James O'Brien
Professor of Psychology
Tidewater Community College
James O’Brien is Professor of Psychology at Tidewater Community College where he has taught since 1972. He has also taught as an Adjunct Faculty at the University of Virginia and Virginia Commonwealth University and as an Exchange Scholar at Charles University (Prague). Dr. O’Brien chaired TCC’s Division of Social Sciences and Public Services at the Virginia Beach Campus (1986-87), and was twice named a Chancellor’s Commonwealth Professor by the Virginia Community College System. Elected a Fellow of the Virginia Academy of Science (1997) and appointed by former Governor Kaine to the Board of Trustees of the Science Museum of Virginia (2006-11), Dr. O’Brien was the inaugural recipient of the VCCS Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellence.
Working with several teams of students in his honors research classes since 1998, he has challenged the long-standing view in social psychology that women conform more than men in response to group pressure solely because of normative influence. The research teams have presented their developing empirical findings several times to the Virginia Academy of Science, and Dr. O’Brien has made presentations to the American Association for the Advancement of Science, the Association for Psychological Science, and the Virginia Psychological Association.
TCC honored Dr. O’Brien with its 2007 Professor of the Year Award, and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching-Council for the Advancement and Support of Teaching U.S. Professor of the Year Program named him 2010 Virginia Professor of the Year. He is also listed in 2011 Who’s Who in America.
Dr. O’Brien holds a B.A. in Psychology from the University of Richmond (1966), an M.S. in General-Applied Psychology from Virginia Commonwealth University (1970), and a Ph.D. in Human Factors Psychology from The Catholic University of America (1977). Dr. O’Brien and his wife Mary Louise live in Norfolk and have three children: Chris, Andrew, and Marquis.
