Gabriella Harari

Gabriella Harari is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Communication at Stanford University. Her research examines how personality is expressed in physical and digital contexts in everyday life. More specifically, she examines what digital media technologies, and smartphones in particular, reveal about people’s behavioral patterns and psychological states.

In her current work, she examines individual differences in socializing behaviors (e.g., texting, calling, using social media apps, in-person conversations), and links these behavioral patterns to psychological characteristics (e.g., personality traits) and life outcomes (e.g., well-being). She is also studying whether smartphone-based self-tracking of thoughts, feelings, and behaviors can promote self-insight and positive changes in behavior.

Harari takes an ecological approach to conducting her research, emphasizing the importance of studying people in the context of their everyday environments. To that end, she conducts intensive longitudinal field studies that combine methods from the social and computer sciences (e.g., surveys, experience sampling, mobile sensing, longitudinal modeling, data mining).

Harari holds a PhD in Psychology from the University of Texas at Austin and a BA in Psychology & Humanities from Florida International University. She was a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychology at The University of Texas at Austin prior to joining Stanford.