Brock Bastian featured on The Best of Our Knowledge

As always, host Bob Barrett selects an Academic Minute to air during The Best of Our Knowledge.

Each week this program examines some of the issues unique to college campuses, looks at the latest research, and invites commentary from experts and administrators from all levels of education.

For this week‘s edition (#1406), Bob has selected Brock Bastian’s segment on happiness and depression. Dr. Bastian, associate professor in the school of psychological sciences at the University of Melbourne, explores whether seeking something could be pushing it farther away.

Brock is an Associate Professor in the School of Psychological Sciences at the University of Melbourne. He is trained as a social psychologist and his research broadly focuses on the topics of well-being and morality. In his research on well-being, he has addressed questions such as why promoting happiness may have a downside, the cultural factors leading to depression, and why valuing our negative and painful experiences in life is a critical pathway to achieving happiness. Brock’s research on morality broadly focuses on how, when, and why we extend moral consideration to others, including non-human others, such as animals and the environment. In this research, Brock has examined the psychology of meat-eating, the dehumanization of others, and how developing an environmental ethic may promote more positive human interaction.

Brock completed in his Ph.D. in 2007 and since then has published more than 70 peer-reviewed journal articles and book chapters. His work has been featured in outlets such as The Economist, The New Yorker, TIME, New Scientist, Scientific American, Harvard Business Review, and The Huffington Post, among many others. His innovative approach to research has been acknowledged with the Wegner Theoretical Innovation Prize, and his contribution to psychology has been recognized by the Australian Psychological Society and Society of Australasian Social Psychologists early career researcher awards. Brock’s research has been supported by over $2 million in research funding.

Brock is not only passionate about building scientific knowledge, but also about communicating that knowledge. He has written for popular press outlets, such as The Conversation; delivered popular talks, such as at TEDx StKilda, The Ethics Centre Sydney, and Effective Altruism Australia; and appeared on radio shows such as The Minefield.

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