Brad J Bushman
Biographic Data
| ID | 220948 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Brad J Bushman |
| GIVEN NAMES | Brad J |
| FAMILY NAME | Bushman |
| SIGNATURE | BUSHMAN B J |
| AFFILIATIONS | The Ohio State University |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-1266-5101 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 149 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1098 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 149 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1985 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 17 |
Rethinking Longitudinal Studies of Media Violence and Aggression: A Rejoinder to Lacko et al.'s (2026) Comment
Lacko et al. responded to the concerns raised in our commentary, providing an opportunity to reflect on broader methodological and theoretical issues in longitudinal research on media violence and aggression. This exchange highlights five lessons for future research: (1) longitudinal studies should place greater emphasis on developmental processes; (2) analytical approaches and the interpretation of findings are important; (3) examining the longi…
Socializing While Alone: Loss of Impact and Engagement When Interacting Remotely via Technology
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 of…
Virtual Reality Relaxation for Reducing Aggression and Emotional Distress in At‐Risk Adolescents in Israeli Residential Care: A Feasibility Randomized Clinical Trial
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…
Best Practice Procedures in Longitudinal Research of Violent Media Effects: Reanalysis of the Lacko et al. (2024) Study as a Case Study
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…
What is robot abuse? A sociotechnical definition
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 w…
Alcohol Consumption and Sexual Aggression Perpetration: A Meta-Analytic Review
Sexual aggression often has serious and lasting effects on victims of all genders. One key risk factor for sexual aggression is alcohol consumption. Alcohol consumption promotes sexual aggression by disrupting cognitive functions, including the ability to process the internal and external cues that regulate social behavior. This meta-analysis of the experimental literature with alcohol administration protocols aimed to quantify this relationship …
Low Power and High Psychopathy: A Toxic Combination for Psychological Aggression
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 becaus…
Random app of kindness: Evaluating the potential of a smartphone intervention to impact adolescents’ empathy, prosocial behavior, and aggression
A Meta-Analytic Review of the Validity of the Tangram Help/Hurt Task
The Tangram Help/Hurt Task (THHT) allows participants to help another participant win a prize (by assigning them easy tangrams), to hurt another participant by preventing them from winning the prize (by assigning them difficult tangrams), or to do neither (by assigning them medium tangrams) in offline or online studies. Consistent with calls for continued evidence supporting psychological measurement, we conducted a meta-analytic review of the TH…
Straw men, bogus claims, and misinformation about media violence: Reply to comment by Devilly et al. (2023)
Solving the puzzle of null violent media effects
A Review of Multisite Replication Projects in Social Psychology: Is It Viable to Sustain Any Confidence in Social Psychology’s Knowledge Base
Multisite (multilab/many-lab) replications have emerged as a popular way of verifying prior research findings, but their record in social psychology has prompted distrust of the field and a sense of crisis. We review all 36 multisite social-psychology replications (plus three articles reporting multiple ministudies). We start by assuming that both the original and the multisite replications were conducted in honest and diligent fashion, despite o…
Development and Validation of the Single-Item Mindfulness Scale (Sims)
Mindfulness is a focused attention to and acceptance of present experiences. Although several reliable and valid multi-item measures of trait mindfulness exist, researchers may sometimes want a short and quick measure of mindfulness. In this project, we developed and validated the Single-Item Mindfulness Scale (SIMS) to assess trait mindfulness. We conducted eight studies involving 3,125 adult and adolescent participants. The studies consisted of…
Fundamentalism and intrinsic religiosity as factors in well-being and social connectedness: An Iranian study
Frustration–aggression hypothesis reconsidered: The role of significance quest
One of the oldest scientific theories of human aggression is the frustration–aggression hypothesis, advanced in 1939. Although this theory has received considerable empirical support and is alive and well today, its underlying mechanisms have not been adequately explored. In this article, we examine major findings and concepts from extant psychological research on hostile aggression and offer an integrative conception: aggression is a primordial …
Developmental Changes in the Relation between Youth Disclosure and Parenting Behavior: A Cohort-sequential Analysis
Harming and Shaming through Naming: Examining Why Calling the Coronavirus the “Covid-19 Virus,” Not the “Chinese Virus,” Matters
In an effort to stave off racial and geographic prejudices, The World Health Organization (WHO) has advised against naming pathogens for geographic regions. Despite this, some media reports, and prominent politicians, have persisted in calling the coronavirus the “Chinese Virus,” or some variant thereof. In this pre-registered online experiment (N = 614), we examined the effect media frames and individual factors (i.e., political affiliation and …
Dominance and prestige: Meta-analytic review of experimentally induced body position effects on behavioral, self-report, and physiological dependent variables
Effects of violent and nonviolent sexualized media on aggression‐related thoughts, feelings, attitudes, and behaviors: A meta‐analytic review
Women are often depicted as sex objects rather than as human beings in the media (e.g., magazines, television programs, films, and video games). Theoretically, media depictions of females as sex objects could lead to negative attitudes and even aggressive behavior toward them in the real world. Using the General Aggression Model (Anderson & Bushman, 2002) as a theoretical framework, this meta‐analytic review synthesizes the literature on the effe…
Applied to video game violence, maximal positive controls is far from even a minimal demonstration: Comment on ( )
Extensions of the proteus effect on intergroup aggression in the real world
The link between narcissism and aggression: A meta-analytic review
This meta-analytic review examines the link between narcissism and aggression, and whether the link is stronger under provocation conditions. A total of 437 independent studies were located, which included 123,043 participants. Narcissism was related to both aggression (r = .26, [.24, .28]) and violence (r = .23, [.18, .27]). As expected, the narcissism-aggression link was stronger under provocation conditions (r = .29, [.23, .36]) than under no …
Longitudinal predictions of young adults' weapons use and criminal behavior from their childhood exposure to violence
In this study, we examine whether youth who are exposed to more weapons violence are subsequently more likely to behave violently with weapons. We use data collected with a 3‐cohort, 4‐wave, 10‐year longitudinal study of 426 high‐risk youth from Flint, Michigan, who were second, fourth, or ninth‐graders in 2006–2007. The data were obtained from individual interviews with the youth, their parents, and their teachers, from archival school and crimi…
Effects of sexualized video games on online sexual harassment
Negative consequences of video games have been a concern since their inception. However, one under-researched area is the potential negative effects of sexualized video game content on players. This study analyzed the consequences of sexualized video game content on online sexual harassment against male and female targets. We controlled for a number of variables that might be related to online sexual harassment (i.e., trait aggressiveness, ambiva…
Boom, Headshot!”: Violent first‐person shooter (FPS) video games that reward headshots train individuals to aim for the head when shooting a realistic firearm
When shooting a gun at a human target, firearms training instructors teach individuals to shoot for the upper torso because it is the largest lethal target on the human body. In contrast, violent first-person shooter (FPS) video games reward players for headshots. The head is the smallest lethal target, and requires careful aim to hit. In this experiment, participants were randomly assigned to play a violent FPS game with humanoid targets that re…
Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence
It has been widely asserted that low self-esteem causes violence, but laboratory evidence is lacking, and some contrary observations have characterized aggressors as having favorable self-opinions. In 2 studies, both simple self-esteem and narcissism were measured, and then individual participants were given an opportunity to aggress against someone who had insulted them or praised them or against an innocent third person. Self-esteem proved irre…
How terrorism news reports increase prejudice against outgroups: A terror management account
Three studies tested predictions derived from terror management theory (TMT) about the effects of terrorism news on prejudice. Exposure to terrorism news should confront receivers with thoughts about their own death, which, in turn, should increase prejudice toward outgroup members. Non-Muslim (Studies 1–3) and Muslim (Study 3) participants were exposed to news about either Islamic terrorist acts or to control news. When Dutch filmmaker Theo van …
The effect of video game violence on physiological desensitization to real-life violence
Moderating role of trait aggressiveness in the effects of violent media on aggression
Chronic violent video game exposure and desensitization to violence: Behavioral and event-related brain potential data
I wish I were a warrior: The role of wishful identification in the effects of violent video games on aggression in adolescent boys
This study tested the hypothesis that violent video games are especially likely to increase aggression when players identify with violent game characters. Dutch adolescent boys with low education ability (N=112) were randomly assigned to play a realistic or fantasy violent or nonviolent video game. Next, they competed with an ostensible partner on a reaction time task in which the winner could blast the loser with loud noise through headphones (t…
Media violence and the American public: Scientific facts versus media misinformation
Chewing on It Can Chew You Up: Effects of Rumination on Triggered Displaced Aggression
Ruminating about a provocation increases the likelihood of displaced aggression following a minor annoyance (trigger). In Study 1, provoked participants who ruminated for 25 min were more aggressive toward a fumbling confederate than were distracted participants. Provocation-induced negative affect was positively related to aggression but only among those who ruminated. Study 2 conceptually replicated Study 1 and also found that the more negative…
Narcissism, sexual refusal, and aggression: Testing a narcissistic reactance model of sexual coercion
Laboratory analog studies investigated the theory that narcissism and reactance contribute to causing rape. In Study 1, narcissism correlated positively with rape-supportive beliefs and negatively with empathy for rape victims. In Study 2, narcissists reported more enjoyment than other men of film depictions that presented consensual, affectionate activity followed by rape (but not in response to either affection or rape alone). In Study 3, narci…
Media Violence and the General Aggression Model
The General Aggression Model (GAM) is a meta‐theory that considers the role of personal and situational variables on aggressive behavior, ranging from the biological to the cultural. Possible mediating variables include internal states (e.g., aggressive thoughts, angry feelings, increased physiological arousal) and the results of appraisal and decision processes (automatic and controlled). In this article, we focus on one situational variable—exp…
Do people aggress to improve their mood? Catharsis beliefs, affect regulation opportunity, and aggressive responding
Do people aggress to make themselves feel better? We adapted a procedure used by G. K. Manucia, D. J. Baumann, and R. B. Cialdini (1984), in which some participants are given a bogus mood-freezing pill that makes affect regulation efforts ineffective. In Study 1, people who had been induced to believe in the value of catharsis and venting anger responded more aggressively than did control participants to insulting criticism, but this aggression w…
Relation between perceived vulnerability to HIV and precautionary sexual behavior
Although virtually all major theories of health-protective behavior assume that precautionary behavior is related to perceived vulnerability, the applicability of this assumption to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) preventive behavior has recently been called into question. This article uses qualitative and quantitative methods to review and integrate the literature relevant to the relation between perceived vulnerability to HIV and precautiona…
This is your brain on violent video games: Neural desensitization to violence predicts increased aggression following violent video game exposure
Too Proud to Let Go: Narcissistic Entitlement as a Barrier to Forgiveness
Narcissistic entitlement impedes forgiveness in ways not captured by other robust predictors (e.g., offense severity, apology, relationship closeness, religiosity, Big Five personality factors), as demonstrated in 6 studies. Narcissistic entitlement involves expectations of special treatment and preoccupation with defending one's rights. In Study 1, entitlement predicted less forgiveness and greater insistence on repayment for a past offense. Com…
Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence: Self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies
Does media endorsement for catharsis produce a self-fulfilling or a self-defeating prophecy? In Study 1, participants who read a procatharsis message (claiming that aggressive action is a good way to relax and reduce anger) subsequently expressed a greater desire to hit a punching bag than did participants who read an anticatharsis message. In Study 2, participants read the same messages and then actually did hit a punching bag. This exercise was…
Role of cognitive-emotional mediators and individual differences in the effects of media violence on aggression
Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that observation of media violence elicits thoughts and emotional responses related to aggression. In Experiment 1, highly violent videotapes elicited more aggressive cognitions than did a less violent tape. This effect was moderated by the trait of stimulus screening. In Experiment 2, aggressive cognitions increased with the level of violence in the videotape, and physical assaultiveness infl…
Too fatigued to care: Ego depletion, guilt, and prosocial behavior
You've got mail: Using e-mail to examine the effect of prejudiced attitudes on discrimination against Arabs
A longitudinal study of link between exposure to violent video games and aggression in Chinese adolescents: The mediating role of moral disengagement
Although adolescents around the world play video games, little is known about their longitudinal effects on adolescents from Eastern countries. This large longitudinal violent video game study has 4 strengths. First, it is the first longitudinal study conducted with Chinese adolescents. Second, it examines moral disengagement as a possible mediating variable. Because violent video games reward immoral behaviors (e.g., stealing cars, killing chara…
Predictors of child-to-parent aggression: A 3-year longitudinal study
Although we rarely hear about it, children sometimes aggress against their parents. This is a difficult topic to study because abused parents and abusive children are both reluctant to admit the occurrence of child-to-parent aggression. There are very few research studies on this topic, and even fewer theoretical explanations of why it occurs. We predicted that exposure to violence in the home (e.g., parents aggressing against each other) and ine…
Reassessing media violence effects using a risk and resilience approach to understanding aggression
Public discourse about the effect of violent media on aggression has become contentious.We propose that violent media effects can best be understood within a risk and resilience framework that considers multiple factors that facilitate or inhibit aggression.In a prospective study, 430 third through fourth grade children, their peers, and their teachers were surveyed twice during the school year, about 6 months apart.Six risk/protective factors fo…
Creating hostility and conflict: Effects of entitlement and self-image goals
People who feel entitled to admiration and respect from others do not make good companions. This research shows one reason why. Entitled people adopt self-image goals (goals that aim to construct and defend a positive self-image), which then lead to interpersonal conflict and hostility. Studies 1A and 1B documented a unique relation between entitlement and self-image goals. Study 2 extended these results by showing, via a longitudinal design, tha…
The competitive reaction time task: The development and scientific utility of a flexible laboratory aggression paradigm
Laboratory measures play an important role in the study of aggression because they allow researchers to make causal inferences. However, these measures have also been criticized. In particular, the competitive reaction time task (CRTT) has been criticized for allowing aggression to be operationalized in multiple ways, leaving it susceptible to “ p ‐hacking.” This article describes the development of the CRTT and the ways in which its paradigm fle…
The more you play, the more aggressive you become: A long-term experimental study of cumulative violent video game effects on hostile expectations and aggressive behavior
Viewing the world through “blood-red tinted glasses”: The hostile expectation bias mediates the link between violent video game exposure and aggression
Psychology of the Scientist: XLX. Frequently Cited Research on Human Aggression
This article reports a citation analysis of research on human aggression. Citations from articles on aggression were culled from Aggressive Behavior, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Journal of Personality, Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Research in Personality, Journal of Social Psychology, and Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin for the 3-yr. period 1980–1982. Out of 1194 books and journal articles, 35…
Standard Errors of Measurement for the Various MMPI Subscales
If an individual takes more than one MMPI the subscale scores are likely to vary. The individual giving the test may wish to identify significant changes between subscale scores. Standard errors of measurement may be beneficial in this regard. The purpose of this study was to compute the standard errors of measurement for each of the MMPI subscales. A table is also provided for individuals who wish to use these data
Effects of alcohol on human aggression: An intergrative research review
This review used quantitative and qualitative techniques to integrate the alcohol and aggression literature. The primary purpose of the review was to determine if a causal relation exists between alcohol and aggression. The main meta-analysis included 30 experimental studies that used between-subjects designs, male confederates, and male subjects who were social drinkers. Studies using other designs or subject populations were integrated with met…
Effects of alcohol on human aggression: An intergrative research review
Role of cognitive-emotional mediators and individual differences in the effects of media violence on aggression
Two experiments were conducted to test the hypothesis that observation of media violence elicits thoughts and emotional responses related to aggression. In Experiment 1, highly violent videotapes elicited more aggressive cognitions than did a less violent tape. This effect was moderated by the trait of stimulus screening. In Experiment 2, aggressive cognitions increased with the level of violence in the videotape, and physical assaultiveness infl…
Testing the null hypothesis in meta-analysis: A comparison of combined probability and confidence interval procedures
Combined significance tests (combined p values) and tests of the weighted mean effect size are both used to combine information across studies in meta-analysis. This article compares a combined significance test (the Stouffer test) with a test based on the weighted mean effect size as tests of the same null hypothesis. The tests are compared analytically in the case in which the within-group variances are known and compared through large-sample t…
Testing the null hypothesis in meta-analysis: A comparison of combined probability and confidence interval procedures
Human Aggression While Under the Influence of Alcohol and Other Drugs: An Integrative Research Review
For hundreds of years, it has been assumed that people behave more aggressively while under the influ of alcohol and other drugs. Correlational evidence provides some support for conventional wis dom. Many studies have found a strong relation between drug intoxi cation and violent crimes (e.g., homicide, assault, rape). These stud ies generally find that approximately 50% of the assailants were intoxi cated at the time the violent crimes were com…
A procedure for combining sample correlation coefficients and vote counts to obtain an estimate and a confidence interval for the population correlation coefficient
Missing effect-size estimates pose a particularly difficult problem in meta-analysis. Rather than discarding studies with missing effect-size estimates or setting missing effect-size estimates equal to 0, the meta-analyst can supplement effect-size procedures with vote-counting procedures if the studies report the direction of results or the statistical significance of results. By combining effect-size and vote-counting procedures, the meta-analy…
A procedure for combining sample correlation coefficients and vote counts to obtain an estimate and a confidence interval for the population correlation coefficient
Moderating role of trait aggressiveness in the effects of violent media on aggression
The Dynamics of Aggression
The Dynamics of Aggression
Relation between perceived vulnerability to HIV and precautionary sexual behavior
Although virtually all major theories of health-protective behavior assume that precautionary behavior is related to perceived vulnerability, the applicability of this assumption to human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) preventive behavior has recently been called into question. This article uses qualitative and quantitative methods to review and integrate the literature relevant to the relation between perceived vulnerability to HIV and precautiona…
External Validity of “Trivial” Experiments: The Case of Laboratory Aggression
The external validity of artificial “trivial” laboratory settings is examined. Past views emphasizing generalizability of relations among conceptual variables are reviewed and affirmed. One major implication of typical challenges to the external validity of laboratory research is tested with aggression research: If laboratory research is low in external validity, then laboratory studies should fail to detect relations among variables that are cor…
Hot years and serious and deadly assault: Empirical tests of the heat hypothesis
Priming Effects of Media Violence on the Accessibility of Aggressive Constructs in Memory
Two experiments tested the hypothesis that violent media make aggressive constructs more accessible to viewers. In Experiment 1, participants made free associations to homonyms, with one meaning more aggressive than the other; and to nonaggressive words after viewing a violent or nonviolent video. Participants who saw the violent video listed more aggressive associations to both types of words. In Experiment 2, participants completed a lexical-de…
Threatened egotism, narcissism, self-esteem, and direct and displaced aggression: Does self-love or self-hate lead to violence
It has been widely asserted that low self-esteem causes violence, but laboratory evidence is lacking, and some contrary observations have characterized aggressors as having favorable self-opinions. In 2 studies, both simple self-esteem and narcissism were measured, and then individual participants were given an opportunity to aggress against someone who had insulted them or praised them or against an innocent third person. Self-esteem proved irre…
Research in the Psychological Laboratory: Truth or Triviality
This article examines the truism that studies from psychological laboratories are low in external validity. Past rational and empirical explorations of this truism found little support for it. A broader empirical approach was taken for the study reported here; correspondence between lab and field was compared across a broad range of domains, including aggression, helping, leadership style, social loafing, self-efficacy, depression, and memory, am…
Catharsis, aggression, and persuasive influence: Self-fulfilling or self-defeating prophecies
Does media endorsement for catharsis produce a self-fulfilling or a self-defeating prophecy? In Study 1, participants who read a procatharsis message (claiming that aggressive action is a good way to relax and reduce anger) subsequently expressed a greater desire to hit a punching bag than did participants who read an anticatharsis message. In Study 2, participants read the same messages and then actually did hit a punching bag. This exercise was…
Self-Esteem, Narcissism, and Aggression: Does Violence Result From Low Self-Esteem or From Threatened Egotism?
A traditional view holds that low self-esteem causes aggression, but recent work has not confirmed this. Although aggressive people typically have high self-esteem, there are also many nonaggressive people with high self-esteem, and so newer constructs such as narcissism and unstable self-esteem are most effective at predicting aggression. The link between self-regard and aggression is best captured by the theory of threatened egotism, which depi…
Effects of Violent Video Games on Aggressive Behavior, Aggressive Cognition, Aggressive Affect, Physiological Arousal, and Prosocial Behavior: A Meta-Analytic Review of the Scientific Literature
Research on exposure to television and movie violence suggests that playing violent video games will increase aggressive behavior. A meta-analytic review of the video-game research literature reveals that violent video games increase aggressive behavior in children and young adults. Experimental and nonexperimental studies with males and females in laboratory and field settings support this conclusion. Analyses also reveal that exposure to violen…
Is it time to pull the plug on hostile versus instrumental aggression dichotomy?
Psychologists have often categorized human aggression as hostile or instrumental. Hostile aggression is "hot," impulsive behavior that is motivated by a desire to hurt someone; instrumental aggression is "cold," premeditated behavior used as a means to some other end. This dichotomy was useful to the early development of aggression theories and continues to capture important features of nonhuman aggression, but it has outlived its usefulness as a…
Media violence and the American public: Scientific facts versus media misinformation
Do people aggress to improve their mood? Catharsis beliefs, affect regulation opportunity, and aggressive responding
Do people aggress to make themselves feel better? We adapted a procedure used by G. K. Manucia, D. J. Baumann, and R. B. Cialdini (1984), in which some participants are given a bogus mood-freezing pill that makes affect regulation efforts ineffective. In Study 1, people who had been induced to believe in the value of catharsis and venting anger responded more aggressively than did control participants to insulting criticism, but this aggression w…
Psychology (138 works) · Social Psychology (122 works) · Aggression (82 works) · Bullying, Victimization, and Aggression (73 works) · Poison control (58 works) · Developmental psychology (54 works) · Social Psychology (50 works) · Medicine (48 works) · Medical emergency (40 works) · Media Influence and Health (38 works)