Young Kim

Young Kim is an Associate Professor in the Department of Marketing at Southern Connecticut State University, specializing in consumer behavior with emphasis on health crises, social media engagement, and advertising effectiveness.

Education:

• Ph.D. in Marketing, University of Iowa, 2018
• M.A. in Media Studies, Syracuse University, 2013
• B.A. in Journalism and Political Science, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 2005

Her research integrates cognitive psychology and health communication to examine consumer responses to risk during pandemics, with significant focus on emotional contagion and fear appeals. She investigates social media advertising for sustainability initiatives and the cognitive mechanisms behind self-referencing and nostalgia in advertising, highlighting demographic variations in effectiveness.

Analysis of her publication trends reveals a strategic pivot toward pandemic-related consumer behavior (2020-2024), where she extends protection motivation theory to vaccination contexts and refines risk appraisal models. Concurrently, her work explores digital engagement drivers for environmental messages and cognitive triggers in visual advertising, demonstrating methodological versatility across health, tourism, and green marketing domains.

Dr. Kim actively disseminates findings through presentations at premier conferences including the American Marketing Association (AMA) and American Academy of Advertising (AAA), establishing her as a contributor to both theoretical frameworks and practical applications in contemporary marketing challenges.