Just Court ADR

A recent study out of Columbia University suggests that nice mediators finish last. Inspired by the familiar trope of bickering siblings setting aside their differences to unite against a stern parent, researcher Ting Zhang created simulations in which student participants attempted to reach resolution using text-based chatrooms. Zhang added a further twist to the experiment by introducing computerized participants and/or mediators in some of the sessions (though all participants were told they were interacting with other humans). The participating students were randomly assigned a hostile mediator, a neutral mediator or a nice mediator. Across all of these different scenarios, however, the data showed that agreement was more likely when the participants teamed up against a hostile mediator, and that the quality of the agreements reached was similar to those reached with a nice mediator. (more…)