About News Why So Many Young People Don’t Vote – And How to Change That Fridays at Batten: When Less is More in Decision-Making Jan 27, 2023 | 11:30 am Great Hall Register In this FAB, held in partnership with the School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Professors Leidy Klotz (Engineering & Applied Sciences), Gabe Adams and Ben Converse (Frank Batten School of Leadership & Public Policy) share insights on what we can learn, and how we can make better decisions by subtracting, rather than adding things to our to-do lists. This event will be held alongside a student read-along of the accompanying book. All Fridays at Batten ("FAB") events are held at 11:30 am in the Great Hall of Garrett Hall and lunch is provided. Registration is encouraged. Gabrielle Adams Gabrielle Adams is an associate professor of public policy and business administration at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and in the Darden School of Business’s Leadership and Organizational Behavior area. Adams studies the processes and dynamics that give rise to ‘good’ decisions, policies and conditions in organizations. Read full bio Benjamin Converse Benjamin Converse is an associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on motivation, social judgment, problem solving and decision making. He teaches courses related to leadership and negotiations. Read full bio Leidy Klotz Leidy Klotz is filling in underexplored overlaps between engineering and behavioral science, in pursuit of more sustainable systems. He has published over 80 peer-reviewed articles in venues that include top academic journals in built environment engineering, engineering education, and design, as well as both Science and Nature. Nationally recognized as one of 40-under-40 professors who inspire, Klotz has received multiple institution-level teaching awards for his classes and close work with undergraduates, eleven of whom have earned Graduate Research Fellowships from the National Science Foundation. He was an early adopter of massive open online courses. One is currently offered through Coursera and has reached tens of thousands of learners around the world. Another, on Sustainable Energy Innovation, led to real projects on at least three continents. Klotz also advises influential decision-makers that straddle academia and practice, working with the Departments of Energy and Homeland Security, the National Institutes of Health, the World Bank, Resources for the Future, Evidn., and ideas42, among others. Klotz has built a research-to-practice community around his scholarship. To support this interdisciplinary work, Klotz has been awarded over $10,000,000 in competitive research funding, including a CAREER award from the National Science Foundation, as well as one of the very first awards through the NSF’s INSPIRE program. At the University of Virginia, he co-founded and co-directs the Convergent Behavioral Science Initiative, which brings together scholars from the Schools of Engineering, Architecture, Policy, Education, and Business, as well as the College of Arts and Sciences; in order to engage and support dozens of faculty and students doing applied, interdisciplinary research. At the international scale, Klotz co-chaired an expert panel for the journal Nature Sustainability. In this role, he brought together scholars, funders, and practitioners in order to continue advancing behavioral science for design. He’s advised 21 Ph.D. students, and his former advisees now hold influential positions in industry and academia including at: The University of Washington, Virginia Tech, Purdue University, Colorado State University, The University of San Diego, The University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and The University of Florida. Klotz's scholarship benefits from diversity and inclusion. More than three quarters of his advisees are from groups underrepresented in their respective fields. Klotz has written for venues such as The Washington Post, Fast Company, HBR, The Daily Climate, Inside Higher Ed, The Behavioral Scientist, and ASEE Prism. His first scholarly book was, Sustainability Through Soccer: An Unexpected Approach to Saving Our World. (Before his academic career, Klotz was a professional soccer player.) Upcoming Events Related Content Gabrielle Adams The “Equal-Opportunity Jerk” Defense: Rudeness Can Obfuscate Gender Bias Research In this research, we identified a barrier that makes sexism hard to recognize: rudeness toward men. We found that observers judge a sexist perpetrator as less sexist if he is rude toward men. Anger Damns the Innocent Research False accusations permeate social life—from the mundane blaming of other people to more serious accusations of infidelity and workplace wrongdoing. Importantly, false accusations can have grave consequences, including broken relationships, job loss, and reputational damage. In this article, we document an equally pernicious phenomenon—the misuse of anger as a cue to predict whether a suspect has been falsely accused. Meeting Overload Is a Fixable Problem News Batten School professor Gabe Adams spoke with American Talk about the benefits of adopting a subtraction mindset and how to get it done. When Less is More: How Harnessing the Power of Subtraction Can Add to Life News There’s a lot of thought that goes into adding things to our routines, our closets, our lives. But how much thought goes into subtracting things? Not enough, according to three University of Virginia professors. Benjamin Converse Better Sharing of “Eco-Innovations” Can Combat Rising Climate Despair Research Climate despair is emerging as a psychosocial threat. Ben Converse, associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Batten School, along with Batten post-doc Maura Austin and other UVA researchers, have found a potential source of hope that is underutilized. People systematically overlook subtractive changes Research A series of problem-solving experiments reveal that people are more likely to consider solutions that add features than solutions that remove them, even when removing features is more efficient. New Research: Sharing "Eco-Innovations" Can Ease Climate Despair News Climate despair is emerging as a psychosocial threat. Ben Converse, associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Batten School, and other UVA researchers have found a potential source of hope that is underutilized. When Less is More: How Harnessing the Power of Subtraction Can Add to Life News There’s a lot of thought that goes into adding things to our routines, our closets, our lives. But how much thought goes into subtracting things? Not enough, according to three University of Virginia professors. Stay Up To Date with the Latest Batten News and Events Subscribe
Gabrielle Adams Gabrielle Adams is an associate professor of public policy and business administration at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and in the Darden School of Business’s Leadership and Organizational Behavior area. Adams studies the processes and dynamics that give rise to ‘good’ decisions, policies and conditions in organizations. Read full bio
Benjamin Converse Benjamin Converse is an associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy and the Department of Psychology. His research focuses on motivation, social judgment, problem solving and decision making. He teaches courses related to leadership and negotiations. Read full bio
The “Equal-Opportunity Jerk” Defense: Rudeness Can Obfuscate Gender Bias Research In this research, we identified a barrier that makes sexism hard to recognize: rudeness toward men. We found that observers judge a sexist perpetrator as less sexist if he is rude toward men.
Anger Damns the Innocent Research False accusations permeate social life—from the mundane blaming of other people to more serious accusations of infidelity and workplace wrongdoing. Importantly, false accusations can have grave consequences, including broken relationships, job loss, and reputational damage. In this article, we document an equally pernicious phenomenon—the misuse of anger as a cue to predict whether a suspect has been falsely accused.
Meeting Overload Is a Fixable Problem News Batten School professor Gabe Adams spoke with American Talk about the benefits of adopting a subtraction mindset and how to get it done.
When Less is More: How Harnessing the Power of Subtraction Can Add to Life News There’s a lot of thought that goes into adding things to our routines, our closets, our lives. But how much thought goes into subtracting things? Not enough, according to three University of Virginia professors.
Better Sharing of “Eco-Innovations” Can Combat Rising Climate Despair Research Climate despair is emerging as a psychosocial threat. Ben Converse, associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Batten School, along with Batten post-doc Maura Austin and other UVA researchers, have found a potential source of hope that is underutilized.
People systematically overlook subtractive changes Research A series of problem-solving experiments reveal that people are more likely to consider solutions that add features than solutions that remove them, even when removing features is more efficient.
New Research: Sharing "Eco-Innovations" Can Ease Climate Despair News Climate despair is emerging as a psychosocial threat. Ben Converse, associate professor of public policy and psychology at the Batten School, and other UVA researchers have found a potential source of hope that is underutilized.
When Less is More: How Harnessing the Power of Subtraction Can Add to Life News There’s a lot of thought that goes into adding things to our routines, our closets, our lives. But how much thought goes into subtracting things? Not enough, according to three University of Virginia professors.