What do Peruvian and Navajo herders and ranchers have to do with decision sciences? For Indiana University Purdue University Fort Wayne anthropology professor Lawrence Kuznar, the answer is, a lot.
Kuznar started out studying how traditional herders manage their flocks. He discovered that sometimes their choices led to conflict, and he wanted to know why those particular decisions were made.
From studying the herders' choices, he soon turned to studying choices made by revolutionaries, delving into various revolutions and coups and searching for the decisions involved. Kuznar soon realized he needed collaborators to help him quantify his findings. Associate Professors William Frederick (Mathematics), Robert Sedlmeyer (Computer Science), and other faculty from economics, political science, and psychology joined with Kuznar, and the IPFW Decision Sciences and Theory Institute was born.
The institute has three short-term goals. The first is to bring together faculty from various disciplines to identify research projects of mutual interest and begin collaborations. The second goal is to attract funding for short-term research grants and contracts that will support both faculty and student research. (The institute received $75,000 in external funding last year). The third short-term goal is to develop several key research efforts that can be used to attract larger funding for the future. The institute's long-term goal is to serve as a center of expertise for businesses, industries, and government agencies that grapple with risk-taking behavior. Other clients could include marketing and insurance firms, defense and law enforcement industries, and governmental agencies.
Research conducted at the institute focuses on the varying motives people have and how these motives influence risk-taking behaviors. “Some people explicitly cite a desire to gain more wealth, or achieve a higher social status. Other times, people cite unfair division of wealth, as in many ethnic conflicts, as a reason for their violence,” Kuznar says. “Either way, we can measure the underlying causes and predict the behaviors, since the underlying wealth inequalities generate the same degree of risk-taking behavior.”
Institute members use computer models to combine simulations of real-world empirical data with theoretical understandings of human interaction. “Then we run the models to see if they generate the sorts of behaviors through time that we witness,” he says.
Kuznar says in the very simplest of terms, the institute can determine why people make the decisions they do. And that information can be extremely valuable to many different businesses, organizations, and agencies. “Why would an educated, wealthy, or middle-class individual join a terror cell, strap on a bomb, and blow themselves and others up?” he says. “We're working on a theory to explain these baffling behaviors, and hopefully policymakers will use this to predict areas of instability.”
In less than a year, the institute's research projects have grown to include applications of current social theory and computational methodologies to understanding terrorism, political radicalism, and civil war. Three new projects will add understanding political parties, voting, and rioting to the institute's repertoire.
For more information, Kuznar may be reached at 260-481-6686 or at kuznar@ipfw.edu
