<< Back to Faculty Benjamin Converse Associate Professor of Public Policy and Psychology Education & Training Ph.D., Managerial and Organizational Behavior, University of Chicago, Booth School of Business (Center for Decision Research), 2010 B.A., Psychological and Brain Sciences, High Honors, Dartmouth College, 2004 434-243-2885 converse@virginia.edu Garrett L001 Curriculum Vitae Research Website Courses taught Psychology for Leadership Strategies and Processes of Negotiation The Science of Self-Regulation and Decision Making Areas of focus Social Psychology I am an associate professor of public policy and psychology, with appointments in the Frank Batten School of Leadership and Public Policy, and the Department of Psychology. I study social psychology and the psychology of judgment and decision making. I investigate basic psychological processes – such as motivation, social judgment, and inferences about others’ mental states – that have critical implications for management, leadership, and policy. Much of my work focuses on the question of how people achieve personal and group goals in a social world. With my lab group, the Social Behavior and Decisions Lab, and other collaborators, I am investigating questions such as: How do social judgments and evaluations change when people view collaborative efforts as a means to achievement versus as goals in themselves? How do the achievements of individuals’ groups affect their personal goal pursuit? How do people get beyond their own psychological perspectives to infer others’ thoughts, feelings, and opinions about the world? When and how can social exchange occur effectively and efficiently? We are particularly concerned with how individual thought processes lead to decisions and behaviors that promote or undermine stable social systems. Research areas: social judgment, motivation and self-regulation, social exchange, perspective taking, and decision making. Next Week, Next Month, Next Year: How Perceived Temporal Boundaries Affect Initiation Expectations Research To move from commitment to action, planners must think about the future and decide when to initiate. We demonstrate that planners prefer to initiate on upcoming days that immediately follow a temporal boundary. Slow Motion Increased Perceived Intent Research To determine the appropriate punishment for a harmful action, people must often make inferences about the transgressor’s intent. In courtrooms and popular media, such inferences increasingly rely on video evidence, which is often played in “slow motion.” Jump-starting early childhood education at home: Early learning, parent motivation, and public policy. Research By the time children begin formal schooling, their experiences at home have already contributed to large variations in their math and language development, and once school begins, academic achievement continues to depend strongly on influences outside of school. It is thus essential that educational reform strategies involve primary caregivers. On Rivalry and Goal Pursuit: Shared Competitive History, Legacy Concerns, and Strategy Selection Research Seven studies converge to show that prompting people to think about a rival versus a nonrival competitor causes them to view current competitions as more connected to past ones, to be more concerned with long-term legacy, and to pursue personal goals in a more eager, less cautious manner. These results are consistent with a social–cognitive view of rivalry that defines it as a competitive relational schema. Investing in Karma: When Wanting Promotes Helping Research People often face outcomes of important events that are beyond their personal control, such as when they wait for an acceptance letter, job offer, or medical test results. We suggest that when wanting and uncertainty are high and personal control is lacking, people may be more likely to help others, as if they can encourage fate’s favor by doing good deeds proactively. Instrumentality boosts appreciation: Helpers are more appreciated while they are useful Research We propose that in social interactions, appreciation depends on the helper’s instrumentality: The more motivated one is to accomplish a goal and the more one perceives a potential helper as able to facilitate that goal, the more appreciation one will feel for that helper. Three experiments support this instrumentality-boost hypothesis by showing that beneficiaries feel more appreciation for their helpers while they are receiving help toward an ongoing task than after that task has been completed or after the helper has been deemed no longer instrumental. Identifying and counteracting temptations Research You’re having fun when time flies: The hedonic consequences of subjective time progression Research View All
Next Week, Next Month, Next Year: How Perceived Temporal Boundaries Affect Initiation Expectations Research To move from commitment to action, planners must think about the future and decide when to initiate. We demonstrate that planners prefer to initiate on upcoming days that immediately follow a temporal boundary.
Slow Motion Increased Perceived Intent Research To determine the appropriate punishment for a harmful action, people must often make inferences about the transgressor’s intent. In courtrooms and popular media, such inferences increasingly rely on video evidence, which is often played in “slow motion.”
Jump-starting early childhood education at home: Early learning, parent motivation, and public policy. Research By the time children begin formal schooling, their experiences at home have already contributed to large variations in their math and language development, and once school begins, academic achievement continues to depend strongly on influences outside of school. It is thus essential that educational reform strategies involve primary caregivers.
On Rivalry and Goal Pursuit: Shared Competitive History, Legacy Concerns, and Strategy Selection Research Seven studies converge to show that prompting people to think about a rival versus a nonrival competitor causes them to view current competitions as more connected to past ones, to be more concerned with long-term legacy, and to pursue personal goals in a more eager, less cautious manner. These results are consistent with a social–cognitive view of rivalry that defines it as a competitive relational schema.
Investing in Karma: When Wanting Promotes Helping Research People often face outcomes of important events that are beyond their personal control, such as when they wait for an acceptance letter, job offer, or medical test results. We suggest that when wanting and uncertainty are high and personal control is lacking, people may be more likely to help others, as if they can encourage fate’s favor by doing good deeds proactively.
Instrumentality boosts appreciation: Helpers are more appreciated while they are useful Research We propose that in social interactions, appreciation depends on the helper’s instrumentality: The more motivated one is to accomplish a goal and the more one perceives a potential helper as able to facilitate that goal, the more appreciation one will feel for that helper. Three experiments support this instrumentality-boost hypothesis by showing that beneficiaries feel more appreciation for their helpers while they are receiving help toward an ongoing task than after that task has been completed or after the helper has been deemed no longer instrumental.
