Mirror Neurons & Mediation Advice
At the Works-in-Progress conference this past week at Arizona State University (great job, Art!), I had the pleasure of hearing from Professor Scott Hughes on his latest work on mirror neurons. I have blogged about mirror neurons before and their impact on people. It explains things from why Harley rides are pleasurable to why Starbucks runs smoothly.
Scott took the next step regarding dispute resolution and discussed how the latest findings in neurobiology can help mediators be more effective. If the goal of the mediator is to build the relationship and trust with the parties, then, Scott argues, mirroring the physical movements and the emotions of the parties can help do this. As many of us noted, we already “know” this when we teach mediator skills. We talk about “modeling” the behavior of the parties and watching body language.