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).