Robin L Nabi
Biographic Data
| ID | 202404 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Robin L Nabi |
| GIVEN NAMES | Robin L |
| FAMILY NAME | Nabi |
| SIGNATURE | NABI R L |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of California, Santa Barbara |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-2057-8489 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 50 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 504 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 49 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 1 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1999 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 9 |
Self-administered media prescriptions: Training algorithms todeliver inspirational content to reduce stress and increase goalmotivation
The Pulse of Privacy: The Role of Efficacy Framing and Discrete Emotion in Combating Privacy Powerlessness and Motivating Online Privacy Protection
Can discrete emotions be leveraged to combat privacy powerlessness and motivate privacy protection? Extending theorizing and research that exclusively focus on cognitive processes underlying online privacy decision-making, this study builds on gain/loss framing research and the emotions-as-frames model to understand the effectiveness of emotional appeals (i.e., hope and fear) in generating attitudinal and behavioral change in online privacy. Two …
Media versus meditation: A comparison of the stress-relieving benefits of multiple media experiences
Too Much Screen Time or Too Much Guilt? How Child Screen Time and Parental Screen Guilt Affect Parental Stress and Relationship Satisfaction
Recent decades have witnessed a surge in public discourse around the negative effects of media technologies. One of these public debates concerned the negative effects of child screen time on children’s development resulting in parental feelings of guilt and stress as parents struggle to limit their children’s screen use. Based on a social constructivist perspec tive, we suggest that parental stress around child screen time and subsequent relati…
Media prescriptions for goal achievement: The differential effect of inspiring versus humorous content
Coping with the Covid-19 Pandemic by Using Media: Extending the Coping Goodness-of-Fit Hypothesis to Media Use
During the COVID-19 pandemic, people had to cope with stress in two different ways: engaging in problem-focused behaviors (e.g. seeking information) and regulating their emotions. In particular, during lockdowns, media played an important role in these coping processes. This short-term longitudinal study during the first stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in April 2020 in Germany (N = 348) tested how coping strategies related to two categories of cop…
Effects of Scanning Health News Headlines on Trust in Science: An Emotional Framing Perspective
Rooted in the emotions-as-frames model (EFM), this research examines how hope, fear, and annoyance are evoked through health news headline scanning, and how these emotions influence perceptions of news and medical science institutions as well as health behavioral intentions. A sample of U.S. adults (N = 327) were assigned to one of four headline framing conditions expected to associate with different emotions (positive future frame-hope; threat f…
Emotional Shifts in Health Messages as a Strategy for Generating Talk and Behavior Change
Although talk generated by health messages can spread message content and promote positive behavior change, little is known about what message features may be more likely to prompt conversation. Given theoretical and research support for sequential emotional experiences to increase the intensity of emotion and the extent of engagement with the emotional content – both of which are expected to positively influence talk and persuasion – we examined…
Emotions in the Digital World: Exploring Affective Experience and Expression in Online Interactions
This edited volume examines the ways in which rapidly changing technologies and patterns of media use influence, and are influenced by, our emotional experiences. Following introductory chapters outlining common conceptual frameworks used in the study of emotion and digital media effects, this book is then organized around four general areas highlighting the intersection of technology use and emotional experience: how people experience, and resea…
Can a Video a Day Keep Stress Away? A Test of Media Prescriptions
This research attempts to both replicate initial research on media prescriptions – the assignment of small doses of positively-valenced media for the purposes of reducing perceived stress – and, through the lens of the broaden-and-build theory, shed light on the process through which this effect might emerge. Two longitudinal data sets were collected, one with college students (N = 182) and one with U.S. adults (N = 197), in which participants we…
Using emotional flow in patient testimonials to debias affective forecasting in health decision-making
People often overestimate the duration and intensity of emotional impact for future health events, leading to sub-optimal decision-making. Previous attempts to mitigate these affective forecasting errors have had only limited success. Across two experiments with different emotional appeals (fear and disgust), health contexts (genetic testing and colonoscopy), and samples (women and African American men), this research explored the potential of em…
Consuming memes during the Covid pandemic: Effects of memes and meme type on Covid-related stress and coping efficacy
As COVID-19 quickly spread across the globe, social media memes (i.e., typically humorous or cute images related to popular culture) about life in a pandemic also spread across the Internet. We conducted a between-subjects online experiment (N = 748) to assess how viewing memes during this pandemic era may influence audiences' stress and coping. In terms of psychological responses, we found that meme viewing (vs. nonmeme content) was associated w…
Coping with Covid-19 stress: The role of media consumption in emotion- and problem-focused coping
Making it Real: The Role of Parasocial Relationships in Enhancing Perceived Susceptibility and Covid-19 Protective Behavior
Nathan Waltera*, Jonathan Cohenb , Robin L. Nabic & Camille J. Saucieraa School of Communication, Northwestern University, Evanston, llinois, USAb Department of Communication, University of Haifa, Haifa, Israelc Department of Communication, UC Santa Barbara, California, USA
How Emotional Shifts Effect Youth Perceptions of Opioid Risk and Efficacy: Testing a Know the Truth Campaign Narrative
Integrating the extended parallel process model (EPPM) and the emotional flow hypothesis, we tested the persuasive effect of emotional shifts during exposure to a Know the Truth anti-opioid campaign narrative in a sample of middle-school students (n = 480). Testing two emotional flow sequences (threat to efficacy and efficacy to threat) of the Know the Truth narrative against a static (threat-only) emotional condition, we found that youth exposed…
Does Digital Media Use Harm Children’s Emotional Intelligence? A Parental Perspective
Emotional intelligence (EI) is comprised of a set of critical life skills that develop, in part, through practice in social interaction. As such, some have expressed concern that the heavy screen media diet of today’s youth threatens the development of those crucial abilities. This research assesses how the media diet of children and the media use of their parents relates to child EI levels to assess what, if any, specific patterns exist. Four hu…
How communication scholars see open scholarship
While perspectives on open scholarship practices (OSPs) in Communication are noted in editorials and position papers, as a discipline we lack data-driven insights into how the larger community understands, feels about, engages in, and supports OSPsinsights that could inform current conversations about OSPs in Communication and document how the field shifts in response to ongoing discourses around OS in the current moment. A mixed-methodological s…
Seeing Red Through Rose-Colored Glasses: Subjective Hope as a Moderator of the Persuasive Influence of Anger
Research identifies contradictory effects of anger in political communication, engendering heuristic processing of information that exacerbates partisan bias in some situations, but increasing attention and deepening information processing in others. This study addressed these contradictions by positing subjective hope as a moderator of anger’s effects on message processing and persuasion. Employing an experimental design (N = 538) in the context…
Can Emotions Capture the Elusive Gain-Loss Framing Effect? A Meta-Analysis
Although recent streams of research have suggested that emotions play a key role in generating framing effects, little is known about the affective dimension of gain and loss framing and its potential impact on persuasion. The current study adopted a meta-analytical approach, synthesizing over 30 years of literature ( k = 25, N = 5,772), to investigate this issue. The results indicate that message frame type directs the emotional response elicite…
Media Prescriptions: Exploring the Therapeutic Effects of Entertainment Media on Stress Relief, Illness Symptoms, and Goal Attainment
Rooted in theories of positive emotions, this research asks the question: Can media be prescribed to help mitigate the negative effects of stress on well-being? Over the course of 5 days, participants were assigned 5-minute YouTube videos pilot tested to evoke hope, amusement, or calmness. Compared to a no-message control, each media group reported reduced stress during the intervention. All groups also reported reduced stress and fewer illness s…
Uplifting Fear Appeals: Considering the Role of Hope in Fear-Based Persuasive Messages
Fear appeal research has focused, understandably, on fear as the primary emotion motivating attitude and behavior change. However, while the threat component of fear appeals associates with fear responses, a fear appeals' efficacy component likely associates with a different emotional experience: hope. Drawing from appraisal theories of emotion in particular, this article theorizes about the role of hope in fear appeals, testing hypotheses with t…
Meta-Analysis of Anger and Persuasion: An Empirical Integration of Four Models
Despite the increasing use of anger in persuasive messaging, such as political ads and health campaigns, very little is known about when and how anger affects persuasion. Building on theoretical propositions derived from four theoretical models that have addressed the link between anger and persuasion, the current meta-analysis (k = 55, N = 6,805) finds a weak impact of anger on behavior (r = .15, p = .04) and nonsignificant effects on attitudes …
Kimmel on Climate: Disentangling the Emotional Ingredients of a Satirical Monologue
This study explored whether satire (an emotional blend of humor/indignation) can minimize the emotional tradeoffs researchers have documented for humorous appeals about climate change. Using a sample of U.S. young adults, we conducted a 2 (humor: present/absent) × 2 (indignation: present/absent) + 1 (control) experiment in which we manipulated a climate change segment from Jimmy Kimmel Live! Our evidence suggests that it is possible for a late-ni…
On the Value of Perceived Message Effectiveness as a Predictor of Actual Message Effectiveness: An Introduction
The publication in this journal of O’Keefe’s (2018) meta-analysis challenging the strength of the relationship between perceived message effectiveness (PME) and actual message effectiveness (AME) and, in turn, the wisdom of relying on PME for selecting messages for broad dissemination, proved (unsurprisingly) controversial. Triggering immediate dissent from those actively researching and using such measures, a panel at the Kentucky Conference on …
Framing Climate Change: Exploring the Role of Emotion in Generating Advocacy Behavior
Substantial research examines the cognitive factors underlying proenviron-mental message effectiveness. In contrast, this study investigates the role of emotion, fear and hope specifically, in the gain/loss framing of environmental policy initiatives. The 2 (threat vs. no threat) × 2 (gain- vs. loss-framed efficacy) experiment revealed emotion, especially hope, as a key mediator between gain-framed messages and desired climate change policy attit…
Explaining the Effects of Narrative in an Entertainment Television Program: Overcoming Resistance to Persuasion
Journal Article Explaining the Effects of Narrative in an Entertainment Television Program: Overcoming Resistance to Persuasion Get access Emily Moyer-Gusé, Emily Moyer-Gusé 1School of Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1339, USA 1Corresponding author: Emily Moyer-Gusé; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Robin L. Nabi Robin L. Nabi 2Department of Communication, University of Californ…
All Joking Aside: A Serious Investigation into the Persuasive Effect of Funny Social Issue Messages
This research was designed to assess the effects of contemporary political humor on information processing and persuasion, focusing specifically on two competing processes: processing motivation/counterargument distraction and message discounting. In Study 1, 212 undergraduates read one of four monologues by political comedian Bill Maher. Correlations and path modeling suggested that, in general, humor associated with greater source liking, close…
A Cognitive-Functional Model for the Effects of Discrete Negative Emotions on Information Processing, Attitude Change, and Recall
Drawing from cognitive response models of persuasion, functional emotion theories, and theoretical and empirical work on the influence of message-relevant and message-irrelevant affect on attitudes, this paper presents a model of persuasion that suggests that discrete, message-induced negative emotions influence attitudes through a complex process that centers around the notions of motivated attention and motivated processing. Emotion type, expec…
Framing Climate Change: Exploring the Role of Emotion in Generating Advocacy Behavior
Substantial research examines the cognitive factors underlying proenviron-mental message effectiveness. In contrast, this study investigates the role of emotion, fear and hope specifically, in the gain/loss framing of environmental policy initiatives. The 2 (threat vs. no threat) × 2 (gain- vs. loss-framed efficacy) experiment revealed emotion, especially hope, as a key mediator between gain-framed messages and desired climate change policy attit…
Anger, fear, uncertainty, and attitudes: A test of the cognitive-functional model
The cognitive-functional model of discrete negative emotions and attitude change (CFM; Nabi, 1999) attempts to bridge the theoretical gap between "emotional" and "rational" approaches to persuasion by focusing on how emotions motivate attention to and processing of persuasive messages. As a first test of the CFM, this study explored the effects of 2 emotions, anger and fear, and 2 levels of expectation of message reassurance, certainty and uncert…
The Case for Emphasizing Discrete Emotions in Communication Research
Additional informationNotes on contributorsRobin L. Nabi Robin L. Nabi is Professor of Communication in the Department of Communication, University of California Santa Barbara
Conceptualizing Media Enjoyment as Attitude: Implications for Mass Media Effects Research
Journal Article Conceptualizing Media Enjoyment as Attitude: Implications for Mass Media Effects Research Get access Robin L. Nabi, Robin L. Nabi 1Robin L. Nabi (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 3Robin Nabi, Department of Communication, 5838 Ellison Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, 93106 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar …
Cosmetic Surgery Makeover Programs and Intentions to Undergo Cosmetic Enhancements: A Consideration of Three Models of Media Effects
Journal Article Cosmetic Surgery Makeover Programs and Intentions to Undergo Cosmetic Enhancements: A Consideration of Three Models of Media Effects Get access Robin L. Nabi Robin L. Nabi 1Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 1Corresponding author: Robin L. Nabi; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Human Communication Research, Volume 35, Issue 1, 1 January 2009, Pages…
Reduction of Perceived Social Distance as an Explanation for Media's Influence on Personal Risk Perceptions: A Test of the Risk Convergence Model
The risk convergence model proposes reduction of perceived social distance to a mediated personality as a mechanism through which the mass media can influence audiences' personal risk perceptions. As an initial test of the model, this study examined whether 5 audience variables known to facilitate media effects on personal risk perceptions—identification, parasocial interaction, personal relevance, transportation, and perceived realism—would exer…
Kimmel on Climate: Disentangling the Emotional Ingredients of a Satirical Monologue
This study explored whether satire (an emotional blend of humor/indignation) can minimize the emotional tradeoffs researchers have documented for humorous appeals about climate change. Using a sample of U.S. young adults, we conducted a 2 (humor: present/absent) × 2 (indignation: present/absent) + 1 (control) experiment in which we manipulated a climate change segment from Jimmy Kimmel Live! Our evidence suggests that it is possible for a late-ni…
Victims With Voices: How Abused Women Conceptualize the Problem of Spousal Abuse and Implications for Intervention and Prevention
How communication scholars see open scholarship
While perspectives on open scholarship practices (OSPs) in Communication are noted in editorials and position papers, as a discipline we lack data-driven insights into how the larger community understands, feels about, engages in, and supports OSPsinsights that could inform current conversations about OSPs in Communication and document how the field shifts in response to ongoing discourses around OS in the current moment. A mixed-methodological s…
Exploring the Concept of Media Enjoyment: An Introduction to the Special Issue
A Cognitive-Functional Model for the Effects of Discrete Negative Emotions on Information Processing, Attitude Change, and Recall
Drawing from cognitive response models of persuasion, functional emotion theories, and theoretical and empirical work on the influence of message-relevant and message-irrelevant affect on attitudes, this paper presents a model of persuasion that suggests that discrete, message-induced negative emotions influence attitudes through a complex process that centers around the notions of motivated attention and motivated processing. Emotion type, expec…
Victims With Voices: How Abused Women Conceptualize the Problem of Spousal Abuse and Implications for Intervention and Prevention
The theoretical versus the lay meaning of disgust: Implications for emotion research
Appraisal research based on participants' self-report of emotional experiences is predicated on the assumption that the academic community and the lay public share comparable meanings of the emotion terms used. However, this can be a risky assumption to make, as in the case of the emotion disgust which appears in common usage to reflect irritation, or anger, as often as repulsion. To examine the theoretical versus the lay meaning of disgust, 140 …
Does Television Viewing Cultivate Unrealistic Expectations About Marriage
One explanation for the high divorce rate in our society focuses on the idealistic expectations with which many people enter into marriage. The media have been cited as the source of or major contributor to these expectations; however, no empirical evidence exists to support that claim. Based on a survey of 285 never-married university students, this study sought to examine the relationship between television viewing, holding idealistic expectati…
Discrete Emotions and Persuasion
Anger, fear, uncertainty, and attitudes: A test of the cognitive-functional model
The cognitive-functional model of discrete negative emotions and attitude change (CFM; Nabi, 1999) attempts to bridge the theoretical gap between "emotional" and "rational" approaches to persuasion by focusing on how emotions motivate attention to and processing of persuasive messages. As a first test of the CFM, this study explored the effects of 2 emotions, anger and fear, and 2 levels of expectation of message reassurance, certainty and uncert…
Exploring the Framing Effects of Emotion: Do Discrete Emotions Differentially Influence Information Accessibility, Information Seeking, and Policy Preference?
The persuasive effects of emotions have been the focus of burgeoning interest in recent years. Rather than considering how emotions function within traditional paradigms of attitude change, this research explores the possibility that emotions serve as frames for issues, privileging certain information in terms of accessibility and thus guiding subsequent decision making. This study’s results offer evidence that fear and anger can differentially a…
The Persuasive Effect of Host and Audience Reaction Shots in Television Talk Shows
Conceptualizing talk shows as persuasive messages and based on dual-processing models of persuasion, we explored the effects of nonverbal reactions of a talk show host and studio audience members to arguments presented by a talk show guest on a low-involvement topic. Participants viewed 1 of 4 versions of a talk show segment in which host and studio audience reactions shots were manipulated to be either neutral or positive. Results suggested that…
Conceptualizing Media Enjoyment as Attitude: Implications for Mass Media Effects Research
Journal Article Conceptualizing Media Enjoyment as Attitude: Implications for Mass Media Effects Research Get access Robin L. Nabi, Robin L. Nabi 1Robin L. Nabi (PhD, University of Pennsylvania) is an assistant professor at the University of California, Santa Barbara. 3Robin Nabi, Department of Communication, 5838 Ellison Hall, University of California, Santa Barbara, 93106 Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar …
Exploring the Concept of Media Enjoyment: An Introduction to the Special Issue
The Persuasive Influence of Emotion in Cancer Prevention and Detection Messages
This paper reviews and summarizes the literature on the relationship between emotion and persuasion as it bears on the production of cancer prevention and detection messages. A series of propositions are presented that serve to illustrate the intricacies of the emotion–persuasion relationship. These propositions deal with the necessary conditions for emotional arousal, individual differences in emotional reactivity to cancer messages, the potenti…
Does Misery Love Company? Exploring the Therapeutic Effects of TV Viewing on Regretted Experiences
Testing hypotheses derived from regret and mood management theories, this research explores how regretted experiences impact interest in viewing experience-relevant TV programming and such viewing’s effects on program enjoyment and felt regret. One hundred and forty-four participants, half of whom had been unfaithful in romantic relationships, were asked first to rate their interest in viewing a series of storylines and then to provide their reac…
All Joking Aside: A Serious Investigation into the Persuasive Effect of Funny Social Issue Messages
This research was designed to assess the effects of contemporary political humor on information processing and persuasion, focusing specifically on two competing processes: processing motivation/counterargument distraction and message discounting. In Study 1, 212 undergraduates read one of four monologues by political comedian Bill Maher. Correlations and path modeling suggested that, in general, humor associated with greater source liking, close…
Exploring the Limits of Social Cognitive Theory: Why Negatively Reinforced Behaviors on TV May Be Modeled Anyway
Despite extensive discussion of the potential for viewers’ social learning of risky health behaviors from TV programming, there has been relatively little effort to test behavioral modeling predictions. That is, it is not clear whether televised depictions of negatively reinforced undesirable behaviors (e.g., unsafe sex), in fact, influence the value viewers attach to those behaviors and their future likelihood of performing them, as social cogni…
Cosmetic Surgery Makeover Programs and Intentions to Undergo Cosmetic Enhancements: A Consideration of Three Models of Media Effects
Journal Article Cosmetic Surgery Makeover Programs and Intentions to Undergo Cosmetic Enhancements: A Consideration of Three Models of Media Effects Get access Robin L. Nabi Robin L. Nabi 1Department of Communication, University of California, Santa Barbara, CA 93106 1Corresponding author: Robin L. Nabi; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Human Communication Research, Volume 35, Issue 1, 1 January 2009, Pages…
Standard back-translation procedures may not capture proper emotion concepts: A case study of Chinese disgust terms
We present data questioning the adequacy of standard back-translation procedures for investigating emotion states across cultures (Brislin, 1970). Our data indicate that the Chinese back-translation of the term disgust has led cross-cultural researchers to accept terms whose themes, goals, and motivations are more akin to the English term anger. Evidence is presented showing that, compared with the standard back-translation method, a more painsta…
The Case for Emphasizing Discrete Emotions in Communication Research
Additional informationNotes on contributorsRobin L. Nabi Robin L. Nabi is Professor of Communication in the Department of Communication, University of California Santa Barbara
Explaining the Effects of Narrative in an Entertainment Television Program: Overcoming Resistance to Persuasion
Journal Article Explaining the Effects of Narrative in an Entertainment Television Program: Overcoming Resistance to Persuasion Get access Emily Moyer-Gusé, Emily Moyer-Gusé 1School of Communication, The Ohio State University, Columbus, OH 43210-1339, USA 1Corresponding author: Emily Moyer-Gusé; Search for other works by this author on: Oxford Academic Google Scholar Robin L. Nabi Robin L. Nabi 2Department of Communication, University of Californ…
Tracing the Course of Reality TV Effects Research
This chapter overviews the history of reality‐based TV research, starting with efforts to define the genre and understand why people watch such programming, with particular attention to issues of voyeurism and desire for fame. The discussion then turns to research on the effect of reality TV consumption, which has progressed primarily through the lenses of cultivation theory, social cognitive theory, and perceived realism. Given the general focus…
Facebook Friends with (Health) Benefits? Exploring Social Network Site Use and Perceptions of Social Support, Stress, and Well-Being
There is clear evidence that interpersonal social support impacts stress levels and, in turn, degree of physical illness and psychological well-being. This study examines whether mediated social networks serve the same palliative function. A survey of 401 undergraduate Facebook users revealed that, as predicted, number of Facebook friends associated with stronger perceptions of social support, which in turn associated with reduced stress, and in …
Reduction of Perceived Social Distance as an Explanation for Media's Influence on Personal Risk Perceptions: A Test of the Risk Convergence Model
The risk convergence model proposes reduction of perceived social distance to a mediated personality as a mechanism through which the mass media can influence audiences' personal risk perceptions. As an initial test of the model, this study examined whether 5 audience variables known to facilitate media effects on personal risk perceptions—identification, parasocial interaction, personal relevance, transportation, and perceived realism—would exer…
Media-based emotional coping
Emotional Flow in Persuasive Health Messages
Overwhelmingly, the literature on the persuasive influence of emotions has focused on individual emotions, fear in particular, though some recent attention has been given to mixed emotions in persuasive appeals. Building on this newer wave of research, this article argues that instead of focusing on singular emotional states or collections of emotions evoked by a message, it might prove valuable to explore the flow, or evolution, of emotional exp…
The Role of a Narrative's Emotional Flow in Promoting Persuasive Outcomes
The study of narrative persuasion has increased dramatically in the past decade. Whereas much of this research focuses on story and character involvement, the role of emotion—and emotional flow specifically—has been understudied. In this article, we explore the multiple ways that the desire for and the experience of emotional shifts may promote the persuasive influence of narratives. First, we propose that the desire for an emotional shift (e.g.,…
It takes two: The effect of child characteristics on U.S. parents’ motivations for allowing electronic media use
Extant research on parents’ choices for child media consumption focuses exclusively on parental beliefs and motives along with demographic variables. However, given parental choices are made within the context of the parent–child relationship, this study investigates how perceived child characteristics influence parents’ motives for allowing their children to consume screen media. One hundred and fifty-one parents of children between 6 months and…
Psychology (45 works) · Social Psychology (33 works) · Media Influence and Health (31 works) · Medicine (12 works) · Persuasion (12 works) · Political science (10 works) · Sociology (10 works) · Anger (9 works) · Clinical Psychology (9 works) · Cognitive psychology (9 works)