The human mind as a barrier to wiser environmental agreements

Human ingenuity offers the best hope for tackling a whole range of environm ental problems currently threatening global welfare, yet the human mind als o creates cognitive barriers to wise environmental agreements. In this arti cle, the authors focus on a set of six systematic cognitive barriers that a re particularly endemic to environmental disputes. The fixed-pie bias grows from the assumption that disputants' interests are perfectly opposed This mythical fixed pie inhibits the discovery of beneficial trade-offs that int egrate parties' interests. The authors also discuss five other cognitive bi ases that combine with the fixed-pie assumption to influence the resolution of disputes in the environmental domain: pseudosacredness, ego-centrism, o verconfidence, unrealistic optimism, and endowment effects. They discuss th e potential role of learning and experience in improving negotiator perform ance and conclude with prescriptive advice for overcoming these cognitive b arriers.