About

Sonya Dal Cin is a Professor of Communication and Media and a Professor of Psychology (by courtesy) at the University of Michigan. She also serves as a Research Professor at the Research Center for Group Dynamics within the Institute for Social Research and is the Associate Dean for Academic Programs and Initiatives at the Rackham Graduate School. She obtained her undergraduate degree from Queen's University in Canada and earned her Ph.D. in Psychology from the University of Waterloo, where she held a Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of Health Research. Following a Postdoctoral Fellowship at the Norris Cotton Cancer Center (now Dartmouth Cancer Center), she joined the University of Michigan faculty. Her major research interest is how everyday experiences with media influence thought, emotion, and behavior, and how these effects shape media-related choices. Her work examines story-based belief change, the role of identification with characters, and the impact of stories on behavior, including effects that occur outside viewers' conscious awareness. She studies the experience of media use, its effects on important outcomes, and the underlying processes, with particular attention to individual differences and contextual influences such as developmental stage. Her research integrates social-cognitive perspectives on media influence and learning with communication science and social psychological research on media effects. Current research areas include the role of communication media in health behavior, stereotyping, adolescent development, and older adulthood. Her work has been presented at national and international conferences and published in numerous academic journals.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Medicine
• Psychology
• Nursing
• Family medicine
• Multimedia
• Developmental psychology
• Social psychology

Selected publications

• Unraveling Perceived Work Values of Role Models From TV Series and Social Media in Adolescents’ Work Value Endorsement: A Longitudinal Investigation

  Communication Research · 2025-09-17

  article

  Work values are a component of vocational identities. How TV series and social media role models play a role in adolescents’ work value endorsement remains underexamined. This study investigated transactional within-person associations between perceived upholding of intrinsic/extrinsic work values by a favorite occupational role model from a TV series or from social media and adolescents’ intrinsic/extrinsic work value endorsement. The moderating roles of occupational wishful identification and gender were also examined. Altogether, 1,294 late adolescents (55.85% girls, M age = 18.34, SD age = 6.44) participated in a three-wave panel study. Perceived upholding of intrinsic work values by a favorite occupational role model from a TV series positively predicted adolescents’ intrinsic work value endorsement on the within-person level. Regarding the perceived upholding of intrinsic/extrinsic work values by a favorite role model from social media and adolescents’ work value endorsement, only between-person associations emerged. No support was found for our moderators.

  PublisherDOI

• Shade visibility: Assessing the algorithmic role of colorism in the perception of Black beauty influencers

  New Media & Society · 2025-12-24

  article

  Skin tone discrimination—or colorism—is an additional marginalization barrier that People of Color must navigate. Black women, especially those with darker complexions, are often discursively constructed as the antithesis to Western beauty standards—standards that commonly prioritize White femininity as the beauty benchmark. Studies on the beauty influencer economy reveal that Black women remain at a disadvantage in the beauty hierarchy. This study uses a survey experiment to explore how skin tone impacts perceptions of attractiveness and competence among viewers of digital beauty content. Surveying African Americans ( N = 576), primarily Black Women ( n = 524), we found that beauty influencers with darker skin tones are rated as less attractive and less competent. Participants also revealed that they would be less likely to click on the videos of darker skinned beauty influencers in comparison to influencers with lighter brown and medium brown skin tones. These results suggest that, among Black women viewers, preferences for beauty content is skin tone dependent. Because view counts are a significant metric in influencer marketability, viewing disparities along the lines of skin tone have the potential to widen the gap among Black influencers, creating disproportionate opportunities for success within an already marginalized population.

  PublisherDOI

• Discounting Counter-Stereotypical Representations in Entertainment Based on Existing Beliefs

  Media Psychology · 2024-09-22 · 1 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Research brief: A quantitative content analysis to explore work value portrayals among characters in Belgian adolescents’ favorite TV series

  Journal of Children and Media · 2024-08-21 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  sponsorship: This work was supported by the Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen) under Grant [11G0220N] (Research Foundation Flanders (FWO-Vlaanderen)|11G0220N)

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Preexisting Stereotypes and Selection of Counter-Stereotypical Genius Representations in Entertainment Media

  Journal of Media Psychology Theories Methods and Applications · 2023-05-16 · 8 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract: Broader, more diverse representation in mass media is frequently imagined as a tool for reduction of harmful stereotypes at scale. Increasingly, entertainment media in the United States feature representations that challenge or counter prevailing stereotypes. However, emergence of a high-choice media environment offers and facilitates the opportunity to be selective about the entertainment one consumes. Using a US sample, we show that entertainment media selection is predicted by preexisting beliefs — greater endorsement of a particular stereotype predicted a decrease in the selection of shows featuring representations challenging that stereotype. Findings indicate that those who could benefit most from these representations are less likely to be exposed to them, undermining the utility of mass media in the widespread reduction of harmful stereotypes.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Philanthropic, prosocial players: How game-related charity events motivate unlikely donors

  New Media & Society · 2022-10-20 · 3 citations

  article

  Although we have long known that many different types of individuals play video games, the stereotypical “gamer” is often portrayed as a young male. Furthermore, research into questions such as violence and aggression, addiction or problematic play, and toxic gaming communities tends to frame gamers and gaming as anti-social. From a philanthropic perspective, then, gamers appear to be unlikely candidates for charitable giving. Following attendance at a fundraising game tournament for Gamers Outreach, a non-profit charity that provides video game systems to children’s hospitals, this research team conducted a survey of attendees. Our findings suggest that gamers are willing to support and monetarily contribute to a cause they believe in, but also that engaging potential donors through their preexisting interests and communities—in this case, games—can be a productive form of outreach. Finally, participants recognized and sought to combat gaming’s anti-social stereotypes, revealing a further motivation behind their charitable behavior.

  PublisherDOI

• Empowerment-Themed Advertising Effects: Activation of Empowerment and Objectification Schemas in Women Age 18-35

  Media Psychology · 2022-11-13 · 7 citations

  article

  Advertisements that ostensibly serve to empower women have become popular in recent years, but recent research calls into question the psychological effectiveness of these advertisements. While seemingly progressive, empowerment-themed advertisements (ETAs) often pair empowerment-themed narratives with objectifying visuals despite the established harmful effects of objectification in media. Though empowerment and objectification intuitively seem incompatible, this relationship has not been empirically tested. The current study used experimental design to examine the relationship between empowerment and objectification schemas following exposure to ETAs. U.S. women age 18–35 (N= 273) were randomly assigned to view advertisements from one of five conditions displaying combinations of high/low empowerment and objectification themes. They then completed a lexical decision task (LDT) to measure schema activation. While ETAs were perceived as significantly more empowering than other advertisement types in the manipulation check, no advertising condition exhibited greater activation of empowerment schemas than the control group as measured by the LDT, suggesting that ETAs were largely ineffective at activating empowerment schemas. Contrary to initial expectations, there was no evidence that objectification content suppressed priming of empowerment schemas, though interpretation of the objectification schema findings is complicated by the likely impact of cognitive load on LDT response times.

  PublisherDOI

• What Do Women Want? Consent for the Use of Electronic Fetal Monitoring

  International Journal of Childbirth · 2021-09-01 · 2 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Patterns of media use and leisure time among older adults

  New Media & Society · 2021-12-07 · 15 citations

  article1st authorCorresponding

  The aging population is rapidly growing both in the United States and many other parts of the world. Simultaneously, technology is rapidly progressing, and new forms of media have become integrated into daily life and societal participation. This study uses time diary data from a panel survey of members of nationally representative households ( N = 1776) to explore patterns of media use and functionally equivalent leisure time among older adults. The data support a three-profile typology of older adult use of media and non-media leisure activities. These include the computer socializer, the hobbyist, and the television watcher. We elaborate on these patterns of use and explore correlates with demographic and well-being variables. We find no evidence that well-being significantly differs across profiles of media use but identify income and employment status as potential drivers of older adults’ media activity, with implications for digital inequalities.

  PublisherDOI

• Absorption

  2020-01-01 · 1 citations

  book-chapter1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

Frequent coauthors

• James D. Sargent

  Dartmouth College

  28 shared

• Mike Stoolmiller

  Oregon Research Institute

  17 shared

• Keilah A. Worth

  15 shared

• Thomas A. Wills

  14 shared

• Frederick X. Gibbons

  Iowa State University

  9 shared

• Susanne E. Tanski

  9 shared

• Meg Gerrard

  7 shared

• Emily B. Falk

  7 shared

Education

• Doctor of Philosophy

  University of Waterloo

  2005

• Bachelor of Arts (Honours)

  Queen's University

  2000

Awards & honors

• Canada Graduate Scholarship from the Canadian Institutes of…