Joana Mello

Joana Mello’s research interest focuses mostly on the study of the psychological mechanisms by which attitudes are changed and maintained. This research examines how different features of the source (e.g., physical attractiveness) and the recipient of a message (e.g., self-perceptions, naïve theories) can influence attitude change (persuasion) and attitude strength. This research has examined these effects regarding judgments of objects (e.g., consumer products), behaviors (e.g., recycling, voting), and entities (e.g. governmental implementations). Additionally, her research also focuses on the study of the different contributions of familiarity and fluency to judgments, more specifically to judgments of truth.