Social influence and conflict resolution

¶ … Social Influence Can Undermine the Wisdom of Crowd Effect" by Lorenz and colleagues (2010) demonstrates how social context can really have a strong influence on the way in which social groups can sway the way in which conflict is perceived. This article demonstrates how even the mildest social influence can undermine the wisdom of a crowd in simple estimation activities (Lorenz et al., 2010). In this experiment, participants were given the option of reconsidering their responses to certain factual questions after they were given the general consensus of the responses of their peers (Lorenz et al., 2010). The researchers would then compare the convergence of estimates of each subject with the improvements in overall accuracy over a period of time in comparison with control conditions where no other info was provided (Lorenz et al., 2010). Ultimately, what the researchers found was that "Although groups are initially 'wise,' knowledge about estimates of others narrow the diversity of opinions to such an extent that it undermines the wisdom of crowd effect in three different ways. The 'social influence effect' diminishes the diversity of the crowd without improvements of its collective error. The 'range reduction effect' moves the position of the truth to peripheral regions of the range of estimates so that the crowd becomes less reliable in providing expertise for external observers" (Lorenz et al., 2010). Likewise, the confidence effect is something which can increase the level of perceived confidence of a particular individual or a group after there's a perceived convergence of estimates even though there's an absence of bettered accuracy (Lorenz et al., 2010).

Another benefit of this research is that it can extend from misled academics and other elites to victims and players within the financial crisis of the last few years (Lorenz et al., 2010). Within this research it was found that social influence has a truly massive impact on how conflict is perceived and that generally conflict will be perceived as the majority views it. Just as social influence can have an impact on how individuals view the likelihood or perceived benefit of an event, this same influence can fundamentally color the viewpoint through which they perceive conflict. Individuals can see the conflict as positive or negative or ultimately beneficial or destructive, depending on the general consensus of the majority.

From a wildly different perspective, the research article, "Complexities of conflict: the importance of considering social factors for effectively resolving human -- wildlife conflict" by Dickman (2010), looks at how the social impacts of conflict can either exacerbate or mollify the issue of human-wildlife conflict. This research also examines the ways that this type of conflict manifests is one of the most increasing drivers of what causes the survival or lack of survival of these populations. While some researchers say that the social impact of direct wildlife damage is the sole reason for conflict in this sense, others say that this is not the case. This is a result of the fact that "…significant conflict often remains even after damage has been reduced, suggesting that conflict requires novel, comprehensive approaches for long-term resolution. Although most mitigation studies investigate only the technical aspects of conflict reduction, peoples' attitudes towards wildlife are complex, with social factors as diverse as religious affiliation, ethnicity and cultural beliefs all shaping conflict intensity" (Dickman, 2010).

These factors are important to take note of because human-wildlife conflicts are often manifestations of human to human conflicts, such as ones which exist between the police and the locals or between people of different cultural backgrounds (Dickman, 2010). These social factors are too often ignored in most common conflict studies, as too many researchers believe that there's no connection between the rapport between humans and wildlife and the rapport between humans and other humans. "Developing a broader awareness of conflict drivers will advance understanding of the patterns and underlying processes behind this critical conservation issue" (Dickman, 2010). Ultimately, this research demonstrates that how human beings view the social factors which influence conflict can impact how these same humans view the conflict (Dickman, 2010). The mitigation approaches should become more and more innovative and rely on a range of disciplines so that people can be moved to emerge from conflict to coexistence and to higher levels of peace and contentment (Dickman, 2010).