Sonya Dal Cin

Associate Professor of Communication and Media; Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychology; Research Associate Professor, Research Center for Group Dynamics, Institute for Social Research.

Professor Dal Cin obtained her B.A.H. from Queen's University (Canada) and her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Waterloo (Canada), where she held a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. She came to the University of Michigan in 2007, following a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the NorrisCotton Cancer Center (Dartmouth College and Dartmouth Medical School).

Professor Dal Cin's major research interest is the impact of stories on attitudes, beliefs, self-concept, and behaviors. Her work examines the processes of story-based belief change, the role of identification with characters, the impact that stories have on behavior, and how these effects might occur outside viewers' conscious awareness. Her work integrates social-cognitive research on media influence and learning with communication science and social psychological research on media effects. Current research includes the role of communication media in health behavior and social influence, the moderating effect of relevant individual differences, and the processes that underlie the effects of media exposures.

Professor Dal Cin's work has appeared at national and international conferences, and in the American Journal of Preventive Medicine, Archives of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine (now JAMA: Pediatrics), Health Education Research, Health Psychology, Human Communication Research, Media Psychology, Psychological Science, and Tobacco Control.