Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

first told that A and B have construed the interaction as a zero sum game, where
the gain of one is the loss of the other. For readers who think graphically, this
situation is illustrated by the following graphs. 688
The graph is labeled to represent the perspective of person A. At the
competition point, A gets the whole orange. At A’s accommodation point, B gets
the whole orange. (A’s accommodation point would be B’s competition point if
the graph were labeled from the perspective of B). The orange is split equally
between the two at the compromise point (see dotted lines showing how much of
the orange goes to A and how much to B).
To illustrate the meaning of the collaboration point, the story changes to
illustrate that two people may not actually want exactly the same thing. We are
now told that A in fact wanted the orange peel for a cake, and B wanted the
juice of the orange; therefore, both could get all of what they wanted once they
dropped their positions and discovered their real “interests.” In negotiation theory
the word “interests” has come to mean the whole set of tangibles and intangibles
that an individual actually wants in an interaction. Interests are both short-term
and long-term in nature, and they may also change in the course of a negotiation.
It is rare for two sides to consider only “one and the same” interest, so there is
often room for some degree of collaboration. Collaboration may work for both,
whether they like each other or not.
Tangibles
Negotiation strategies are often wrongly presumed to be only about “tangible
things” of value, often discussed as a “pie.” (Will I try to take the whole pie Can
I expand the pie by finding things in addition to the pie on the table — things that
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The first and second graphs which follow are adapted from the work of Kenneth W. Thomas,
“Conflict and Conflict Management,” in the Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology,
ed. Marvin Dunnette (Chicago: Rand McNally, 1976). The specific construction of these graphs and
the adaptation included as the third graph are the work of the present author. The seminal work on
strategies in negotiations that underlies the presentation in this paper is that of R.E. Walton and R.B.
McKersie, A Behavioral Theory of Labor Negotiations: An Analysis of a Social Interaction System
(New York: McGraw-Hill, 1965).
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