Department of Sociology

Shank, Daniel

401 Baldwin Hall
Athens, GA 30602-1611
706-542-2421 (office) • dbshank [at] uga [dot] edu
Curriculum Vitae

Mr. Daniel B. Shank is a Ph.D. candidate – defending in the fall of 2011 – whose research is focused on social-psychology, emotion, organizations, and human-technology interaction.  His research program addresses questions about how emotion, justice, trust, and affective meanings are different in human-computer interaction compared with human-human interaction.  Mr. Shank’s dissertation examines these outcomes within organizations where human workers are often replaced with technology.  He finds that customers perceive computers to be less agentic than humans when no other information about their position is known.  This perceived agency causes customers to focus negative emotions more on the organization or its representative; however the same is not true of positive emotions. 

Mr. Shank is the former manager of the Laboratory for the Study of Social Interaction (LaSSI). He serves as editor of the newsletter for the American Sociological Association’s Emotion Section and has served in three other positions in American Sociological Association sections. He is currently on the job market.

Education

  • M.A., Sociology, University of Georgia 2008
  • M.S., Artificial Intelligence, University of Georgia 2006
  • B.A., Computer Science, Harding University 2003

Selected Honors, Awards, and Grants

  • 2011 Summer Doctoral Research Fellowship ($3000), University of Georgia
  • 2011 Certificate of Excellence, Department of Sociology, University of Georgia
  • 2010.  Graduate School Dean's Award for Dissertation Research ($1000), University of Georgia.

Selected Publications

  • Shank, Daniel B. Forthcoming. “Justice and Reactions to Coercive Computers.” Sociological Forum.
  • Shank, Daniel B.  2010. “An Affect Control Theory of Technology.” Current Research in Social Psychology. 15(10): 1-13.
  • Shank, Daniel B. 2010. “Trusting Technological Actors: A Foundation in Structure and Cultural Sentiments” In Trust and Technology in a Ubiquitous Modern Environment: Theoretical and Methodological Perspectives.  Eds. Dominika Latusek and Alexandra Gerbasi.  IGI Global.  Hershey, PA.
  • Shank, Daniel B., Ronald W. McClendon, Joel Paz, and Gerrit Hoogenboom. 2008. “Ensemble Artificial Neural Networks for Prediction of Dew Point Temperature.”  Applied Artificial Intelligence. 22(6): 523-542.
  • Shank, Daniel B., Gerrit Hoogenboom, and Ronald W. McClendon. 2008. “Dew Point Temperature Prediction Using Artificial Neural Networks.” Journal of Applied Meteorology and Climatology: A Journal of the American Meteorological Association. 47(6): 1757-1769.