Monique Mitchell Turner Ph.D.

Monique Turner

Chair of the Department of Communication

Department
  • Communication
mmturner@msu.edu
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Bio

Dr. Monique Mitchell Turner is Professor and Chair of the Department of Communication at Michigan State University. Prior to this appointment, she served as Associate Dean at the Milken Institute School of Public Health at the George Washington University. Turner is trained in persuasion and employs that expertise in health, risk, and political communication; with a particular focus on message design and evaluation, judgment and decision making and cognitive processing of communication. Turner’s main focus is on the role that emotions play in the underlying psychosocial processes explaining message effects; her work has examined the effects of guilt, shame, anger, and fear (etc.) in the cognitive impacts of messaging. Turner is the author of the Anger Activism model—a behavioral theory explaining when anger is constructive versus deleterious. As the former director of the Center for Risk Communication Research at the University of Maryland, Turner’s research has been funded by organizations such as Health and Human Services, the Food and Drug Administration, the Joint Institute for Food Safety and Applied Nutrition (JIFSAN), and the Centers for Disease Control. Turner is the former Senior Editor of Health Communication and is the former associate editor of Communication Research Reports. She is the past chairperson of both the Communication and Social Cognition Division of the National Communication Association and the Health Communication Division of the International Communication Association. Turner was named a Fellow of the International Communication Association in 2023.

Roles

Turner oversees the Department of Communication at MSU. Previously, she oversaw the MPH program at GW as well as the online MPH at GW. She is the former director of both the DrPH and the PhD Social and Behavioral Sciences in the Department of Prevention and Community Health at GW.

Research and Teaching

The focus of Turner’s research is on the role of emotion in message design and message processing. Recently, her work has been examining the intersections of discrete emotions in information seeking, attention and processing (via eye-tracking), bio-physiological responses, and social norms. Graduate and undergraduate students are encouraged to contact her about research opportunities.

Research Centers and Labs

Health and Risk Communication Center

National Social Norms Center

CASE Lab

Related Work

National Communication Association logo
NCA 108th Annual Convention lineup for ComArtSci researchers
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Graphic with photos of Tuner and Los with text reading: Designated ICA Fellows: Monique Turner and Tim Vos
Turner and Vos named International Communication Association Fellows
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Group sitting on stage at Communication Sciences Futures conference
Conference analyzes future of communication science
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Impact of anger on voter behavior | Monique Turner - with a photo of Monique on the right
Monique Turner shares how anger affects voting behavior on MSU Today with Russ White Podcast
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Monique Turner at NSNC Launch, text reads: National Social Norms Center
The science of the positive: National Social Norms Center launch event highlights years of impact
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Podcasts

Designing Effective Health Risk Messages for COVID

Public Presentations

If You Want People to Act, Get Them Angry | Monique Turner | TEDxFoggyBottom

GWSPH Faculty Spotlight - Monique Turner

Recent Publications

Turner, M. M., Reinhart, E. C., Carnahan, D., & Markowitz, D. M. (2026). Fueling the fire: Anger, external political efficacy, and support for antisocial political behavior surrounding the 2024 U.S. presidential election. Political Psychology. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1111/pops.70144 

Oh, Y. J., Rasul, M. E., Lim, J. I. *, Calabrese, C., McKinley, E., Stevens, H., Turner, M. M., Lapinski, M. K., & Peng, T.-Q. (2025). Targeting anger for COVID-19 prevention: The motivating role of anger on media use and vaccination intention. PLOS ONE, 20(12), e0338183. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0338183

Turner, M. M., Jang, Y. *, Heo, R. J*., Ye, Q. *, Wade, R. B. *, Lapinski, M. K., & Peng, T.-Q. (2025). Mask wearing as a prosocial behavior: Proposing and testing the moral norms activation model. PLOS ONE, 20(5), e0322921. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0322921 

Reinhart, E. C., Turner, M. M., Markowitz, D. M., & Carnahan, D. (2025). Perceived social contribution and its associations with political participation. PLOS ONE, 20(9), e0330385. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0330385

Cho, H. J. *, Lim, S. *, Turner, M. M., Bente, G., & Schmälzle, R. (2025). Eyes on VR: Unpacking the causal chain between exposure, reception, and retention for emotional billboard messages. Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies, 3619411. https://doi.org/10.1155/hbe2/3619411

Cziner, M. J. *, Park, D. E. *, Hamdy, R. F., Rogers, L., Turner, M. M., & Liu, C. M. (2025). Efficacy of priming and commitment posters on urgent care patients' antibiotic expectations and knowledge: A cluster randomized trial. Antimicrobial Stewardship & Healthcare Epidemiology, 5(1), e1. https://doi.org/10.1017/ash.2024.475 

Lee, S. *, Choung, H. *, Peng, T.-Q., Lapinski, M. K., Jang, Y., & Turner, M. M. (2025). Believe it or not: A network analysis investigating how individuals embrace false and true statements during COVID-19. Communication Monographs, 92(1), 121–146. https://doi.org/10.1080/03637751.2024.2354252

Ye, Q. *, Turner, M. M., & Jang, Y*. (2025). Examining the psychological mechanisms underlying nostalgia appeals: A comparative experiment of nostalgia and regret. Health Communication, 40(4), 585–597. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2024.2355441 

Turner, M. M., Lim, J., Jang, Y., Heo, R. J., Ye, Q., Kim, M., Lapinski, M. K., & Peng, T.-Q. (2024). Do COVID-19 related primary emotions affect risk perceptions, efficacy beliefs, and information seeking and behavior? Examining emotions as audience segments. Frontiers in Communication, 9, 1–13. https://doi.org/10.3389/fcomm.2024.1378557

Turner, M. M., Wade, R. B., Heo, R. J., Ye, Q., & Jang, Y. (2024). Development and validation of the commitment to social activism scale using the Thurstone scaling procedure. Communication Research Reports, 41(3), 178–192. https://doi.org/10.1080/08824096.2024.2374413 

Yoon, H., Jang, Y., Lapinski, M. K., Turner, M. M., Peng, W., & Lee, S. (2024). The role of collective group orientation and social norms on physical distancing behaviors for disease prevention. Health Communication, 39(13), 3108–3121. https://doi.org/10.1080/10410236.2024.2303826 

Bessarabova, E., Turner, M. M., & Richards, A. S. (2024). Anger, efficacy, and message processing: A test of the anger activism model. Southern Communication Journal, 89(1), 1–14. https://doi.org/10.1080/1041794X.2023.2250301 

Turner, M. M., Jang, Y., Barry, R., Heo, R. J., Ye, Q., Hembroff, L. A., & Lim, J. (2023). The effects of moral norms and anticipated guilt on COVID-19 prevention behaviors. Current Psychology, 43, 16767–16779. https://doi.org/10.1007/s12144-023-04477-5

Carnahan, D., Ahn, S., & Turner, M. M. (2022). The madness of misperceptions: Evaluating the ways anger contributes to misinformed beliefs. Journal of Communication, 73(2), 1–13. https://doi.org/10.1093/joc/jqac041

Turner, M. M., Choung, H., Bui, Q. H., Beck, P., & Ashraf, H. (2022). Reversing the antibiotic resistance Yelp effect through the use of emotionally framed responses to negative reviews of providers: Questionnaire study. JMIR Formative Research, 6(3), e26122. https://doi.org/10.2196/26122

Johnson, A. C., Simmens, S. J., Turner, M. M., Evans, W. D., Strasser, A. A., & Mays, D. (2022). Longitudinal effects of cigarette pictorial warning labels among young adults. Journal of Behavioral Medicine, 45(1), 124–132. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10865-021-00258-2

Johnson, A. C., Turner, M. M., Simmens, S. J., Evans, W. D., Strasser, A. A., & Mays, D. (2022). Mediational effects on motivation to quit smoking after exposure to a cigarette pictorial warning label among young adults. Annals of Behavioral Medicine, 56(7), 737–748. https://doi.org/10.1093/abm/kaab073 

Smith, S. W., De Jong, W., Turner, M. M., Park, S. Y., Jang, Y., Poole, A., Martell, D., & Salerno, J. (2021). Determining whether public communications campaigns based on the social norms approach are a viable COVID-19 prevention strategy for college campuses. Journal of Health Communication, 26(11), 792–798. https://doi.org/10.1080/10810730.2021.2009597

Turner, M.M., Kamlem, T., Rimal, R., Shaikh, H, & Ume, N. (2021). Overlooking the obvious: Communication of efficacy by the mass media during the Ebola crisis in Liberia. Prevention Science, 22(2), 259-268. DOI: 10.1007/s11121-020-01189-1

Wyatt, L.C., *Phillips, S., Turner, M. M., Chau, T., Kwon, S.C. (2020). Patient-provider communication patterns among Asian American immigrant subgroups in New York City, Patient Education and Counseling DOI.org/10.1016/j.pec.2020.10.002 

Turner, M. M., Day, K. R. & Lapinski, M. K. (2020). The Use of stigmatizing messaging in anti-obesity campaigns: Quantification of obesity stigmatization, Communication Reports.

Turner, M. M., Richards, A., Bessarabova, E., & Magid, Y. (2020). The effects of anger appeals on systematic processing: The moderating role of efficacy. Communication Reports, 33, 14-26. DOI: 10.1080/08934215.2019.1682175

Contact Information

404 Wilson Road, Room 473B