Lecture by Brad Bushman on the effects of violent content in video games
About the talk
In today’s popular culture, the video game industry has established itself as a major force, surpassing the movie and music industries. Most people now play video games. They are played on consoles, computers, and handheld devices (including mobile phones). The top selling video games contain lots of blood and gore. Bushman will discuss a meta-analytic review of 381 effects from studies involving over 13,000 participants on violent video game effects.
About Brad Bushman
Brad J. Bushman (Ph.D. 1989, University of Missouri) is a professor of communication and psychology at The Ohio State University, and a professor of communication science at the VU University Amsterdam. He holds the Rinehart Chair of Mass Communication. For about 30 years he has studied the causes, consequences, and solutions to the problem of human aggression and violence. He is a member of President Obama’s committee on gun violence, and has testified before the U.S. Congress on the topic of youth violence. He has published over 170 peer-reviewed journal articles. According to Google Scholar, his articles have been cited over 25,000 times. He is ranked #2 among communication scholars cited in Google Scholar. In 2014 he received the Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Media Psychology and Technology from the American Psychological Association. His research has challenged several myths (e.g., violent media have a trivial effect on aggression, venting anger reduces aggression, violent people suffer from low self-esteem, violence and sex sell products, warning labels reduce audience size). (One of his colleagues even calls him the “myth buster.”) His research has been published in the top scientific journals (e.g., Science, PNAS), and has been featured extensively in the mass media (e.g., BBC, New York Times, NPR).
