Robin Nabi

Robin Nabi received her AB from Harvard College and her MA/PhD from the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania.  Her research focuses on the interplay between emotion and cognition in understanding the influence of mediated messages. Specific interests include the effects of discrete emotions on the cognitive processing and persuasive effect of health and social issue messages, emotion’s role in the perception of risk and decision-making, and the effects of entertainment media on attitude and behavior change.  She has published over 80 articles and book chapters in these areas and co-edited of the SAGE Handbook of Media Processes and Effects. She has served as a managing editor of Media Psychology, as associate editor of the Journal of Communication, and on the editorial board of numerous top communication journals.  She is a past chair of the Mass Communication Division of the International Communication Association as well as the Communication and Social Cognition Division of the National Communication Association.  She is a recent recipient of the McQuail Award for the best article advancing communication theory published in a peer-reviewed journal in the past year, the 2018 Innovation in Theory Award from the Mass Communication Division of ICA, and is a 2017 inductee as a Fellow of the International Communication Association. 

Prof. Nabi’s teaches courses in persuasion, communication and emotion, health communication, and mass media effects. Her current research projects focus on emotional sequencing in persuasive messages, the emotional framing of health news, and media use as relates to stress and well-being.