Prof. Brad J. Bushman
- Media Contact
- SPN Mentor
I received my Ph.D. in 1989 from the University of Missouri. I am a professor of communication at The Ohio State University. Previously, I was a professor at Iowa State University (1990-2003) and at the University of Michigan (2003-2010).
For over 30 years I have studied the causes, consequences, and solutions to the problem of human aggression and violence. In the wake of the Newtown shooting, I co-chaired an advisory committee to the National Science Foundation on youth violence. Our committee published a report on youth violence that was distributed to each member of Congress and to each state Governor, and I testified before Congress on the contents of this report. An article that extends this report was published in American Psychologist. I was also a member of President Obama’s committee on gun violence, as an expert on media violence effects.
I received the Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Media Psychology and Technology Award from the American Psychological Association in 2014. I received the Kurt Lewin Award from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues for “outstanding contributions to the development and integration of psychological research and social action” (jointly with Craig Anderson) in 2017. I received the Morton Deutsch Conflict Resolution Award from APA in 2022. I have published over 200 peer-reviewed journal articles, which have been cited about 60,000 times (ranked #2 among communication scholars).
My research has challenged several myths (e.g., guns make people safer, venting anger reduces aggression, aggressive people suffer from low self-esteem, violence and sex sell products, media warning labels reduce audience size, exposure to violent media has a trivial effect on aggression). One of my colleagues even calls me the “myth buster.” My research has been repeatedly funded by federal grants (e.g., NSF, NIH), has been published in top scientific journals (e.g., Science, PNAS), and has been featured extensively in the mass media (e.g., BBC, New York Times, NPR).
Primary Interests:
- Aggression, Conflict, Peace
- Applied Social Psychology
- Communication, Language
- Emotion, Mood, Affect
- Helping, Prosocial Behavior
- Personality, Individual Differences
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Video Gallery
Don't Get Hangry: Feed Your Brain Healthy Food (TEDx talk)
Select video to watch
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18:57 Don't Get Hangry: Feed Your Brain Healthy Food (TEDx talk)
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70:57 Is Violent Media "Just Entertainment"?
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32:49 The Effects of Violent Video Games on Children
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59:57 Tea with TOPSS
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18:32 Science, Media Violence, and Climate Change
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4:19 Aggression and Catharsis
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07:40 Aggression and Violence (In-Mind Magazine)
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57:19 When Narcissus Was a Boy
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57:05 Aggression: Why Do We Do That?
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36:10 Anger and Aggression: Causes, Consequences, and Solutions
Books:
- Baumeister, R. F., & Bushman, B. J. (2020). Social psychology and human nature (5th ed.). Boston, MA: Cengage Learning.
- Bushman, B. J. (Ed.) (2017). Aggression and violence: A social psychological perspective. New York: Routledge.
Journal Articles:
- Anderson, C. A., & Bushman, B. J. (2002). The effects of media violence on society. Science, 295, 2377-2378.
- Anderson, C. A., Shibuya, A., Ihori, N., Swing, E. L., Bushman, B. J., Sakamoto, A., Rothstein, H. R., & Saleem, M. (2010). Violent video game effects on aggression, empathy, and prosocial behavior in Eastern and Western countries: A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 136(2), 151-173. DOI: 10.1037/a0018251
- Benjamin, A. J., Jr., Kepes, S., & Bushman, B. J. (in press). Effects of weapons on aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, hostile appraisals, and aggressive behavior: A meta-analytic review of the weapons effect literature. Personality and Social Psychology Review. DOI: 10.1177/1088868317725419
- Bond, R. M., & Bushman, B. J. (2017). The contagious spread of violence through social networks in U.S. adolescents. American Journal of Public Health, 107(2), 288-294. doi:10.2105/AJPH.2016.303550
- Brummelman, E., Thomaes, S., Nelemans, S. A., Orobio de Castro, B., Overbeek, G., & Bushman, B. J. (2015). Origins of narcissism in children. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 112(12), 3659-3662.
- Bushman, B. J. (2018). Narcissism, fame-seeking, and mass shootings. American Behavioral Scientist, 62(2), 229-241.
- Bushman, B. J. (2018). Teaching students about violent media effects. Teaching of Psychology, 45(2), 200-206
- Bushman, B. J. (2016). Violent media exposure and hostile appraisals: A meta-analytic review. Aggressive Behavior, 42(6), 605-613. DOI: 10.1002/ab.21655
- Bushman, B. J., DeWall, C. N., Pond, R. S. Jr., & Hanus, M. D. (2014). Low glucose relates to greater aggression in married couples. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), 111(17), 6254-6257. DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1400619111
- Bushman, B. J., & Huesmann, L. R. (2010). Aggression. In S. T. Fiske, D. T. Gilbert, & G. Lindzey (Eds.), Handbook of social psychology (5th ed., Ch. 23, pp. 833-863). New York: John Wiley & Sons.
- Bushman, B. J., Jamieson, P. E., Weitz, I., & Romer, D. (2013). Gun violence trends in movies. Pediatrics, 132(6), 1014-1018. doi: 10.1542/peds.2013-1600
- Bushman, B. J., Kerwin, T., Whitlock, T., & Weisenberger, J. M. (2017). The weapons effect on wheels: Motorists drive more aggressively when there is a gun in the vehicle. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 73, 82-85. DOI: 10.1016/j.jesp.2017.06.007
- Bushman, B. J., Newman, K., Calvert, S. L., Downey, G., Dredze, M., Gottfredson, M., Jablonski, N. G., Masten, A., Morrill, C., Neill, D. B., Romer, D., & Webster, D. (2016). Youth violence: What we know and what we need to know. American Psychologist, 71(1), 17-39. DOI: 10.1037/a0039687
- DeWall, C. N., Baumeister, R. F., Chester, D. S., & Bushman, B. J. (2016). How often does currently felt emotion predict social behavior and judgment? A meta-analytic test of two theories. Emotion Review, 8(2), 136-143. DOI: 10.1177/1754073915572690
- Dillon, K. P., & Bushman, B. J. (2017). Effects of exposure to gun violence in movies on children’s interest in real guns. JAMA Pediatrics, 171(11), 1057-1062. DOI: 10.1001/jamapediatrics.2017.2229,
- Gentile, D. G., & Bushman, B. J. (2012). Reassessing media violence effects using a risk and resilience approach to understanding aggression. Psychology of Popular Media Culture, 1(3), 138-151.
- Lull, R. B., & Bushman, B. J. (2015). Do sex and violence sell? A meta-analytic review of the effects of sexual and violent media and ad content on memory, attitudes, and buying intentions. Psychological Bulletin, 141(5), 1022-1048
- Van Lange, P. A. M., Rinderu, M. I., & Bushman, B. J. (2017). Aggression and violence around the world: A model of Climate, Aggression, and Self-control in Humans (CLASH). Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 40, e75. DOI: 10.1017/S0140525X16000406
Courses Taught:
- Communication & Society
- Meta-Analysis
- Quantitative Research Methods
- Social Psychology
- Violence in Society and Violence in the Mass Media
Prof. Brad J. Bushman
School of Communication
The Ohio State University
3016 Derby Hall, 154 North Oval Mall
Columbus, Ohio 43210
United States of America
- Phone: (614) 688-8779
- Fax: (614) 292-2055
- Skype Name: bjbushman