Improving Mediators Decision Making by Becoming Cognitively Skilled: Why Systemic Reflection is Critical for Gaining Consciousness of the Unconscious

Abstract

Drawing on abundant research on decision-making, expertise and cognitive psychology, I propose that in the dynamic, fast-paced and often uncertain circumstances of mediation, automatic intuitive decisions dominate mediators’ decisions. Although faulty at times, automatic decisions could also be of high quality and gradually improve. Research shows that experts can improve the quality of automatic intuitive judgments. Considering the interplay between conscious and unconscious cognitive processing, I propose that the quality of mediators’ automatic judgments can improve by intense conscious reflection. It would especially benefit a wider, complex range of intangible goals such as social-psychological that have been typically overlooked. The formation of cognitive processing underpinning unconscious automatic decisions are reviewed to support these propositions and to show that learning and conscious activities play a decisive role in shaping automatic decisions. To reinforce the argument for the necessity of continuous professional development, two necessary conditions for evaluating the quality intuitive judgments are presented: 1) An environment that provides constant exposure to regularly repeated cues, and 2) sufficient opportunities for learning the environment. Discussing examples from an observational study conducted in a psychology laboratory on mediators, who mediated a simulated conflict in a psychology laboratory, provides additional support for the importance of reflective, professional development. Since no empirical study on the effectiveness of reflective processing was found in mediation, I also draw from research in other fields such as management and medicine to show that systematic intense reflection supports forming complex domain schema and subsequently improves the quality of automatic judgments. An example of reflective protocol I developed is found in the Appendix.