Dr. Dolores Albarracín received her Ph.D. from the University of Illinois in 1997, and became an Endowed Professor at the University of Florida in 2006. She returned to the University of Illinois in 2007 where she is now a Professor of Psychology. Dr. Albarracín specializes in attitudes and persuasion, the intention-behavior relation, goals, predicting general activity patterns, and predicting and changing health risk behaviors. She has published her work in the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Psychological Bulletin, Health Psychology, Psychological Science, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, The Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, Journal of Clinical and Consulting Psychology, and Advances in Experimental Social Psychology, among others. She co-edited two books, including the Handbook of Attitudes, a reference with national and international reputation. Dr. Albarracín was a chartered member of the Social Psychology and Individual Difference Processes of the National Institutes of Health, and serves on numerous national and international committees, as well as a number of editorial boards. She is a fellow of the Society for Experimental Social Psychology, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, the American Psychological Association, and the Association for Psychological Science.
About the Speaker
Dolores Albarracín is the Amy Gutmann Penn Integrates Knowledge (PIK) University Professor, the Walter and Leonore Annenberg Director of the Annenberg Public Policy Center, and director of the center’s Communication Science division. A social psychologist, Albarracín studies the impact of communication and persuasion on human behavior and the formation of beliefs, attitudes, and goals, particularly those that are socially beneficial. Born in Argentina, Albarracín received her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 1997 and has been a tenured professor at the University of Florida and at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Albarracín is a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences, the American Academy of Political and Social Science, and the American Association for the Advancement of Science. She is also a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology (SPSP), the American Psychological Association (APA), the Association for Psychological Science, and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology. Her research was recognized in 2018 with the SPSP’s inaugural Award for Outstanding Scientific Contributions to Research on Attitudes and Social Influence. Albarracín also received the 2020 Diener Award for Outstanding Mid-Career Contributions in Social Psychology and the 2025 Career Contribution Award from the SPSP. In 2025, along with four other social psychologists, she was honored with the BBVA Foundation’s Frontiers of Knowledge Award in Social Sciences for research increasing “our understanding of how attitudes can be changed, particularly with regard to persuasive messages.”Albarracín has published about 250 journal articles and book chapters in scientific outlets, including leading outlets in psychology, health, and science, and has had an important impact on national health communication policy. Her research is an unusual combination of basic and applied psychology. She has been elected President of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology and was Editor-in-Chief of Psychological Bulletin from 2014 to 2020. She is currently Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition.
