First Annual Michigan Meeting 2010

The Interdisciplinary Science of Consumption: Mechanisms of Allocating Resources Across Disciplines

MAY 12-14 2010
University of Michigan
Ann Arbor, MI USA

Consumption is a serious issue that produces environmental waste, unfair labor practices, and negatively impacts human health. Subunits of local and federal government separately struggle to encourage monetary saving, reduce waste, increase recycling, and deal with compulsive hoarding. The conference will focus on mechanisms of resource-allocation decisions such as acquiring and discarding important resources (e.g., money, food, material goods). Speakers from marketing, finance, neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, and ecology will come together to share their knowledge on how organisms acquire resources to balance short and long-term needs. Through a careful comparison of the mechanisms underlying these seemingly disparate processes, a unified model of resource allocation can be created that benefits basic science and society.

Additional information:

Public Evening Lectures in Rackham Auditorium

Robert Frank (May 12)  Cornell University economics, decision making, emotion
Frans de Waal (May 13) Emory University primatology

Plenary Conference Speakers in Rackham Amphitheatre

Antoine Bechara University of Southern California decision neuroscience, addiction
Bruce J. Ellis University of Arizona mechanisms of stress
Randy Frost Smith College compulsive human hoarding
Vladas Griskevicius University of Minnesota consumer/social psychology and evolution
Brian Knudson Stanford University decision neuroscience, consumer science
Stephen Lea University of Exeter economics and evolution
Geoffrey Miller University of New Mexico evolution and consumer behavior
Stephanie Preston University of Michigan emotion and decision making
Terry Robinson University of Michigan neuroscience of addiction, reward
David Sherry University of Western Ontario optimal foraging, neural plasticity
Kathleen Vohs University of Minnesota consumer/social psychology
Paul Webley University of London economics and development

This conference was funded by the Rackham School of Graduate Studies at the University of Michigan.

For more information contact Stephanie D. Preston at prestos at umich.edu