8125

• UCREFRP Catalog Number: 8125
• Author: Moore, C. W.
• Title: Editor
• USFW Year: Series
• USFW - Doc Type: 1986
• Copyright Material: YES

How Mediation Works 29
based on one theory do not work, the intervenor may shift to
another theory and begin trial-and--error testing again. The cycle
of hypothesis building and testing is the basic process of inter-
vention and conflict resolution (see Figure 3).
Figure 3. Mediator Process of Building and Testing a Hypothesis.
2. Develop a hypothesis about 3. Search for theories that
the critical situations faced by explain the conflict and
parties and causes of the conflict that suggest interventions
1. Collect data about dispute by 4. Select a theory and implied
intervention; develop a
observation, secondary sources, hypothesis about what the
or interviews with parties intervention should
accomplish
6. Verify or nullify the 5. Make an intervention
hypothesis (test the hypothesis)
The Stages of Mediation
One of the broadest spheres of mediator hypothesis
building occurs in -the process of conceptualizing the stages of
mediation and designing appropriate interventions based on the
stage of development that a particular dispute has reached.
The stages of mediation are often difficult to identify.
Mediator and negotiator moves seem to blend together into an
undifferentiated continuum of interaction. Only through care-
ful observation of negotiations and mediated interventions can