Rate My Professor Brock Bastian

Professor Brock Bastian is a Professor in the Melbourne School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne, within the Faculty of Medicine, Dentistry and Health Sciences. He is Director of the Ethics and Well-being Hub and Laboratory Director of the Behavioural Ethics, Affect and Meaning (BEAM) Lab. Trained as a social psychologist, he completed his PhD in 2007. Bastian's research focuses on social and cultural factors impacting decision-making and wellbeing. This includes examining why promoting happiness may have paradoxical effects, how negative and painful experiences contribute to meaning, purpose, resilience, and fulfillment, and behavioural ethics in understanding reasoning about personal and social issues and resolving conflicts of interest. The BEAM Lab investigates motivational and affective processes in ethical decision-making and behavior, responses to negative experiences, and determinants of a meaningful life.

Bastian has authored more than 100 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. Key publications include 'When group membership gets personal: a theory of identity fusion' (Psychological Review, 2012), 'Psychological essentialism and stereotype endorsement' (Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 2006), 'More human than you: attributing humanness to self and others' (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2005), 'The role of meat consumption in the denial of moral status and mind to meat animals' (Appetite, 2010), 'Don’t mind meat? The denial of mind to animals used for human consumption' (Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 2012), and 'Toward a psychology of human–animal relations' (Psychological Bulletin, 2015). He published the book The Other Side of Happiness in 2018. Bastian has received the Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize, Australian Psychological Society early career researcher award, and Society of Australasian Social Psychologists early career researcher award. His work has secured over $2 million in research funding and appeared in outlets such as The Economist, The New Yorker, TIME, New Scientist, Scientific American, and Harvard Business Review. He delivers public lectures including a TEDxStKilda talk 'Why We Need Pain to Feel Happiness' and contributes to The Conversation.