Escalation-Limiting Language


When people are in conflict, they often say things that inflame the conflict more than they intended to. Two project participants, Suzanne Ghais and Roy Lewicki, talk about ways such inadvertent escalation can be avoided by using language carefully.

Suzanne Ghais talks about ways to help parties to discuss the past without getting caught up cycles of blame.

What's an "extremist?" Roy Lewicki discusses how language can make a conflict better or worse.

Calling the other side names contributes to hostility between the sides, as described here by Roy Lewicki in an environmental case.
This rough transcript provides a text alternative to audio. We apologize for occasional errors and unintelligible sections (which are marked with ???).
Beyond Intractability Version II
Copyright © 2003-2006 The Beyond Intractability Project
Beyond Intractability is a Registered Trademark of the University of Colorado
Project Acknowledgements

The Beyond Intractability Knowledge Base Project
Guy Burgess and Heidi Burgess, Co-Directors and Editors
c/o Conflict Research Consortium, University of Colorado
Campus Box 580, Boulder, CO 80309
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