The Communication Science division addresses questions at the center of APPC’s mission involving the science of understanding how knowledge, attitudes, and intentions translate into behavior, and when and how communication can increase the likelihood that those changes will occur and will benefit individuals and society at large. Answering these crosscutting questions is necessary to advance public well-being and curb the effects of misinformation, as well as to ensure support for democratic institutions. The division focuses on and anticipates communication-related challenges. The Communication Science division’s research involves experiments, surveys, meta-analysis, big data, and modeling. Its goal is informing science and policy with theoretically driven, evidence-based research.
What Makes Messages Persuasive?
Penn researchers led by PIK Professor Dolores Albarracín studied the persuasive impact of messages expressing attitudes, describing behaviors, or combining both.
