conflict resolution: giving incentives vs. being honest about boundaries

[fiftyeight]

The title is probably pretty obscure, so I'll clarify what is meant.

 

I have in mind the type of conflicts in which one partner does something wrong and has the choice whether the tell the other partner.

 

Take for example cheating, say A is cheating on B. cynically speaking, A has no incentive to tell B that he is cheating on him. As if A tells B, B might leave him, and A doesn't want that.

Then how can B act pre-emptively to make sure A is not cheating?

Say B wants to levae the relationship if A cheats, i.e B does not tolerate cheating at all.

 

One possibility is that B tells A that as long as A is honest, B will not be angry. Or perhaps just say that honesty is most important and saying cheating does hurt, but not specify it is a tiebreaker.

Intuitively, this will make A more probable to tell B.

So B is more probable to know about the cheating and have the possibility of leaving the relationship.

 

Another possibility seems that B just tells A he will leave if A cheats. But then again, A has a very strong incentive to hide it.

 

This story may seem a bit funny, and perhaps I am a cynical person, but I have a tendency to think people will mostly act on their incentives and so giving them the right incentives is a smart thing to do.

 

In the example above, B being honest might actually not be in his best favor, because it gives A a strong incentive to hide it if he's cheating.

 

I am thinking just of the general case, the scenario is A did something wrong and has a choice whether to tell B or not. If he doesn't, B will never know.

And say for B this wrongdoing is a red line that should not be crossed, to the point of leaving A.

Should B just tell A it is a red line for him, or should he leave it vague and just tell A that it would hurt him, but honesty is the most important thing to him. So as to facilitate honesty on A's side.

 

This is kind of an exercise in game theory I guess

 

I am aware that real life is not game theory, and people have a conscience. I know I would not be able to cheat or lie to someone I love. But I am not such a trusting person I guess, and I want to try to facilitate as much honesty as possible from the other person in any relationship I have.

This is especially relevant to the beginning of a relationship I guess, when you do not have that much trust yet.

[Got it]

I think because people understand that someone making a blanket statement of "if x then y" will vary based on the specific facts that no amount of reassuring is going to get convince someone that you will abide by the stance.

 

And also, even if the other person doesn't care about saving their own skin, they may refuse to tell just so not to see and feel the hurt of the other person. They don't want to see the person in pain so conflict avoids to not have to deal with it or to keep pushing it off with the hope they will never have to deal with it.

[MissBee]

All that made my head hurt to be honest.

 

Why isn't the incentive more about the incentive to NOT cheat versus an incentive to tell/be honest if you do? I guess for me the cheating occurring is already a problem and one doesn't necessarily win extra points for admitting it.

 

But I know that's just one example. For me: I'm honest upfront about what my boundaries are. You choose to freely abide by them or not. I don't spend a lot of time calculating how I can get people to do what I want or tell me the truth. Maybe as a parent this kind of mentality is more useful, i.e. how to get your kids to be honest based on incentives...but in terms of equal adult relationships I don't think of it like that. I also feel like I'll find out sooner or later about wayward behavior so I really don't spend much time thinking preemptively about how to get the truth from someone.