Parties' respective share of responsibility in a conflict is a topic that many mediators have difficulty approaching from fear of radicalizing discussions. The present paper aims to propose a strategy to help mediators facilitate parties' acknowledgement of their role in the escalation of a conflict.
The strategy is tested using a quasi‐experimental design using real case mediation in partnership with Commission des normes du travail du Québec (CNT).
The results indicate that it has a significant impact on the parties' acknowledgement of their share of responsibility, reconciliation and the settlement rate.
Although the research design has good external validity, the strategy should be tested in other settings such as family mediation.
The results show that the parties' perceptions that they played no role in conflict escalation and that the other is responsible for the whole situation are at the heart of any conflict.
This study empirically tests an interesting and valuable approach to mediation.
