Comparing third party intervention to visualization, a number of criteria or requirements of the intended visualization come to the surface. We start from McGrath & Kravitz (Group Research, Annual Review of Psychology, Vol. 33: 195-230, Volume publication date February 1982) wo use McGrath’s Task Circumplex (see also this post), and zoom into the segment of Interest conflict tasks, aka Mixed-motive tasks.
a) research on bargaining an negotiation – within this area 6 categories are mentioned: (1) work on organizational differences such as gender, orientation along a cooperative-competitive dimension and personality; (2) on aspects of the bargaining situation such as payoffs and the availability of alternatives; (3) the effects of social relationship with the opponent {gap in literature}; (4) on dealing with significant third parties
Rubin (1980) presents a summary of research on third party intervention, organized around three themes:
(a) third parties help concession making without loss of fase {a characteristic shared with visualizations, see Eppler 2011}”;
(b) traditional intervention techniques work under low conflict, but may backfire under high conflict conditions {interactive visualization techniques cannot be called traditional. How do visual interventions stand out in a situation of strong conflict?};
(c) third party intervention is often an unwanted intrusion, and the parties will settle to prevent it if they can {so, exactly how can visualization enable from within? It should be simple/low-thresshold and thereby self-enabling/self-reflecting}.
; (5) effects of situational factors and (6) bargaining strategies and tactics.
b) research on dilemmas – on prisonner’s dilemma, related 2-person games, N-person dilemma games {and perhaps also iterative dilemma games}, social traps and public goods games {see also this post}.
c) research on coalition formation – concentration on process or outcome, on indices for evaluating the fit of a coalition, on a range of conditions (minimum power theory, minimum resources theory, bargaining theory, weighted probability theory, and equal excess theory), on factors affecting coalitions in veto games, and more: the use of formal mathematical models and decision theory, of multivalued games, of compared effects of different sources of power.
Concluding that research suggests there is no ‘one true theory’, and underlines the importance of pinning down the range of conditions.
All of the above is labeled ‘groups as task performance systems’. On order for a complete perspective on the McGrath publication, a short summary of another label: ‘groups as systems for structuring social interaction’.
i) patterning of interaction: the communication process – about morphology (patterns of participation among members and over time, i.e. self monitoring and cognitive load); nonverbal aspects of interaction patterning (cues i.e. eye contact, ‘proxemic’ variables); pattern and strategies in verbal communication (i.e. style differences)
ii) content of interpersonal interaction: the acquaintance process – about studies of interpersonal attraction; intimacy, reciprocity and self disclosure; privacy and social penetration
iii) outcomes of interaction: the influence proces – about allocation of rewards; influences on members’ attitudes and behavior; effects of group interaction on attitudes toward the group (ingroup bias); long run relations among members.
