About

Emily Falk, Ph.D., is a Professor of Communication, Psychology, Marketing, and Operations, Informatics, and Decisions at the University of Pennsylvania. She serves as Vice Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication, as well as the Director of the Communication Neuroscience Lab and the Climate Communication Division of the Annenberg Public Policy Center. Her research focuses on behavior change, persuasion, and the mechanisms by which ideas and behaviors spread. Falk uses tools from psychology, neuroscience, and communication to examine what makes messages persuasive, why and how ideas propagate, and what makes people effective communicators. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including early career awards from the International Communication Association, the Society for Personality and Social Psychology Attitudes Division, a Fulbright grant, the Social and Affective Neuroscience Society, a DARPA Young Faculty Award, and the NIH Director’s New Innovator Award. She was also named a Rising Star by the Association for Psychological Science.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Psychology
• Sociology
• Political Science
• Social psychology
• Cognitive psychology
• Law
• Computer Security
• Geography
• Linguistics
• Mathematics
• Library science
• Neuroscience
• Medicine
• Virology
• Cognitive science
• World Wide Web
• Media studies

Selected publications

• Staying connected: How close friendships supported emotional well-being during the COVID-19 pandemic.

  Emotion · 2026-03-19

  articleOpen access

  = 205; 10,088 observations), we examined how close friendship networks related to emotional well-being during the early months of the pandemic (May-October 2020). Leveraging prepandemic social network data and 28 days of ecological momentary assessments of affect and social interactions, we found that students with more close college friends reported higher positive affect and lower negative affect in daily life, even while physically separated from those friends. These individuals were buffered from the emotional toll of pandemic-related stressors, a pattern not explained by personality, interaction frequency, or living conditions. Rather, participants with more close friends experienced higher quality online interactions. Additionally, personal disclosures, whether in-person or online, were consistently associated with greater feelings of closeness. Notably, individuals with fewer close friends showed the largest boost in closeness following partner disclosures, suggesting that emotional sharing may play a compensatory role for those with limited social ties. These findings illustrate how friendships can continue to shape affective experiences from afar and highlight disclosure as a key mechanism through which closeness and its emotional benefits can be cultivated. Integrating social network structure, daily affect, and interaction-level processes, this work advances affective science by providing evidence of how the social regulation of emotion extends beyond physical proximity. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2026 APA, all rights reserved).

  PublisherDOI

• Workplace inclusion: A social network perspective

  Research in Organizational Behavior · 2025-11-20 · 1 citations

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• Profiles of Daily Positive Emotion Dynamics and Associations with Flourishing

  Journal of Happiness Studies · 2025-10-16 · 1 citations

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• Naturalistic Tobacco Retail Exposure and Smoking Outcomes in Adults Who Smoke Cigarettes Daily

  JAMA Network Open · 2025-09-29 · 2 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior authorCorresponding

  Importance: The tobacco industry spends more than $8 billion annually in the US on marketing at the point of sale. Exposure to tobacco retail has been associated with smoking outcomes, but substantially less is known about how objectively logged everyday tobacco retail exposure is associated with smoking outcomes. Objective: To assess preregistered hypotheses that individuals would report (1) greater craving and (2) more cigarettes smoked on days when their exposure to tobacco retail is higher than usual. Design, Setting, and Participants: This multimodal, within-person cohort study combined objectively logged geolocation tracking, public tobacco retail location records, and ecological momentary assessment data. Eligible participants recruited from the GeoSmoking Study were aged 21 to 65 years, smoked at least 5 cigarettes per day over the previous 6 months, owned a smartphone, and were a resident of Pennsylvania, New Jersey, or Delaware. Data were collected from May 25, 2022, to June 10, 2024. Exposure: Exposure to tobacco retail stores was assessed using mobility data matched with locations of tobacco retailers across Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware. Main Outcomes and Measures: Daily mean craving and daily number of cigarettes smoked were computed using ecological momentary assessment. Results: A total of 273 participants were included in the final analyses (mean [SD] age, 42.5 [10.7] years; 151 women [55.3%]). Multilevel models revealed support for both preregistered hypotheses. On days when individuals had more tobacco retail exposure than their own average, they reported significantly higher levels of craving (b = 0.04; 95% CI, 0.01-0.07; t3457 = 2.72; P = .01) and smoking significantly more cigarettes (b = 0.01; 95% CI, 0.0002-0.01; t3469 = 2.05; P = .04). Conclusions and Relevance: In this cohort study of individuals who smoke cigarettes daily, exposure to tobacco retail in their everyday lives was associated with increases in craving and smoking. These findings highlight the importance of retail exposure and smoking outcomes, information that is critical for developing effective tobacco control interventions and lays the foundation for broader health research on environmental factors that shape health behaviors.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Workplace Inclusion: A Social Network Perspective

  2025-10-20

  articleOpen access

  Workplace inclusion is fundamental to fostering diversity and equity in organizations, yet itremains inconsistently defined and operationalized in the literature. This paper integratesresearch on the psychology of belonging with social network analysis to propose a frameworkthat bridges organizational practices of inclusion, meso-level network dynamics, and individualexperiences of belonging. We define inclusion as the organizational structures, policies, andpractices that foster a sense of individual belonging; we conceptualize belonging as stemmingfrom an individual's experience of value, reciprocity, and fit. And we argue that organizationalpractices of inclusion shape individuals’ experiences of belonging in part by re-shaping thesocial networks that comprise their daily interactions. Drawing from social network research, weposit key structural indicators of individual-level belonging, including network centrality,bidirectional ties, and structural equivalence, which shape employees’ experiences withinorganizations. Applying this framework, we then highlight how employees from marginalizedgroups are disproportionately excluded from informal networks, restricting their access toinformation, mentorship, and advancement opportunities, and changing the affordances ofnetwork positions. We argue that social network analysis provides a potential tool to diagnoseand address these disparities, enabling organizations to measure and intervene in structuralbarriers to inclusion. By linking organizational-level practices of inclusion to the richly theorizedindividual-level experience of belonging, with networks serving as the bridge, we provide aroadmap for future research and practical interventions that promote retention, well-being, andengagement among diverse groups of employees and advance a more coherent and actionableapproach to fostering inclusion in the workplace.

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• Brain activity explains message effectiveness: A mega-analysis of 16 neuroimaging studies

  PNAS Nexus · 2025-10-31 · 4 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Persuasive communication in marketing, political, and health domains influences sales, elections, and public health. We present a mega-analysis (a pooled analysis of raw data) of 16 functional MRI datasets (572 participants, 739 messages, and 21,688 experimental trials) assessing the neural correlates of the effectiveness of messages in individual message receivers and at scale (in large groups of message receivers who did not undergo neuroimaging). Existing theories suggest that decision-making is driven by expected rewards and perceived social relevance associated with the expected outcomes of a given choice. Consistent with these theories, we find that (i) brain activity implicated in reward and social processing is associated with message effectiveness in individuals and at scale across diverse domains (e.g. marketing and health campaigns); (ii) exploratory analysis further suggests language, emotion, and sensorimotor processes as pertinent to message effectiveness; and (iii) brain activity provides complementary information on message effectiveness at scale beyond self-reports provided by the same neuroimaging participants. This study offers novel insights into the neurocognitive mechanisms underlying effective messaging, highlights a path toward greater unity and efficiency in persuasion research, and suggests practical intervention targets for message design.

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• Co-designing get-out-the-vote messaging with youth increases message effectiveness

  2025-11-01 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  Voting is a critical component of representative democracy but yields consistently low engagement from young Americans. Online communication interventions have the potential to catalyze action, but evidence regarding best practices for digital, youth-focused get-out-the-vote (GOTV) messaging is sparse. Guided by the Theory of Planned Behavior and Reasoned Action approaches, we integrated formative and participatory research approaches to fill this gap. In a partnership between communication researchers and a college student-led GOTV organization, we conducted formative research integrating experiential knowledge from youth partners with scientific evidence to generate a set of voting beliefs. We used the standard Hornik & Woolf method to select promising beliefs to target in messaging but also conducted post-hoc analyses demonstrating the potential of network approaches that take into account relationships among beliefs to identify influential beliefs. We then co-designed belief-informed GOTV messages that could be disseminated via social media and tested message effects in both local and national samples of college students. We found that the messages co-designed with youth to target promising voting beliefs were more motivating, persuasive, and self-relevant than existing GOTV social media messages from a national youth-focused campaign. They were also more motivating and persuasive than prior messages from our student-led GOTV partner organization—which were not designed using formative research—suggesting that the combination of formative and participatory research practices increases message effectiveness. Overall, these studies highlight the importance of engaging youth in voting research and illustrate the benefits of integrating theory-based formative research, network approaches, and human-centered participatory practices to develop messaging campaigns.

  PublisherDOI

• Motivating and Supporting Youth to Vote Using Theory‐Driven Approaches

  Social and Personality Psychology Compass · 2025-12-01

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  ABSTRACT Many Americans distrust the government, are disillusioned with the political process, and don't view voting as an effective form of political engagement. Such disillusionment is higher among young Americans, who are disproportionately underrepresented in government. Although voting is an essential action citizens can take to influence and reshape the government, the majority of youth don't vote regularly. Youth face substantial structural and psychological barriers that interact in particular ways during emerging adulthood to create friction that reduces youth voting and perpetuates cycles of political disempowerment. Executive Order 14248 and the SAVE Act will create new barriers to voting by requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, which is expected to disproportionately affect youth who lack access to valid identification documents at higher rates than older Americans. In the face of mounting structural barriers, it is increasingly important to design effective interventions to motivate and support youth to vote. This commentary outlines a psychologically‐informed approach to designing get‐out‐the‐vote initiatives to help youth overcome psychological barriers. It describes the developmental context of emerging adulthood and the challenges and opportunities this period poses for voting, and how developmental factors interact with structural and psychological barriers to impede voting. It then reviews theory and research from psychology, communication, and political science to provide recommendations for creating developmentally appropriate, theory‐based get‐out‐the‐vote initiatives. It also describes participatory co‐design approaches that can increase intervention effectiveness while also supporting youth civic identity development and democratic skill building.

  PublisherDOI

• Motivating and supporting youth to vote using theory-driven approaches

  2025-11-07

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Many Americans distrust the government, are disillusioned with the political process, and don’t view voting as an effective form of political engagement. Such disillusionment is higher among young Americans, who are disproportionately underrepresented in government. Although voting is an essential action citizens can take to influence and reshape the government, the majority of youth don’t vote regularly. Youth face substantial structural and psychological barriers that interact in particular ways during emerging adulthood to create friction that reduces youth voting and perpetuates cycles of political disempowerment. Executive Order 14248 and the SAVE Act will create new barriers to voting by requiring documentary proof of citizenship to register to vote in federal elections, which is expected to disproportionately affect youth who lack access to valid identification documents at higher rates than older Americans. In the face of mounting structural barriers, it is increasingly important to design effective interventions to motivate and support youth to vote. This commentary outlines a psychologically-informed approach to designing get-out-the-vote initiatives to help youth overcome psychological barriers. It describes the developmental context of emerging adulthood and the challenges and opportunities this period poses for voting, and how developmental factors interact with structural and psychological barriers to impede voting. It then reviews theory and research from psychology, communication, and political science to provide recommendations for creating developmentally appropriate, theory-based get-out-the-vote initiatives. It also describes participatory co-design approaches that can increase intervention effectiveness while also supporting youth civic identity development and democratic skill building.

  PublisherDOI

• Linguistic coupling between neural systems for speech production and comprehension during real-time dyadic conversations

  Neuron · 2025-12-17 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant DP2DA03515601

  NIH · $140k · 2013

• NIH Grant R21HD073549

  NIH · $374k · 2016

• NIH Grant DP2DA035156

  NIH · $2.2M · 2017

• NIH Grant R01CA180015

  NIH · $1.6M · 2018

• Using Neural Activity to Predict Behavior in Response to Persuasive Messages

  NSF · $211k · 2013–2015

Frequent coauthors

• David M. Lydon‐Staley

  129 shared

• Yoona Kang

  126 shared

• Peter J. Mucha

  108 shared

• Kevin N. Ochsner

  Columbia University

  108 shared

• Dani S. Bassett

  Applied Science Private University

  100 shared

• Zachary M. Boyd

  University of Pennsylvania

  95 shared

• Logan J. Bennett

  University of Pennsylvania

  82 shared

• Christin Scholz

  University of Amsterdam

  82 shared

Awards & honors

• Early career awards from the International Communication Ass…
• Early career awards from the Society for Personality and Soc…
• Fulbright grant
• Social and Affective Neuroscience Society
• DARPA Young Faculty Award