My understand of conflict theory is that proponents consider the situation in question to be a conflict where there are different people who have opposing interests, whereas for mistake theory, proponents consider the situation in question to be a cooperation where everyone agrees that there is a problem in a shared goal and there’s just uncertainty about the appropriate solution.
Right, I think it is another way to distinguish between believing in zero-sum and believing in positive sum games, no?
I suspect that this framework is not well suited for analyzing the traffic stop issue. At least I do not think the reasoning you describe is sufficiently common… A non-corrupt cop just follows the rules without thinking about the size of the pie, while a corrupt cop sees their position as an opportunity to grab some extra piece from someone else’s pie… which can be interpreted from either perspective, without providing any useful insight. Basically, this is not a nail, so using a hammer is not a great approach.
Right, I think it is another way to distinguish between believing in zero-sum and believing in positive sum games, no?
No. While zero-sum games is one way that people can be in conflict, they are not the only way:
Zero-sum games are just one example of a broader class of (game-theoretically equivalent) Pareto-frontier games, where one person’s benefit is another person’s loss, but where in the general case one person may benefit more than the other loses. (For instance, some might analyze the traffic case as a Pareto-frontier game, where the loss due to crashes is worse than whatever gain the driver might get from driving fast.)
Even if there globally is opportunity for Pareto improvements, locally one may be in a setting where there is no system to cooperate to achieve these improvements, and there is insufficient trust to negotiate to achieve them. In such a case there may be conflict and local opposing interests, even if there would be gain for deescalating the conflict and finding ways to help everyone.
In order for it to make sense to analyze others as being basically honest and merely making a mistake when they disagree, it would have to be that people aren’t intentionally trying to work against each other’s interests.
Right, I think it is another way to distinguish between believing in zero-sum and believing in positive sum games, no?
I suspect that this framework is not well suited for analyzing the traffic stop issue. At least I do not think the reasoning you describe is sufficiently common… A non-corrupt cop just follows the rules without thinking about the size of the pie, while a corrupt cop sees their position as an opportunity to grab some extra piece from someone else’s pie… which can be interpreted from either perspective, without providing any useful insight. Basically, this is not a nail, so using a hammer is not a great approach.
No. While zero-sum games is one way that people can be in conflict, they are not the only way:
Zero-sum games are just one example of a broader class of (game-theoretically equivalent) Pareto-frontier games, where one person’s benefit is another person’s loss, but where in the general case one person may benefit more than the other loses. (For instance, some might analyze the traffic case as a Pareto-frontier game, where the loss due to crashes is worse than whatever gain the driver might get from driving fast.)
Even if there globally is opportunity for Pareto improvements, locally one may be in a setting where there is no system to cooperate to achieve these improvements, and there is insufficient trust to negotiate to achieve them. In such a case there may be conflict and local opposing interests, even if there would be gain for deescalating the conflict and finding ways to help everyone.
In order for it to make sense to analyze others as being basically honest and merely making a mistake when they disagree, it would have to be that people aren’t intentionally trying to work against each other’s interests.