Some values are treated as outside exchange, so offering material compensation for them reduces willingness to settle rather than increasing it.
Tetlock's work on taboo trade-offs found that even considering a monetary offer for a sacred value produces moral outrage and a need to cleanse the association. Atran's field research in intractable conflicts found the same: adding material sweeteners to a deal involving a sacred value made agreement less likely. The finding overturns the standard negotiating assumption that more on the table helps.
In practice
- A community offered money to accept a facility becomes more opposed than one offered nothing.
- A dispute over recognition is not resolved by improving the financial terms, and is often worsened by them.