Dr. Brad J. Bushman is the Chair of Mass Communication Professor at Ohio State University. He has published extensively on the consequences and causes of human aggression. His work has questioned the utility of catharsis and relates also to violent video game effects on aggression. Along with Roy Baumeister, his work suggests that it is narcissism, not low self-esteem, that causes people to act more aggressively after an insult. His research has been featured in Newsweek, on 20/20, on the CBS Evening News, and on National Public Radio.

He has also been featured on Penn & Teller: Bullshit!. He got his BS in psychology from Weber State University in 1984 and his Ph.D. from the University of Missouri in 1989 and holds 3 master’s degrees (in statistics, psychology, and secondary education). Since 2005, Bushman has spent the summers as a professor of communication science at the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands. Prior to joining Ohio State University, Bushman was a professor at Iowa State University and the University of Michigan.

He was awarded an Ig Nobel award in psychology in 2013 for his work about the attractiveness of drunk people. In 2014 he got the Distinguished Lifetime Contribution to Media Psychology and Technology award from the American Psychological Association.