Diplomacy and psychology: Psychological contributions to international negotiations, conflict prevention, and world peace

Psychological science has the potential to contribute to international dipl omacy, and thereby indirectly to the prevention of conflicts between and wi thin states that may escalate to wars. In this introduction of the Special Issue on Diplomacy and Psychology, different varieties of diplomacy are fir st briefly introduced. Then follows an enumeration of areas of psychologica l research that show the greatest promise of being directly or indirectly r elevant to diplomacy. These research areas include judgement and decision m aking in negotiations and social dilemmas, social justice, intergroup confl icts, and intercultural processes. An additional area is research on enviro nmental policy making, whose important role needs to be better recognized i n international diplomacy. Overviews are also given of the articles include d in the Special Issue.