Interdisciplinary UT Research Team Explores Social Complexity
UT’s Center for the Dynamics of Social Complexity (DySOC) brings together researchers from across disciplines to investigate the origins, evolution, and futures of human social complexity. Their research focuses on human behaviors and social interactions that underlie the pursuit of transformational discovery in past and present societies.
Professor Alex Bentley, Department of Anthropology, is the new director for the center. He intends to establish a complement of online and in-person programming following a successful webinar series and online workshops organized by the center’s inaugural director, Distinguished Professor Sergey Gavrilets.
“We will still offer a webinar series in spring 2025,” said Bentley. “Other ongoing efforts include establishing an international steering committee from academics and the private sector; solidifying international partnerships—such as Durham University in the UK and Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona; onboarding a new faculty steering group and membership; and possibly rebranding to reflect a shift in emphasis and priorities.”
New Social Dynamics
The center will continue to foster work on cultural evolution, while new and emerging areas include the Computational Social Science interdisciplinary program and topics of cultural evolution, science and society issues, and learning. Building on longstanding interests in cultural evolution, the new areas of inquiry focus more on social dynamics of cultural behavior and shared experiences.
“Computational Social Science seeks to find coherent patterns in complex, often large-scale, human behavioral data as a means for addressing complex societal challenges,” said Bentley. “Cultural evolution is the study of how human cognition, culture, and societies co-evolved, from evolutionary origins to social groups and new technological media that re-configure collective attention, spheres of influence and layers of meaning.”
Community Connections
The new areas also delve into the details of how these dynamics work in human communities.
“Science and society focuses on the movement and evolution of knowledge from innovation within published science into the wider information ecosystem,” explained Bentley. “Learning—considered to be the basis for human evolution, culture and society—in contemporary society can be individual, collective, formal, or informal. As learning is the core or artificial intelligence, understanding biases and mechanisms of learning are crucial to optimizing AI in society.”
Faculty in social sciences, information sciences, education, and computer science are encouraged to join the DySOC community.
“Our faculty are widely recognized for research and scholarship on social complexity,” said Professor Mike Blum, associate dean for research and creative activity. “DySOC will further elevate our reputational excellence by supporting high impact pursuits through meaningful exchange of ideas and by fostering collaboration and partnership.”
Vol Engagement
The center also offers avenues for students to gain experience in social dynamics through webinars and coding skills workshops, plus resources such as graduate student research awards and travel grants. New opportunities will connect DySOC to other research communities on campus and nationally.
“In relation to the college’s new Consortium on Social and Cultural Inquiry, we are developing interdisciplinary undergraduate and graduate programs in computational social science,” said Bentley. “We are also submitting a new grant proposal to the National Science Foundation Research Trainee program. Ours, titled AcCeSS: Actionable Computational Social Science, is one of the two proposals selected to be put forward by UT this year.”
These new collaborations will bolster DySOC’s mission of sharing fresh insight into the ever-changing human world—bringing greater understanding of our complex psychology, behavior, and social organizations in ways that make lives better for all.
By Randall Brown