Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

The Pareto Curve. Source: Roger Fisher and Bruce Patton, “The Pareto Frontier,”
in Workbook for the Program of Instruction for Lawyers at Harvard Law School
(Cambridge, MA: Harvard Negotiation Project, 2006), 36.
Despite these insights of economists and game theoreticians, negotiators
might persist and ask (with good reason): Why care about the other’s interests
There are several reasons:
1. A focus on mutual gains increases the incentive to cooperate (Fisher and
Shapiro, 2005). Parties will be less likely to cooperate if they do not see
it as being in their interest to cooperate: why help the enemy
2. Mutual gains increase the likelihood that future interactions will be
constructive (Axelrod, 1984). Parties will be less likely to cooperate in
the future if they have memories of feeling deceived or mistreated by the
other party.
3. An adversarial stance makes stalemate more likely. If parties assume that
the conflict is a win-lose situation, each is likely to stick to a position.
As egos and negative emotions become increasingly involved, stalemate
becomes a likely and stable outcome (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994).
4. “Mutual gains” does not mean giving in to the demands of the other side.
Pareto-optimal outcomes do not focus on each party’s stated position,
such as whether or not to give information, but on underlying interests,
such as why the source does not want to give information.
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