UVA Batten hosted the “Annual Behavioral Science Across Grounds Conference” last week, bringing some of the brightest minds of UVA’s research community to Garrett Hall to exchange ideas, interests and insights.

In a blend of six “data blitz talks” and four longer discussion sessions, presenters explored topics including social power, forming friendships, structural racism, healthcare disparities, critical consciousness, mascot names and AI.

Batten Dean Ian H. Solomon set the tone for the conference in his opening remarks. Behavioral science has the power to yield tremendous positive impacts in society, but also potentially to do harm, he said, so the need for wider and more inclusive conversation around key issues is critical.

“Conferences and convenings like this are important because they force us out of our singular and sometimes narrow questions to consider the broader implications and the interactions across our work,” he told the roughly 40 attendees.  

This is especially true now with the eruption of AI and big data into almost every aspect of human life, he said. “Whether we will be saved by the algorithms or destroyed by them is an important question for behavioral science.”

The conference series, now in its fourth year, is organized by Gabrielle Adams, a joint faculty member in Batten and in the Darden School of Business; Jazmin Brown-Iannuzzi, associate professor in psychology and public policy; and Tim Wilson, Sherrell J. Aston Professor Emeritus of Psychology at UVA.  The conference brings together faculty from fields as varied as psychology, marketing, leadership, education, civil engineering, medicine, architecture, public health, data science, and philosophy.

UVA Batten associate professor Benjamin Converse gave the keynote address, titled “Table Manners,” about doing impactful research, scholarship that stretches beyond basic study – something he described as having a seat at the table.

He shared his experience of the last couple years working on a committee of the National Academies of Science with a “definitively interdisciplinary group of scholars — climatologists, engineers, hydrologists, someone who called herself an ice-cubologist, and three social scientists.”  In listening to those discussions, Converse said he realized the benefit of being multi-lingual in terms of the language, assumptions and jargon of other disciplines.

Having a better understanding of what others are doing and why provides researchers the tools to ask more important questions and pursue better methodologies, he said. “Instead of just repeating your message that social psychology says ‘X,’ it’s trying to understand what the political theorist is saying, what the economist is saying. That makes it more likely that you’ll get invited to the table.”

Converse said the scholars at last week’s conference were excited to be there and hear what their colleagues were up to in their research.

“If we had just one behavioral science department at UVA it would be massive and it would be considered amazing. There’s just so many creative, thoughtful people here.”

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