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Professor Craig A. Anderson |
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Background (click here to download Professor Anderson's vita in pdf format.) |
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Craig A. Anderson grew up on a small family farm in northern Indiana. In his senior year he was named his high school's Athlete of the Year and the region's Kiwanis Club Athlete of the Year (following in his brother's footsteps, the only siblings to have won this award). He graduated as the co-valedictorian. After graduating from high school he joined the U.S. Army Reserve. He received his B.A. in psychology and sociology from Butler University in 1976. His M.A. in psychology from Stanford University was awarded in 1978; Lee Ross was his M.A. advisor. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from Stanford University in 1980, with J. Merrill Carlsmith serving as his dissertation advisor. |
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Professor Anderson was an Assistant (1980-1985) and Associate (1985-1988) Professor at Rice University, and a Visiting Professor at Ohio State (1984-1985). He joined the University of Missouri-Columbia in 1988 and became Full Professor there in 1992. He has served on Faculty Councils at Rice (1987-1988) and at Missouri (1995-1996). He also served as Director of Graduate Studies for the Department of Psychology at Missouri from 1988-1996, and as Director of Graduate Admissions from 1988-1991. He was Faculty Advisor to Psi Chi (1991-1996) and to the Graduate Association of Students in Psychology (1992-1996). He also served as President, and incorporated the Stephen's Elementary Parents' Organization, 1994-1995. He joined the Iowa State University faculty
in 1999, as Professor and Chair of the Department
of Psychology. In 2004, Professor Anderson was
presented with the "Iowa State University
Foundation Award for Outstanding Achievement in
Research." In 2005, he was awarded the title
"Distinguished Professor," the highest faculty
honor given by Iowa State University. He served
six years as Department Chair, completing his term
in 2005. In 2007, he founded the Center for the
Study of Violence. |
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Professor Anderson was a founding member
of the Society of Southwestern Social
Psychologists and served as its President in
1986-1987. He also played an important role in the
growth and development of Social Psychologists in
Texas (SPIT), and was a founding member of Social
Psychologists Around Missouri (SPAM; "Missouri"
was later changed to "Midwest"). He has served on
the Executive Council of the International Society
for Research on Aggression (1997-2006), and
currently is the President-Elect of the Society
(2008-2010). He served as President in 2010-2012. |
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Professor Anderson's teaching and research awards include: |
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Professor Anderson's public policy contributions include: |
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Professor Anderson has been awarded "Fellow" status in the following organizations: |
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Research Interests |
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My main research interests are in social
and personality psychology, with a strong emphasis
on cognitive psychology. Most of my current
research focuses on aggression. Most of that
research focuses on the potentially harmful
effects of exposure to violent video games.
Other aggression research under way in my lab
includes work on jealousy, attribution and
appraisal processes, temperature effects, and effects
of violent media of various types. For
example, we have shown that hot temperatures
increase aggressive behavior under some
circumstances, in both laboratory and field
settings. This research has also shown that global
warming will likely produce substantial
increases in violent crime. Other research has
shown how life experiences influence the way
people think about guns, which in turn influences
the effects
of weapon primes on aggressive thoughts and
behavior. Still other research has shown that men
who
are
prone
to sexual aggression against women also tend
to behave more aggressively against women in
non-sexual ways, and that they specifically target
women rather than other men. |
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In addition, my students and other colleagues and I have been working on a model designed to integrate aggression/violence findings from a variety of research paradigms. The model includes individual difference and situational input variables. It also integrates affective and instrumental aggression. Click on the following links to access major articles on this model: Annual Review, Handbook, Media book, Good & Evil. |
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In related work (some published, some in progress), we have been trying to more clearly identify components of Aggressive Personality. We have shown, for instance, that aggressive people have two different hostility-related biases: they expect other people to behave more aggressively than do non-aggressive people; they "see" more aggression in on-going dyadic interactions than do non-aggressive people. Current work includes research on the relations among various trait aggressiveness factors, attitudes towards aggression, and the Big Five personality structure. |
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I occasionally publish on attributional style and depression, loneliness, and shyness. I have two 1999 book chapters in this area, one with one of my clinical colleagues (Debi Bell-Dolan, click here ), the other with a former graduate student of mine (Jody Dill, click here ). Other work on this topic can be found at my recent publications web page, including a cross-cultural study of attributional style and depression that appeared in Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin in 1999. |
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I also continue to work in social cognition, usually in the aggression domain but also in the social judgment/human inference area and in the attribution area. For instance, James Benjamin, Bruce Bartholow and I published a priming article in which we argue that the weapons effect (a classic in social psychology) is due in part to the capacity of weapons to prime aggressive thoughts. We also published follow-up studies examining the moderating role of individual differences in knowledge structures concerning weapons on the weapons priming effect. |
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Another research interest of mine concerns the external validity of laboratory paradigms. Brad Bushman, Jim Lindsay, and I have been examining the external validity of laboratory research from an empirical perspective. In brief, we have been comparing effect sizes obtained in lab versus field settings, and have found considerable convergence, both within the aggression domain, and across a wide variety of psychological research domains. Some of this work appeared in Review of General Psychology (1997). The most recent appeared in Current Directions in Psychological Science (1999). |
| My most recent work has been on
psychology and rapid global warming. My colleagues and I
have published several book chapters, journal articles,
and a monograph describing the effects of global warming
on violent behavior at the individual, intergroup,
societal, and international levels. We've also addressed
the underlying biological, psychological, sociological,
political, and economic processes that link rapid global
warming to a host of negative outcomes, ranging from
basic brain development all the way to terrorism and
war. |
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In all of these research interests, my focus has been on studying basic psychological processes underlying significant human problems. Thus, even though most of my research is not strictly "applied" psychology, all of it has important implications for improving the human condition in contemporary society. Indeed, the potential applicability of research findings is what largely determines my choice of research topics. |