Institute of Science and Society Lecture - Media Violence: How it affects us and what we can do about it?"

Craig Anderson is the chair of the department of psychology at Iowa State University, Ames, and a leading authority on aggression -- especially on how aggression and violence in video games influence children and young adults. He has given expert witness testimony in numerous settings, including the U.S. Senate, on the negative impact of media violence, and has been quoted internationally on the topic. He played a major role in a recent U.S. Surgeon General Committee on media violence, and was the lead author of the most recent comprehensive review of the media violence research literature. Many of his recent studies have focused on the topic of violence in video games and their effects on children and adolescents. He also has published extensively in several other areas of social, personality, and abnormal psychology, including depression, attribution theory, and human decision making.