About

Brad J. Bushman is a Professor of Communication at The Ohio State University, with a focus on studying the causes, consequences, and cures of human aggression and violence. His research has challenged several myths related to violence, such as the safety of guns, the effectiveness of venting anger, and the relationship between violence, sex, and product marketing. Bushman has published hundreds of peer-reviewed journal articles that have been cited tens of thousands of times, with his work appearing in top scientific journals like Science and PNAS. His research has been extensively featured in mass media outlets including BBC, The New York Times, and NPR. He has served as a member of President Obama’s committee on gun violence and has testified before the U.S. Congress on youth violence. Bushman’s academic background includes a Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Missouri, along with master's degrees in Statistics and Psychology from the same university, and a B.S. in Psychology from Weber State University. He teaches courses related to communication and social psychology, and his professional website and external profiles provide additional information about his work and contributions to the field.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Social psychology
• Medicine
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Law
• Internal medicine
• Clinical psychology
• History
• Developmental psychology
• Criminology
• Psychotherapist
• Advertising
• Applied psychology

Selected publications

• The Weapons Effect on Ice

  Open Science Framework · 2026-01-01

  otherOpen access1st authorCorresponding

  The present study is grounded in weapons effect research (Berkowitz & LePage, 1967), which posits that the presence of weapons or weapon-related cues can increase thoughts, affect, and behavior related to aggression (e.g., Benjamin et al., 2018). Research has demonstrated that aggression can be elicited not only by physical weapons but also by toy weapons, weapon images, and symbolic or contextual cues associated with violence or harm (Benjamin & Bushman, 2016). Sports contexts, characterized by heightened arousal, competition, and normatively accepted aggression (e.g., Coulomb-Cabagno & Rascle, 2006; Mikicin, 2022), may be particularly sensitive to such cues. Building on these perspectives, the present research examines whether weapon-related symbols on team jerseys and in-game weapon cues (cannon fires) are associated with increased aggressive penalties in professional Columbus Blue Jackets ice hockey games. Primary hypothesis: • H1a: Aggressive penalties will be greater for the Columbus Blue Jackets (CBJ) when the CBJ wear the cannon jersey than when they wear other jerseys. • H1b: Aggressive penalties will be greater for the CBJ opponent when the CBJ wear the cannon jersey than when the CBJ wear other jerseys. Research questions: • RQ1: Is the weapons effect larger for CBJ than for their opponent? • RQ2: Is the number of cannon fires related to aggressive penalties in CBJ home games? • RQ3: Is the effect of the cannon jersey on aggressive penalties stronger in-home games than in away games? • RQ4: Are penalties higher in games in which CBJ wear dark-colored jerseys compared to light-colored jerseys, independent of weapon symbolism?

  PublisherDOI

• Virtual Reality Relaxation for Reducing Aggression and Emotional Distress in At‐Risk Adolescents in Israeli Residential Care: A Feasibility Randomized Clinical Trial

  Aggressive Behavior · 2026-01-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Aggression and emotional distress are all too common in at-risk adolescents in closed residential institutions, which often contain restrictive conditions such as overcrowding, lack of autonomy, and shifting staff-youth relationships. In war-torn areas like Israel, these restrictive conditions are amplified with additional stressors such as the threat of injury or even death. In such settings, feasibility studies are greatly needed to investigate how to reduce aggression and emotional distress in vulnerable adolescents. This feasibility randomized clinical trial evaluated the effectiveness of a virtual reality (VR)-based relaxation intervention in decreasing self-reported aggression tendencies and emotional distress and increasing positive psychological states among at-risk Israeli adolescents in residential care. Fifty-two participants from different residential facilities were randomly assigned to a treatment group (n = 27), who received twice-weekly VR relaxation sessions, or a waitlist control group (n = 25). Self-report measures of aggression and emotional distress were administered at baseline, midway through the intervention (2 weeks), and at the end of the intervention (4 weeks). Mixed-effects linear models suggest that the treatment group demonstrated clear reductions in both aggression and emotional distress across the intervention period relative to the control group (Hedges' gs: 0.85-1.42). In addition, immediately before and after each VR session, participants in the treatment group reported consistent increases in positive mood and flow experience (Hedges' gs: 0.45-0.73). These preliminary findings support the utility of brief VR relaxation practices in reducing negative emotional states and fostering well-being among high-risk youth in closed institutional settings. Trial Registration: This study was pre-registered on the Open Science Framework (OSF) prior to data collection. The pre-registration is available at: https://osf.io/pr3md/.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The Weapons Effect on Ice

  OSF Preprints (OSF Preprints) · 2026-01-21

  other1st authorCorresponding
  Publisher

• Socializing While Alone: Loss of Impact and Engagement When Interacting Remotely via Technology

  Perspectives on Psychological Science · 2026-01-06

  articleSenior authorCorresponding

  This article pulls together diverse published findings on computer-mediated communication (CMC) to test the hypothesis that it reduces psychological engagement and impact compared with face-to-face (FTF) interactions. Although gaps and questions remain, the evidence mostly confirms reduced engagement and impact. Compared with FTF interactions, CMC elicits less positive emotion, with mixed results for negative emotions. Physiological arousal is often lower. Relationships, trust, and group cohesion develop more slowly (although perhaps eventually reaching the same levels). Information processing is reduced. Inhibitions are also reduced, leading to greater willingness to criticize, to bring up alternate perspectives and suggestions, and to neglect to respond. The disinhibition may improve participation by shy persons. Group performance and group decision-making are often impaired, although some studies found no difference. Teaching and learning go less well. Impact and engagement lose more with asynchronous than synchronous CMC. FTF interactions boost well-being compared with not interacting, but CMC is in between. When CMC augments FTF relationships, there may be benefits, but when it replaces them, there are psychological costs. Technology has enabled marvelous advances in long-distance communication, but there is still no fully satisfactory substitute for actually being together in person.

  PublisherDOI

• Best Practice Procedures in Longitudinal Research of Violent Media Effects: Reanalysis of the Lacko et al. (2024) Study as a Case Study

  Aggressive Behavior · 2025-12-30

  articleSenior author

  The primary concern about violent media is their potential long-term harmful effects on children, which are investigated in longitudinal studies. In this article, we describe best practice procedures for longitudinal studies of violent media effects using the Lacko et al. (2024) study as a case study. Lacko et al. concluded that exposure to violent video games had no significant effect on aggression. However, a critical examination of their study reveals six major concerns: (1) inferring cause from correlational data, (2) inaccurate claims about the General Aggression Model, (3) an unexpected positive association between empathy and aggression, (4) questionable measurement validity, (5) excessive missing data, and (6) overparameterization in their longitudinal model. Using their publicly available raw data (https://osf.io/q5wv6/), we reanalyzed their study using two Random Intercept Cross-Lagged Panel Models (RI-CLPMs). The reanalysis revealed a strong positive association between violent video game exposure and aggression at the between-person level, but a negative association at the within-person level. No significant relationship was found between violent game exposure and empathy at the between-person level. However, a negative within-person effect of violent game exposure on subsequent cognitive empathy was observed, whereas no such effect was found for affective empathy. We discuss our results in comparison with the original results reported by Lacko et al. More generally, we offer recommendations for analyzing longitudinal data and for interpreting the potential relationships-or causal implications-of violent video game exposure on aggression.

  PublisherDOI

• Reactions to social videos in long-tailed macaques

  Animal Cognition · 2025-06-24 · 1 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Animals can obtain important social information by observing social interactions among conspecifics. Depending on the social content, such as familiarity with the conspecifics and the type of interaction, the receiver's attention, and possibly also movement and stress response, might differ. Moreover, these behavioural responses may vary depending on the individual's own characteristics. By showing video fragments with different social content (i.e., run, conflict, sit, groom) of group members and strangers, we measured the reaction of captive long-tailed macaques living in multi-generational groups. In addition, we explored how an individual's social and self-directed behaviour in its social group was related to reactions to these videos. Subjects paid more attention to videos of group members than strangers, especially more subordinate and less stress sensitive (i.e., low stress response when observing natural aggression) individuals. Self-directed behaviour was higher for younger individuals seeing strangers, but not group members, and for individuals with high levels of baseline self-directed behaviour and little grooming. Regarding context, the monkeys paid more attention to videos with active and aggressive content compared to sitting and grooming videos. Altogether, monkeys living in multi-generational groups show high interest in gathering social information on group members, and this is modulated by their social role and personal ability to handle social situations.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Corrigendum to ‘Unresponsive or un-noticed?: Cyberbystander intervention in an experimental cyberbullying context’ [Computers in Human Behavior 45C (2015) 144–150]

  Computers in Human Behavior · 2025-07-30

  erratumSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Low Power and High Psychopathy: A Toxic Combination for Psychological Aggression

  Aggressive Behavior · 2025-08-06 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT Power and aggression are core relational variables that share a fickle relationship. It is unclear whether high or low power relates to psychological aggression and under which circumstances. We tested psychopathy as a potential moderator in the power‐aggression link because psychopathy is characterized by a lack of empathy and shallow emotional response. Psychopathy could strengthen the link between high power and psychological aggression because power ignites character traits and their corresponding behavior. Alternatively, psychopathy could strengthen the link between low power and psychological aggression because individuals high in psychopathy may attempt to compensate for their lack of power with aggression. We tested these competing hypotheses in a romantic context across two studies ( N 1 = 188 individuals, N 2 = 226 couples). We found power to be negatively related to both actors' and partners' psychological aggression. Supporting the latter hypothesis, we found that the most psychologically aggressive people had low power and high psychopathy. In addition, people reported high psychological aggression when their partners were low in power and high in psychopathy. These findings advance existing power theories and research by highlighting how personality traits such as psychopathy affect both intra‐ and interpersonal links to psychological aggression.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Trends of Violence in Movies over the Past Half Century

  2025-01-03

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  This study analyzes trends of violence in movie dialogues over the past 50 years using a dataset of over 160,000 films. Results show that mentions of violent actions have an overall increasing trend. After controlling for genre, non-crime movies also exhibit such an increasing trend, across the cases of male characters, female characters, as well as all characters combined.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• What is robot abuse? A sociotechnical definition

  Behaviour and Information Technology · 2025-02-26 · 5 citations

  articleOpen access

  Robot abuse encompasses a range of actions enacted by users against robots that resemble aggressive actions enacted by humans against each other. Research in this area faces numerous challenges due to ethical concerns and methodological limitations. Despite preliminary indications of robot abuse, most people are still not personally familiar with robots but hold collective imaginaries promoted by science fiction. Little is known about how abuse will manifest in practice, and research is in dire need of operational and theoretical definitions. As a response, this paper applies theory-driven speculative design to collect imaginaries of robot abuse with a sample of university students (N = 69). The inductive analysis revealed four behavioural patterns (Outburst, Clash, Oppression, and Rebellion) that were then operationalised in the orthogonal space defined by the Function of Aggression (reactive vs. proactive) and Robot Identity (object vs. subject). We ground the Space of Robot Abuse on the General Aggression Model and a sociotechnical definition of robots, provide a method for designing storyboards and evaluate them. We conclude by advancing a sociotechnical definition of robot abuse, which could interest researchers and designers alike.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Aggressive Impulse Management

  NSF · $315k · 2014–2017

• Effect of Self-Control on Antisocial and Prosocial Behavior

  NSF · $331k · 2010–2014

• NIH Grant R01HD049837

  NIH · $1.9M · 2011

Frequent coauthors

• Sander Thomaes

  Utrecht University

  59 shared

• Craig A. Anderson

  Iowa State University

  48 shared

• Roy F. Baumeister

  36 shared

• Bram Orobio de Castro

  University of Amsterdam

  32 shared

• C. Nathan DeWall

  University of Kentucky

  31 shared

• Eddie Brummelman

  28 shared

• Sara Konrath

  27 shared

• L. Rowell Huesmann

  22 shared