subject makes an identification and is given positive feedback, that reinforcement will alter the true memory to be the memory for which the positive feedback was given
Why is all of this important to negotiation and mediation? Because disputes are usually based on facts. Each party has a story to tell: the who, what, why, when, where and how of the dispute. This segment on “60 Minutes” reveals that our memory plays tricks on us: the story we tell as a party or listen to as a mediator is, in all likelihood, faulty to some degree. We will not have remembered the events correctly, and our story may be full of holes. Even in this age of technology, our innate “camcorder” is not fool proof. Our “playback” button will not play back every single detail accurately.
This truth is one we must take with us into every negotiation and mediation. While each party has a story and needs to tell her story in order to move to resolution, the storyteller must also acknowledge and accept that her story is not 100% accurate. It is comprised of some faulty remembrances. By accepting the notion that her memory is malleable and not wholly accurate, the storyteller will be able to reach a win-win resolution rather than no resolution by playing a zero-sum game. The storyteller who adamantly sticks to her own version of the story and brooks no opposition or alternative recitation of the facts is playing a win-lose game: it is either her way or no way. In the end – she loses. That is her zero-sum game.
So. . . the next time you have a dispute, walk into it with a recognition that you are not completely correct about how it happened. If the “60 minutes” segment is any guide, you are probably only 25% accurate in what you remember. So be a bit malleable and, hopefully, it will lead to a resolution.
. . .Just something to think about.
