About

Jake Harwood is a Professor of Communication and the Director of Graduate Studies at the University of Arizona. He holds a PhD from the University of California, Santa Barbara, and his research primarily focuses on intergroup communication, with particular attention to age groups and the role of music in intergroup relations. Harwood is also interested in the use of AI large language models for coding text data and agent-based modeling of communication processes. He has authored books such as "Communication and Music in Social Interaction" and "Understanding Communication and Aging," and has co-edited several significant works in the field of intergroup communication. Harwood has published over 150 articles and book chapters, with recent publications appearing in media psychology, psychology of music, and the Journal of Communication. His contributions have been recognized through awards including the 2022 Robert C. Gardner Award for Outstanding Research in Bilingualism and the 2003 Giles-Nussbaum Distinguished Scholar Award. He is a Fellow of the International Communication Association and has served as an editor for prominent journals. His teaching encompasses research methods, intergroup communication, communication and music, and intergenerational communication. Currently, his ongoing research projects involve examining intergroup contact and communication, the role of music in interpersonal and intergroup relations, and experimenting with LLMs for coding text data. Harwood is accepting graduate students for Fall 2026.

Research topics

• Sociology
• Social psychology
• Psychology
• Gender studies
• Physics
• Engineering
• Developmental psychology
• Mathematics
• History

Selected publications

• Stereotypes in intergroup communication processes: Cognitive, affective, and behavioral dimensions

  Atlantic Journal of Communication · 2025-07-02 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Intergroup Communication with Autistic People via Music: An Imagined Contact Study

  Intercultural Communication Studies · 2025-05-12

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Autistic people, as is the case with many health conditions, are subject to stigmatization. We aim to ameliorate this situation and increase positive attitudes toward autistic people. Grounded in the imagined contact hypothesis, we investigated the effect of imagined musical interaction with an autistic person on non-autistic people’s attitudes toward autistic people in general. We conducted an online experiment in which non-autistic college students (N = 443) were randomly assigned to 2 (music vs. non-musical) × 2 (autistic student vs. non-autistic student) conditions. Thus, participants imagined communicating with an autistic (or non-autistic) peer student while doing a music-related (or math-related) school activity. Imagining musical (vs. non-musical) interactions with an autistic person marginally significantly increased a sense of synchronization with the target, which then contributed to reduced social distance. Results were discussed in relation to the imagined contact hypothesis and the broader applicability of music to reduce stigma.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• The role of social network sites (SNS) affordances in international students’ identity gap management during cross-cultural adjustment

  Journal of International and Intercultural Communication · 2025-08-11 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• How Mediated Intergroup Contact Works: Exploring Mechanisms of Music and Language Learning Activities’ Effects

  Media Psychology · 2025-08-20 · 3 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author
  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Patronizing Speech Measure

  PsycTESTS Dataset · 2024-01-01

  datasetSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Communication, Contact, and Intergenerational Dynamics: Aging in Not-So-Normal Times

  The International Journal of Aging and Human Development · 2024-11-05

  article1st authorCorresponding

  This Epilogue extends themes from the Special Issue, with a particular focus on how communication operates during times of social disruption. Three forms of disruption are discussed: societal-global disruption (manifested in the Covid-19 pandemic), individual-relational disruption (manifested in a dementia diagnosis), and societal progress (manifested in technological change). The Epilogue discusses how these disruptions affect the quality and quantity of intergenerational contact, and feed into hostile and benevolent forms of ageism. The conclusions discuss connections between disruptions and the Communication Ecology Model of Successful Aging, as well as links to societal segregation, thus suggesting the multiplicity of ways that communication serves as a platform for healthier approaches to aging in society.

  PublisherDOI

• Facilitating and Hindering Accurate Perceptions of Argument Strength: The Effects of Intergroup Bias and Intellectual Humility

  Western Journal of Communication · 2024-06-25

  articleSenior author

  Intellectual humility (IH), the awareness that one's beliefs could be wrong, is lacking in U.S. political discourse. Guided by the elaboration likelihood model, we conducted an experiment (N = 308) examining people's ability to differentiate objectively strong (versus weak) political arguments. We explore whether IH influences the effects of in-/outgroup sources on perceived argument strength. Results revealed people high in IH were better able to differentiate strong from weak arguments (nonsignificant with covariates in the model (p = .07), but significant without covariates). Additionally, participants evaluated ingroup messages as stronger than outgroup messages, an effect not moderated by IH.

  PublisherDOI

• <i>What</i> people <i>do</i> matters during intergroup communication: Immediate and delayed effects of intergroup contact via cognitive, affective, and behavioral mediators

  Communication Monographs · 2024-01-23 · 7 citations

  articleSenior author

  Positive intergroup communication reduces outgroup prejudice. Attempting to decompose the effect of intergroup contact more precisely, we argue that engaging in different activities during intergroup communication influences prejudice through different pathways. We investigated whether exposure to interactive videos involving cognitive, affective, and behavioral activities reduces outgroup prejudice through relevant mediators (knowledge, empathy, and synchronization). We found support for the effect of dancing (behavioral activity) and language learning (cognitive activity) on outgroup prejudice through the relevant mediators: synchronization and knowledge, respectively. Also, we demonstrated a long-term effect of mediated intergroup contact: the mediation path from dance through synchronization lasted a week after the intervention. We discuss the importance of the content of intergroup communication and its implications for creating prejudice-reduction interventions.

  PublisherDOI

• Reaching across social divides <i>deliberately</i> : Theoretical, political, and practical implications of intergroup contact volition for intergroup relations

  Social and Personality Psychology Compass · 2024-07-30 · 13 citations

  articleOpen access

  Abstract The benefits of positive intergroup contact for intergroup attitudes are well‐established. Yet individual and group self‐segregation practices demonstrate that opportunities for intergroup contact are not sufficient for contact uptake; and persistent institutionalized segregation reinforces and compounds this problem. Hence, we need to understand what drives people towards and away from intergroup contact and what consequences the capacity to deliberately engage or avoid contact has for individuals, groups, and communities. This paper formally introduces the concept of intergroup contact volition : our perceived personal control over intergroup contact engagement and avoidance. We demonstrate this concept's theoretical, political, and practical significance by highlighting its embeddedness in both old and recent literature. We document debates around volition in early intergroup contact research and note a prolonged neglect since. After discussing reasons for that neglect, we present a detailed analysis of the concept, outlining how the idea of volition itself is contested and political, as well as the ways it intersects with broader societal power and status dynamics. We then outline pathways for future research, including investigations of when taking volition away (making contact mandated) might be helpful, intersections between psychological and human geography perspectives on volition, and connections between volition and system justification. We argue that contact volition is intimately and ultimately linked to issues of social change: support of, versus resistance to, policies promoting intergroup integration. As a result, an enhanced understanding of volition is critical to developing intergroup contact research and practice into outcomes that maximize social justice.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Humanizing Dementia: Effects of Counter-Stereotypical Messages on Patronizing Speech toward People with a Stigmatized Health Condition

  Health Communication · 2023-05-10 · 7 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Patronizing speech and dehumanization both have negative impacts on the health and wellbeing of the recipients of these behaviors. This experiment applied Fiske's stereotype content model, Haslam's dual model of dehumanization, and Hummert's model of patronizing speech to assess the effects of warmth- and competence-enhancing messages about a person with dementia on perceptions of humanness and patronizing speech toward people with dementia. Results supported our predictions that warmth- and competence-enhancing messages would translate into general tendencies to humanize people with dementia as a group. Predicted effects on patronizing communication did not materialize, but there were some unanticipated ways in which warmth- and competence-enhancing messages did influence intentions to use patronizing speech.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Frequent coauthors

• Howard Giles

  University of Queensland

  18 shared

• László Vincze

  University of Helsinki

  15 shared

• Yan Bing Zhang

  University of Kansas

  13 shared

• Стефаниа Паолини

  Durham University

  13 shared

• Miles Hewstone

  University of Oxford

  11 shared

• Analisa Arroyo

  University of Georgia

  9 shared

• Nick Joyce

  University of Maryland, College Park

  8 shared

• Mark Rubin

  Durham University

  7 shared

Labs

• The Department of CommunicationPI

Education

• PhD, Communication

  University of California Santa Barbara

  1994

Awards & honors

• 2022 Robert C. Gardner Award for Outstanding Research in Bil…
• 2003 Giles-Nussbaum Distinguished Scholar Award from the Com…
• Fellow of the International Communication Association