John Cacioppo is a social neuroscientist, investigating how societal influences and personal relationships affect cognition and emotions, the underlying neural substrates and mechanisms, and peripheral response.

He has served on the National Advisory Council on Aging, the group that advises the National Institute on Aging, on the conduct and support of biomedical, social, and behavioral research and training on the diseases and conditions associated with aging.

Cacioppo leads a team of scholars that received a $7.5 million grant from the National Institute on Aging to study social, behavioral and neural mechanisms responsible for the association between social isolation (and feelings of isolation) and broad-based morbidity and mortality.