Space focus is necessary for the overview effect- a unified vision of humanity that dramatically reduces violence by transcending nationalism

(Daniel L, PhD, Psych@Harvard, Frank White, Mphil, Bruce W. Shackleton, EdD, Overcoming the Tribes Effect: The Overview Effect as a Means to Promote Conflict Resolution Peace and Conflict: Journal of Peace Psychology http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/pac0000414)

Although humanity has made significant progress in mitigating destructive conflict (Pinker, 2011), it now possesses the means to inflict increasingly devastating effects on individuals and groups. In response, the field of conflict resolution has sought new theoretical models and practical tools to reduce intergroup polarization. A key finding is that conflict is driven not solely by rational interests but also by an emotional matrix of threats and counterthreats that entrench each party in an opposing identity; the conflict becomes us versus them (Rothman, 1997; Shapiro, 2017). This article proposes a novel approach for mitigating such polar-ization through means of an expansive mind-set known as the overview effect (White, 2014). The Problem: The Tribes Effect Despite substantial applied research on ways to resolve social conflict (e.g., Coleman, Deutsch, & Marcus, 2014; Sherif, 1958), additional scholarship is needed on how to address its relational dimensions (Shapiro, 2010). Consider social identity theory (SIT), one of the most widespread frameworks for understanding intergroup conflict (Tajfel & Turner, 1986). The unit of analysis in SIT is a broad category—the group—and disputants are assumed to be “in” or “out” of it. But intergroup conflict tends to involve relationships that are emotionally fluid, and the lines of loyalty are not so categorically clear. In Shapiro’s negotiation trainings with Israeli and Palestinian leadership, for example, he has observed participants building complex relations that are simultaneously close and distant, trusting and distrusting, based on factors such as whether the workshop is in the Middle East or in a remote region of Europe; inclusive or exclusive of participants who have shared their life stories; and run during periods of relative calm or political upheaval. To account for these emotional dynamics, Shapiro has developed a model of conflict resolution called relational identity theory (RIT), which proposes that disputants constantly negotiate the perceived nature, quality, and degree of their relationship (Shapiro, 2010). The model identifies two motives that define this identity: affiliation and autonomy. How close do parties feel to one another, and what is their perceived degree of freedom to make decisions without the other’s imposition? RIT suggests that when individuals’ relational identity feels threatened—as is the case in nearly any conflict—they enter a divisive mind-set called the tribes effect (Shapiro, 2017), which bifurcates their perception of identity into an oversimplified ingroup– outgroup distinction: They see their association with the other side as adversarial, they adopt a self-righteous attitude, and they psychologically insulate from others’ conflict narratives. As a result, they are likely to act in ways that are consistent with this binary division of identity even when a collaborative relationship promises a more optimal solution to the conflict (Shapiro, 2010). Thus, this mind-set can undermine standard approaches to conflict resolution, such as interactive problem solving (Kelman, 2008) and interest-based negotiation (Fisher, Ury, & Patton, 2011), which rely on disputants’ sharing needs, listening to each other, and engaging in cooperative problem solving. Influenced by the tribes effect, disputants may go through the motions of joint problem solving without authentically engaging in it. Strategy: Identity Expansion The key to breaking out of the tribes effect is to shift from a myopic conception of identity to an expansive perspective that includes one’s tribal affiliations but also transcends them (see Haslam, 2004). Parties must redefine their identity in the conflict as not purely tribal but also communal, cultivating a broader affiliation that is connective rather than adversarial, compassionate rather than self-righteous, and open to, rather than insulated from, learning new perspectives (Shapiro, 2017). They still may disagree with each other’s way of life, stance on issues, or spiritual beliefs, but they now view each other within the same conception of humanity. In short, they must expand their relational identity in order to be in closer connection even while in objection to each other’s ideas. Three characteristics of identity expansion promote its utility in conflict resolution. First, unlike the tribes effect, which divides parties into independent adversaries (me vs. you), identity expansion links parties within a single cooperative unit (us). Thus, disputants face the conflict, not each other. However, even tactics that appear to build an expansive relational identity may do so to only a limited extent. Consider William Ury’s advice that disputants imagine themselves “going to the balcony” to gain new perspective on their conflict (Ury, 1993, p. 31). The distance from the “balcony” to the “stage” is enough to help parties reconceive of their conflict as being between “me and you”—but not so far as to make their coexistence as a single unit (“us”) entirely salient. The balcony produces distance but not transcendence. Second, identity expansion is most effective when parties emotionally internalize their unified relational identity (Kegan, 1983). Cooperative behavior and mutual influence are more likely when parties negotiate on the basis not of compliance or identification but of unconscious assimilation of interconnection (Kelman, 1958). Finally, identity expansion is most potent when the process for inducing it is generic—useful for anyone in any context. Having a single approach to dealing with a multitude of conflict situations is economical, optimizing cognitive and emotional resources and ensuring a potentially useful tactic for overcoming the tribal mindset. In the next section, we propose the overview effect as a novel approach to shifting relational identity from a tribal to communal mind-set. This perspective emphasizes the “us” over “me vs. you,” is as much experiential as cognitive, and can be used across a variety of contexts. The Overview Effect: A Potent Means of Promoting a Communal Mind-Set Over the past three decades, White has systematically interviewed more than 40 astronauts about their experiences in outer space and has uncovered invaluable data about their experience when viewing Earth from orbit or the moon. He has discovered that when these space travelers return home, they share a profound shift in their view of human relations, experiencing the world’s troubles as secondary to the Earth as a whole and believing that even significant struggles can be resolved through a more holistic perspective. White (2014) named this mind-set the overview effect. Understanding the overview effect as both an intellectual concept and transcendent experience is central to developing an effective protocol for combatting the tribes effect. The astronauts had not adopted a new understanding of their identities through a thought process. No policymaker or social scientist had manipulated their goals or incentive structures. Rather, they had directly experienced Earth from a new vantage point, which shifted the way they viewed their identity as individuals and as part of the human species. In many cases, these astronauts left the Earth with a strong dose of the tribes effect guiding them, because almost all flew as part of national space programs, but they usually returned home with a transcendent view of identity. Apollo 9 astronaut Russell Schweickart underscored the power of identity expansion through his experience, reporting that [the] whole process of what it is you identify with begins to shift. When you go around the Earth in an hour and a half, you begin to recognize that your identity is with that whole thing. That makes a change. You look down there and you can’t imagine how many borders and boundaries you cross, again and again and again, and you don’t even see them. There you are—hundreds of people in the Mideast killing each other over some imaginary line that you’re not even aware of and that you can’t see. (see Schweickart, 1977, p. 9) White’s (2014) research suggests that the overview effect can transform a disputant’s perspective through the power of the experience. Apollo 14 astronaut Edgar Mitchell observed that it is precisely this shift in viewpoint and what it implies for the capability of the human being and for our view of the universe that makes it so powerful. Until the last 20 years, all philosophers, thinkers, scientists, and poets have been Earthbound. They had an Earthbound point of view. Spaceflight is one of the more powerful experiences that humans can have, and the technological event of breaking the bonds of Earth is far more important than the technology that went into it, because of this perspective. (p. 194) Not all astronauts reported experiences matching those of Mitchell’s and Schweickart’s, but all the astronauts whom White interviewed reported a fundamental shift in worldview, and most found that spaceflight had induced a feeling of self-transcendence. Although the overview effect is, on balance, a positive experience, there is a painful aspect to it, because astronauts often feel a contradiction between the beauty of the planet they are seeing from space and their knowledge of the suffering that is taking place on the surface (White, 2014). RIT conveys the same discomfort as the inescapable dialectic between autonomy and affiliation, in which disputants wish for freedom from their counterpart’s influence but realize the necessity of working together to resolve their differences (Shapiro, 2017). But this tension is surmountable. When disputants struggle through conflict, they tend to constrict their conception of identity and resist efforts to expand it, moving toward the tribes effect. The overview effect provides a powerful remedy, fundamentally reorienting the way disputants view conflict and their relation to each other. Creating an Overview Analogue The overview effect offers a powerful possibility for conflict resolution, but it is currently impractical. Sending disputants into orbit is at present difficult and costly. Current prices for private flight are high, only a few passengers are able to fly at once, and conflicting parties locked in the tribes effect are unlikely to have much appetite for the joint flight. Therefore, one must look for “overview analogues”—Earth-based methods of induction into the overview experience (White, 2014, p. 193). There is a wide variety of overview analogues, including the following illustrative examples. First, third parties could organize political mediations in locations that induce the overview experience. The World Economic Forum, for example, hosts its annual summit in the mountains of Davos, creating a sense of distance from the rest of the world. Second, an overview analogue may be induced through what Maslow (1970, p. 19) described as a “peak experience,” such as intense prayer, meditation, or climbing to a mountaintop. In even the most pernicious conflict, a mediator may be able to persuade parties to begin the session with a prayer or wish for the well-being of future generations. Third, with the rapid advance of virtual reality (VR) technology, mediators could consider the nontraditional intervention of meeting separately with each side’s disputants prior to the negotiation and inviting them to use a VR headset to engage in a simulated experience of the overview effect. Fourth, conflict resolution instructors could introduce students to the overview experience through online videos incorporated into the classroom curriculum. Finally, disputants could learn how to regain emotional equilibrium in conflict situations by imagining themselves on the space station looking back at the Earth. The scholarly arena is ripe for additional research on the overview effect as a means for countering the tribal mind-set. For example, researchers can examine similarities and differences between the brain activity of astronauts and nonastronauts in times of conflict. At this point, one can only conjecture that overview analogues are “similar” to the overview effect, because no one has yet conducted rigorous comparison experiments. But researchers can create and test novel overview analogues and evaluate the impact. For example, does showing disputants a 5-min video on the overview effect change conflict behavior? Or does the experience affect behavior only if internalized through VR technology? How might the overview effect be infused into political negotiation processes? Summary This article extends relational identity theory by proposing the overview effect as a means for overcoming the tribes effect. Overview analogues—such as envisioning what Earth looks like via photographs, space movies, and pure imagination—can create unique emotional experiences that have the potential to expand disputants’ relational identity and open new possibilities for conflict resolution. As many astronauts have observed, “We are all in this together.” (1-3)