Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

negotiation. Standards of legitimacy are external, objective criteria — independent
of one’s will or that of the other party — that can be used to persuade others that
one option is more fair than another. Standards might be drawn from common
practice, precedent, or the like. Rather than state “you must concede to our
demands,” a negotiator would offer standards of legitimacy — persuasive to each
negotiator — for choosing one option over another. In the context of EI, standards
of legitimacy might be drawn from religious, cultural, social, or related sources.
Using Gamesmanship
The point of gamesmanship is to “ruffle the feathers” of decisionmakers,
throwing them off guard and making them increasingly willing to yield (Rubin,
Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). Two such tactics include (1) changing or confusing
the tempo of the discussion and (2) fostering a decisionmaker’s feelings of
incompetence, fluster, or personal doubt. In a classic book on gamesmanship,
Potter writes about a tennis player who, after being served two or three aces
running, ties his shoelace in a prolonged manner, blows his nose for an extended
period, and wipes all signs of sweat off his forehead (Potter, 1948). This same
tactic can, of course, be used in complicated negotiations.
The key to gamesmanship is to keep the decisionmaker blind to one’s true
intentions (Potter, 1948). The moment the manipulation becomes transparent,
it becomes much less tactically promising. Thus, Potter wisely advises the
gamesperson to “shield” his or her behavior behind a clear situational rationale. In
the tennis example, the goal would be for the opponent to believe that the change
in his or her fortune was due not to the change in the game’s tempo, but to the
player’s change of racket or a variation in the wind.
Making Threats
Threats are messages about what we intend to do if the other person does not
comply with our demand. The general structure of a threat is: “Unless you do X,
I will hurt you.”
Threats are appealing for several reasons (Rubin, Pruitt, and Kim, 1994). First,
they impose no cost on the party making the threat. Indeed, as Thomas Schelling
pointed out, where brute force may cause resistance in others, the threat of such
force may succeed (1966). Second, threats have been experimentally shown to
work — often better than promises. Experimental evidence suggests that threats
are a credible form of influence (e.g., see Pruitt and Carnevale, 1993; Rubin and
Brown, 1975). Third, a threat can be withdrawn without incurring cost. A person
who withdraws a promise may be looked upon as untrustworthy, but a person who
withdraws a threat can be seen as humane. (In either case, however, judgments
still may be made about the person’s credibility.)
At the same time, threats carry one great risk: the counterthreat. A threat tends
to elicit reciprocal action in the other person. As early as 1960, experimental
research showed that threats lead to increased suspicion, resentment, and dislike,
in turn making counterthreats more likely (Deutsch and Krauss, 1960).
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