About

Nathan Walter (he/him/his) is an Associate Professor in the Department of Communication Studies at Northwestern University. He is also the Founder and Co-Director of the Center of Media Psychology and Social Influence (COM-PSI). His research concerns the power of strategic storytelling, correction of misinformation, and the role of emotion and affect in social influence. Walter's studies have been published in leading outlets such as the Journal of Communication, Communication Research, Human Communication Research, and Communication Monographs. His recent work, supported by organizations including NIH/FDA, the Peterson Foundation, the Chicago Center for Diabetes Translation Research, and the Delaney Foundation, focuses on novel methods to debunk misinformation and change behavior. His overarching research agenda revolves around developing multilevel and ecological models to provide a nuanced understanding of communication-related phenomena.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Medicine
• Computer Security
• Social psychology
• Computer Science
• Political Science
• Nursing
• World Wide Web
• Internet privacy
• Psychiatry
• Clinical psychology
• Virology
• Applied psychology

Selected publications

• The Paradox of Tailored Messaging: When Precision Interferes with Privacy

  Health Communication · 2026-03-25

  articleSenior author

  = 451) investigates the effects of message specificity (explicit vs. implicit) on behavioral intention across two health topics. The evidence points to an interesting tradeoff between precision and invasiveness. Specifically, across two topics, greater tailoring precision enhances perceived invasiveness, which, in turn, triggers felt anger and negative cognitions, ultimately decreasing behavioral intention. These findings contribute to a gradually growing body of knowledge suggesting the contingent effects associated with tailored health communication.

  PublisherDOI

• A Meta-Analysis of Parasocial Relationships and Health: Examining Theoretical Mechanisms, Health Outcomes, and Moderating Factors

  Health Communication · 2026-03-14

  article

  This meta-analysis reviews the literature on parasocial relationships (PSRs) and their association with health from 1979 to 2024. While previous work has established PSRs as influential in persuasive contexts, their specific role in health outcomes remains unclear. In a review of 58 studies, this meta-analysis finds that PSRs are positively associated with both beneficial and harmful health attitudes as well as with health information seeking and sharing. Supporting existing theoretical accounts, PSRs are positively correlated with variables that facilitate health outcomes, including perceived source credibility, risk perceptions, and self-efficacy, yet negatively correlated with resistance to persuasion. Moderation analyses reveal that the type of health condition, media personality, and use of experimental stimuli have a significant influence on the relationship between PSRs and health outcomes. These results extend our theoretical understanding of parasocial relationships in health contexts and offer practical implications for health communication practitioners, including the potential for PSRs to be leveraged for health behavior change while being mindful of potential harmful effects.

  PublisherDOI

• Credibility Staining and the Boundaries of Expertise: The Reputational Cost of Commenting on Polarized Topics

  Proceedings of the ... Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences/Proceedings of the Annual Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences · 2026-01-01

  articleOpen access

  This study introduces the concept of credibility staining, the reputational harm experts may experience when their commentary on polarizing issues undermines perceptions of their trustworthiness and expertise, even within their own domain. Such risks are increasingly relevant in today’s digital media environment, where experts often offer opinions on contentious topics outside their area of expertise. We tested this phenomenon using a 2x2 factorial experiment in which participants viewed a fictitious marine biologist’s tweets on both a domain-relevant issue (fishing zone expansion) and a domain-irrelevant, polarized issue (gun control). When the expert’s stance on gun control conflicted with participants’ beliefs, perceived credibility declined – even in their area of specialization. These effects were strongest among highly partisan individuals. The findings highlight how ideological alignment shapes credibility judgements and underscore the reputational risks of epistemic trespassing in digital discourse. We discuss implications for science communication and public trust in expertise.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Synthetic News, Natural Doubts? A Meta-Analysis of Credibility Perceptions of AI-Generated News

  Cyberpsychology Behavior and Social Networking · 2026-04-07

  articleSenior author

  As generative artificial intelligence (AI) becomes increasingly integrated into news production, concerns about the credibility of synthetic news content are intensifying. While some studies report that audiences find AI-generated news less credible than human-written content, others reveal mixed or even reversed findings. This meta-analysis synthesizes findings across 31 studies (41 effect sizes) to assess how the source label (AI vs. human) influences news users' evaluations of source credibility and message credibility. Results show a small but statistically significant penalty for AI-labeled (vs. human-labeled) news on both credibility measures. To better understand variability across studies, we put forth three moderators: (1) the value-ladenness of the topic, (2) participants' source orientation, and (3) actual authorship of the text. Although the first two moderators showed descriptive trends consistent with expectations, only the third reached statistical significance, with effects being more pronounced when the news articles were actually written by human only (vs. AI). These findings contribute to ongoing debates about the role of automation in journalism by clarifying when and why audiences mind the source.

  PublisherDOI

• Lifting the Screen on Fitspiration: A Meta-Analysis

  Health Communication · 2026-05-03

  articleSenior author

  = 6,111) addresses this question by synthesizing the growing body of causal evidence published between 2015 and 2023. The results paint a dire image, revealing that exposure to fitspiration among young adults leads to increased social comparisons and unhealthy dieting and exercise motivations, as well as negatively influencing self-esteem, body image, appearance satisfaction, and affect. These findings set the agenda for future research, offering empirical evidence regarding a widespread, albeit undertheorized, feature of growing up in today's social media landscape.

  PublisherDOI

• Trust falls: analyzing trust in science as a moderator ofsource credibility in contentious scientific contexts

  Communication Research Reports · 2026-01-04

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Descriptive Norms ≠ Injunctive Norms: A Meta-Analytic Review Across Four Health Contexts

  Health Communication · 2026-05-23

  article

  = .34), with stronger alignment for friend-based (vs. family-based) referents and distinct motivational profiles for each normative perception. Perceived injunctive norms were more strongly associated with attitudes and intentions, whereas perceived descriptive norms were more closely associated with actual behavior. A meta-regression further showed that perceived injunctive norms consistently amplified the effects of perceived descriptive norms across outcomes. Taken together, findings demonstrate that perceived descriptive and injunctive norms function as related yet distinct constructs whose influence varies systematically with social context-suggesting that progress may require embracing woollier questions about the foundations of normative influence.

  PublisherDOI

• Media matters: a mixed-method look into the research on misinformation and communication over 30 years

  Annals of the International Communication Association · 2025-08-12

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract We use a large-scale mixed-method analysis to examine changes in misinformation research over three decades, with a particular attention to the role of media research. We examine a corpus of more than 7,000 academic studies, published between 1993 and 2022, analyzing changes in volume, topics, and methods used. Employing computational text and network analyses, we show how the meteoric rise in misinformation research in the 2010s was driven by a paradigm shift brought about by technological innovations and changes in the media and political landscape. We discuss the growing role communication scholars played in misinformation research, and offer recommendations for areas of strength in which communication research could further extend our understanding of the prevalence, nature, and effects of misinformation moving forward.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Interventions to mitigate COVID-19 misinformation: protocol for a scoping review

  UNC Libraries · 2025-04-24

  articleOpen access
  PublisherDOI

• Labor Leads to Love, Right? A Meta‐Analysis of the IKEA Effect

  Psychology and Marketing · 2025-10-14 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author

  ABSTRACT The IKEA effect refers to people's tendency to overestimate the value of items they personally assembled or assisted in creating. The current meta‐analysis ( k = 55, N = 5,454), synthesizes data from empirical studies assessing the relationship between self‐assembly and product valuation to estimate the average effect size of the phenomenon, test its main and secondary outcomes, and assess potential boundary conditions. The results point to a significant moderate impact of self‐assembly labor on valuation ( d = 0.57, p < 0.005), as well as a host of secondary outcomes, including liking, self‐concept, and sense of ownership. Moreover, the observed effects remained quite robust in the face of various moderators such as product customization and tangibility. By integrating over a decade of research, this meta‐analysis offers a comprehensive quantitative assessment of the IKEA effect, clarifies its psychological underpinnings, and highlights key directions for future research.

  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Sheila T. Murphy

  19 shared

• Stefanie Z. Demetriades

  DePaul University

  14 shared

• John J. Brooks

  12 shared

• Camille J. Saucier

  Clemson University

  11 shared

• Robin L. Nabi

  University of California, Santa Barbara

  10 shared

• Lauren B. Frank

  Indiana University Health

  7 shared

• Sapna Suresh

  7 shared

• Lourdes Báezconde‐Garbanati

  Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute

  6 shared