Aaron Charles Kay | Scholars@Duke

Aaron Charles Kay
Professor of Business Adminstration

Aaron C. Kay (PhD 2005, Stanford University) is an Associate Professor of Management and Associate Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience at Duke University. His research focuses on the relation between motivation, implicit social cognition, and social issues. He has a particular interest in how basic motivations and needs manifest as specific social and societal beliefs. These include (but are not limited to) the causes and consequences of stereotyping and system justification, religious belief, political ideology, and the attitudes people hold towards their organizations and institutions.

For this research, Aaron Kay has been awarded the Janet T. Spence Award for Transformative Early Career Contributions from the American Psychological Society, the SAGE Young Scholar Award from the Foundation of Personality and Social Psychology (2010), the Early Career Contribution Award from the International Society of Justice Researchers (2010), the Early Researchers Award from the Ontario Ministry of Research and Innovation (2009), and Dissertation Awards from the Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues (2006) and the Society of Experimental Social Psychology (runner-up; 2006). He has been named a Fellow of the American Psychological Society as well as the Society of Experimental Social Social Psychology, and Dr. Kay's research is widely covered in national and international news and media outlets.Dr. Kay is currently serving as the President of the International Society of Justice Research and as an Associate Editor for the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.

Current Appointments & Affiliations

Professor of Business Adminstration, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University 2016
Professor of Psychology & Neuroscience, Psychology and Neuroscience, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2016
Affiliate of the Duke Initiative for Science & Society, Duke Science & Society, Initiatives 2014

Contact Information

Background
Education, Training, & Certifications
- Ph.D., Stanford University 2005
- B.S., McGill University (Canada) 1999
Duke Appointment History
- Associate Professor in the Department of Psychology & Neuroscience, Psychology and Neuroscience, Trinity College of Arts & Sciences 2010 - 2016
- Associate Professor of Business Administration, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University 2012 - 2016
- Assoc Professor of Business Administration in Fuqua School of Business, Fuqua School of Business, Duke University 2010 - 2012
Recognition
In the News
- MAR 14, 2016
  
  Fuqua's Aaron Kay Wins Frank Prize for Public Interest Communication
- OCT 14, 2015 Triangle Business Journal
  
  Men perceived as more creative than women
- OCT 13, 2015
  
  If the Work is the Same, Men Still Seen as More Creative
- SEP 23, 2015 Pacific Standard
  
  The imagined link between masculinity and creativity
- JUN 4, 2015 Huffington Post
  
  Here are the words that may keep women from applying for jobs
- NOV 18, 2014
  
  Going Viral With Research: Troy Campbell on Our Political Minds
- NOV 10, 2014 The Washington Post
  
  Conservatives don't hate climate science. They hate the left's climate solutions
- NOV 7, 2014 Newport News Daily Press
  
  Duke study: Solution aversion, not science denial on climate change
- NOV 6, 2014
  
  Denying Problems When We Don’t Like the Solutions
- SEP 25, 2014 Los Angeles Times
  
  Op-ed: Similarities between Democrats, Republicans make them so different
Awards & Honors
- Fellow. Association for Psychological Science. 2013
- Division 9-Society for the Psychological Study of Social Issues-Social Issues Dissertation Award. American Psychological Association. 2006
Publications & Artistic Works
Selected Publications
- Books
  - Gaucher, D, Kay, AC, Laurin, K, Fry, QG, and O'Donnell, C. The Power of the status quo: Consequences for maintaining and perpetuating inequalityPreface (PublishedPublished). January 1, 2011. Full Text
  - Ramona Bobocel, D, Kay, AC, Zanna, MP, and Olson, JM. The psychology of justice and legitimacy: The Ontario symposium. January 1, 2011. Full Text
  - Thorisdottir, H, Jost, JT, and Kay, AC. On the Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification. May 1, 2009. Full Text
- Book Sections
  - Rutjens, BT, and Kay, AC. "Compensatory control theory and the psychological importance of perceiving order." In Coping with Lack of Control in a Social World, 83-96. November 3, 2016. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Anderson, JE, and Fitzsimons, GM. "The motivated process of making meaning from negative experiences." In The Psychology of Meaning. Washington DC: American Psychological Association, 2014.
  - Kay, AC, Landau, MJ, and Sullivan, DL. "Agency and Control." In APA Handbook of Personality and Social Psychology: Attitudes and Social Cognition, edited by J Bargh and E Borgida. Washington, DC: American Psychological Association, 2014.
  - Banfield, JC, Shepherd, S, and Kay, AC. "Consequences of system defense motivations for individuals’ willingness to act sustainably." In Encouraging Sustainable Behavior: Psychology and the Environment, 111-124. January 1, 2013. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Sullivan, DL. "Cultural unity and diversity in compensatory control." In Advances in Culture and Psychology, edited by M Gelfand, C Yue, and Y Hong. New York: Oxford University Press, 2013.
  - Callan, MJ, and Kay, AC. "Associations Between Law, Competitiveness, and the Pursuit of Self-Interest." In Ideology, Psychology, and Law. May 24, 2012. Full Text
  - Jost, JT, and Kay, AC. "System justification as an obstacle to the attainment of social justice." In Social Thinking and Interpersonal Behavior, 277-296. January 1, 2012. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Eibach, RP. "Ideological Processes." In The Handbook of Social Cognition, edited by S Fiske and N MaCrae. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
  - Kay, AC, and Eibach, RP. "The ideological toolbox: Ideologies as tools of motivated social cognition." In The SAGE Handbook of Social Cognition, 495-515. January 1, 2012. Full Text
  - Ramona Bobocel, D, Kay, AC, Zanna, MP, and Olson, JM. "Preface." vii-xiv. January 1, 2011. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Banfield, J, and Laurin, K. "Ideology and power." In The Social Psychology of Power, edited by T Vescio and A Guinote. New York: Guilford Press, 2010.
  - Kay, AC, Gaucher, D, and Laurin, K. "The power of the status quo: Consequences for maintaining and perpetuating inequality." In The Psychology of Justice and Legitimacy: The Ontario Symposium (Vol. 11), edited by R Bobocel, M Kay, P Zanna, and JM Olson, 109-118. Philadelphia: Psychology Press, 2010.
  - Kay, AC, and Jost, JT. "Social Justice: History, Theory, and Research." In Handbook of Social Psychology. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley and Sons, 2010.
  - Kay, AC, and Zanna, MP. "A contextual analysis of the social and psychological consequences of system justification." In Social & Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification, edited by JT Jost and H Thoristtodor. New York: Oxford University Press, 2009.
  - Kay, AC, Jost, JT, and Fitzsimons, GM. "The Ideological Animal: On the Epistemic and Existential Bases of System Justification." In Handbook of Experimental Existential Psychology, edited by J Greenberg, SL Koole, and T Pyszczynsk. New York: Guilford Press, 2004.
- Journal Articles
  - Proudfoot, D, and Kay, AC. "How perceptions of one's organization can affect perceptions of the self: Membership in a stable organization can sustain individuals' sense of control (Accepted)." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 76 (May 2018): 104-115. Full Text
  - Landau, MJ, Khenfer, J, Keefer, LA, Swanson, TJ, and Kay, AC. "When and why does belief in a controlling God strengthen goal commitment?." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 75 (March 2018): 71-82. Full Text
  - Tang, S, King, M, and Kay, AC. "Fate as a motivated (and de-motivating) belief: Evidence for a link from task importance to belief in fate to effort." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 144 (January 2018): 74-84. Full Text
  - Fath, S, Proudfoot, D, and Kay, AC. "Effective to a fault: Organizational structure predicts attitudes toward minority organizations." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 73 (November 2017): 290-297. Full Text
  - Khenfer, J, Laurin, K, Tafani, E, Roux, E, and Kay, AC. "Interventionist external agents make specific advice less demotivating." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 73 (November 2017): 189-196. Full Text
  - Shepherd, S, Eibach, RP, and Kay, AC. "“One Nation Under God”: The System-Justifying Function of Symbolically Aligning God and Government." Political Psychology 38, no. 5 (October 2017): 703-720. Full Text
  - Ma, A, Landau, MJ, Narayanan, J, and Kay, AC. "Thought-control difficulty motivates structure seeking." Journal of experimental psychology. General 146, no. 8 (August 2017): 1067-1072. Full Text
  - Ma, A, and Kay, AC. "Compensatory control and ambiguity intolerance." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 140 (May 2017): 46-61. Full Text
  - Leander, NP, Kay, AC, Chartrand, TL, and Payne, BK. "An Affect Misattribution Pathway to Perceptions of Intrinsic Reward." Social Cognition 35, no. 2 (April 2017): 163-180. Full Text
  - Laurin, K, and Kay, AC. "The Motivational Underpinnings of Belief in God." 56 (January 1, 2017): 201-257. (Chapter) Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Brandt, MJ. "Ideology and intergroup inequality: emerging directions and trends." Current Opinion in Psychology 11 (October 2016): 110-114. Full Text
  - Rahinel, R, Amaral, NB, Clarkson, JJ, and Kay, AC. "On incidental catalysts of elaboration: Reminders of environmental structure promote effortful thought." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 64 (May 2016): 1-7. Full Text
  - Proudfoot, D, Kay, AC, and Koval, CZ. "A Gender Bias in the Attribution of Creativity: Archival and Experimental Evidence for the Perceived Association Between Masculinity and Creative Thinking." Psychological science 26, no. 11 (November 2015): 1751-1761. Full Text
  - Proudfoot, D, Kay, AC, and Mann, H. "Motivated employee blindness: The impact of labor market instability on judgment of organizational inefficiencies." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 130 (September 2015): 108-122. Full Text
  - Kay, A, and Napier, J. "The justice motive as a driver of religious experience." Religion, Brain & Behavior 5, no. 3 (July 3, 2015): 238-240. Full Text
  - Czopp, AM, Kay, AC, and Cheryan, S. "Positive Stereotypes Are Pervasive and Powerful." Perspectives on psychological science : a journal of the Association for Psychological Science 10, no. 4 (July 2015): 451-463. (Review) Full Text
  - Landau, MJ, Kay, AC, and Whitson, JA. "Compensatory control and the appeal of a structured world." Psychological Bulletin 141, no. 3 (May 2015): 694-722. Full Text
  - Tullett, AM, Kay, AC, and Inzlicht, M. "Randomness increases self-reported anxiety and neurophysiological correlates of performance monitoring." Social cognitive and affective neuroscience 10, no. 5 (May 2015): 628-635. Full Text
  - Friesen, JP, Campbell, TH, and Kay, AC. "The psychological advantage of unfalsifiability: the appeal of untestable religious and political ideologies." Journal of personality and social psychology 108, no. 3 (March 2015): 515-529. Full Text
  - van der Toorn, J, Feinberg, M, Jost, JT, Kay, AC, Tyler, TR, Willer, R, and Wilmuth, C. "A Sense of Powerlessness Fosters System Justification: Implications for the Legitimation of Authority, Hierarchy, and Government." Political Psychology 36, no. 1 (February 2015): 93-110. Full Text
  - Brown-Iannuzzi, JL, Lundberg, KB, Kay, AC, and Payne, BK. "Subjective status shapes political preferences." Psychological Science 26, no. 1 (January 2015): 15-26. Full Text
  - Whitson, JA, Galinsky, AD, and Kay, A. "The emotional roots of conspiratorial perceptions, system justification, and belief in the paranormal." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 56 (January 2015): 89-95. Full Text
  - van der Toorn, J, Feinberg, M, Jost, JT, Kay, AC, Tyler, TR, Willer, R, and Wilmuth, C. "A sense of powerlessness fosters system justification: Implications for the legitimation of authority, hierarchy, and government." Political Psychology 36, no. 1 (January 1, 2015): 93-110. Full Text
  - Campbell, TH, and Kay, AC. "Solution aversion: On the relation between ideology and motivated disbelief." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 107, no. 5 (November 2014): 809-824. Full Text Open Access Copy
  - Callan, MJ, Kay, AC, and Dawtry, RJ. "Making sense of misfortune: deservingness, self-esteem, and patterns of self-defeat." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 107, no. 1 (July 2014): 142-162. Full Text
  - Yeung, AWY, Kay, AC, and Peach, JM. "Anti-feminist backlash: The role of system justification in the rejection of feminism." Group Processes & Intergroup Relations 17, no. 4 (July 2014): 474-484. Full Text
  - Shepherd, S, and Kay, AC. "When Government Confidence Undermines Public Involvement in Modern Disasters." Social Cognition 32, no. 3 (June 2014): 206-216. Full Text
  - Friesen, JP, Kay, AC, Eibach, RP, and Galinsky, AD. "Seeking structure in social organization: compensatory control and the psychological advantages of hierarchy." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106, no. 4 (April 2014): 590-609. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Laurin, K, Fitzsimons, GM, and Landau, MJ. "A functional basis for structure-seeking: exposure to structure promotes willingness to engage in motivated action." Journal of experimental psychology. General 143, no. 2 (April 2014): 486-491. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Jost, JT. "Theoretical integration in motivational science: System justification as one of many "autonomous motivational structures"." The Behavioral and brain sciences 37, no. 2 (April 2014): 146-147. Full Text
  - Tang, S, Shepherd, S, and Kay, AC. "Do difficult decisions motivate belief in fate? A test in the context of the 2012 U.S. presidential election." Psychological science 25, no. 4 (April 2014): 1046-1048. Full Text
  - Friesen, JP, Kay, AC, Eibach, RP, and Galinsky, AD. "Seeking structure in social organization: Compensatory control and the psychological advantages of hierarchy." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 106, no. 4 (2014): 590-609. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Proudfoot, D. "Reactance of Rationalization? Predicting Public Responses to Government Policy." Policy Insights from the Behavioral and Brain Sciences 1 (2014): 256-262.
  - Proudfoot, D, and Kay, AC. "System justification in organizational contexts: How a Motivated preference for the status quo can affect organizational attitudes and behaviors." Research in Organizational Behavior 34 (2014): 173-187. Full Text
  - Proudfoot, D, and Kay, AC. "System justification in organizational contexts: How a Motivated preference for the status quo can affect organizational attitudes and behaviors." Research in Organizational Behavior 34 (January 1, 2014): 173-187. (Review) Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Eibach, RP. "Compensatory Control and Its Implications for Ideological Extremism." JOURNAL OF SOCIAL ISSUES 69, no. 3 (September 2013): 564-585. Full Text Link to Item
  - Kay, AC, Day, MV, Zanna, MP, and Nussbaum, AD. "The insidious (and ironic) effects of positive stereotypes." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49, no. 2 (2013): 287-291. Full Text
  - Kugler, MB, Funk, F, Braun, J, Gollwitzer, M, Kay, AC, and Darley, JM. "DIFFERENCES IN PUNITIVENESS ACROSS THREE CULTURES: A TEST OF AMERICAN EXCEPTIONALISM IN JUSTICE ATTITUDES." JOURNAL OF CRIMINAL LAW & CRIMINOLOGY 103, no. 4 (2013): 1071-1113. Link to Item
  - Laurin, K, Gaucher, D, and Kay, A. "Stability and the justification of social inequality." European Journal of Social Psychology 43, no. 4 (2013): 246-254. Full Text
  - Laurin, K, Kay, AC, Proudfoot, D, and Fitzsimons, GJ. "Response to restrictive policies: Reconciling system justification and psychological reactance." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 122, no. 2 (2013): 152-162. Full Text
  - Zhu, LL, Kay, AC, and Eibach, RP. "A test of the flexible ideology hypothesis: System justification motives interact with ideological cueing to predict political judgments." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology (2013). Full Text
  - Zhu, LL, Kay, AC, and Eibach, RP. "A test of the flexible ideology hypothesis: System justification motives interact with ideological cueing to predict political judgments." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 49, no. 4 (2013): 755-758. Full Text
  - Sullivan, D, Landau, MJ, Kay, AC, and Rothschild, ZK. "Collectivism and the Meaning of Suffering." JOURNAL OF PERSONALITY AND SOCIAL PSYCHOLOGY 103, no. 6 (December 2012): 1023-1039. Full Text Link to Item
  - Sullivan, D, Landau, MJ, and Kay, AC. "TOWARD A COMPREHENSIVE UNDERSTANDING OF EXISTENTIAL THREAT: INSIGHTS FROM PAUL TILLICH." SOCIAL COGNITION 30, no. 6 (December 2012): 734-757. Full Text Link to Item
  - Laurin, K, Kay, AC, and Fitzsimons, GJ. "Reactance versus rationalization: divergent responses to policies that constrain freedom." Psychological Science 23, no. 2 (February 2012): 205-209. Full Text
  - Laurin, K, Kay, AC, and Fitzsimons, GM. "Divergent effects of activating thoughts of god on self-regulation." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102, no. 1 (2012): 4-21. Full Text
  - Laurin, K, Shariff, AF, Henrich, J, and Kay, AC. "Outsourcing punishment to god: Beliefs in divine control reduce earthly punishment." Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 279, no. 1741 (2012): 3272-3281. Full Text
  - Shepherd, S, and Kay, AC. "On the perpetuation of ignorance: System dependence, system justification, and the motivated avoidance of sociopolitical information." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 102, no. 2 (2012): 264-280. Full Text
  - Gaucher, D, Friesen, J, and Kay, AC. "Evidence that gendered wording in job advertisements exists and sustains gender inequality." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101, no. 1 (July 2011): 109-128. Full Text
  - Wheeler, SC, Smeesters, D, and Kay, AC. "Culture modifies the operation of prime-to-behavior effects." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47, no. 4 (July 2011): 824-829. Full Text
  - Cutright, KM, Wu, EC, Banfield, JC, Kay, AC, and Fitzsimons, GJ. "When Your World Must Be Defended: Choosing Products to Justify the System." Journal of Consumer Research 38, no. 1 (June 1, 2011): 62-77. Full Text
  - Banfield, JC, Kay, AC, Cutright, KM, Wu, EC, and Fitzsimons, GJ. "A person by situation account of motivated system defense." Social Psychological and Personality Science 2, no. 2 (2011): 212-219. Full Text
  - Bobocel, DR, Kay, AC, Zanna, MP, and Olson, JM. "The psychology of justice and legitimacy: The Ontario symposium." The Psychology of Justice and Legitimacy 11 (2011): 1-350. Full Text
  - Day, MV, Kay, AC, Holmes, JG, and Napier, JL. "System Justification and the Defense of Committed Relationship Ideology." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 101, no. 2 (2011): 291-306. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Friesen, J. "On social stability and social change: Understanding when system justification does and does not occur." Current Directions in Psychological Science 20, no. 6 (2011): 360-364. Full Text
  - Laurin, K, Fitzsimons, GM, and Kay, AC. "Social Disadvantage and the Self-Regulatory Function of Justice Beliefs." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 100, no. 1 (2011): 149-171. Full Text
  - Laurin, K, Kay, AC, and Shepherd, S. "Self-stereotyping as a route to system justification." Social Cognition 29, no. 3 (2011): 360-375. Full Text
  - Shepherd, S, Kay, AC, Landau, MJ, and Keefer, LA. "Evidence for the specificity of control motivations in worldview defense: Distinguishing compensatory control from uncertainty management and terror management processes." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 47, no. 5 (2011): 949-958. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Shepherd, S, Blatz, CW, Chua, SN, and Galinsky, AD. "For God (or) country: the hydraulic relation between government instability and belief in religious sources of control." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 99, no. 5 (November 2010): 725-739. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Gaucher, D, McGregor, I, and Nash, K. "Religious belief as compensatory control." Personality and Social Psychology Review : an Official Journal of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, Inc 14, no. 1 (February 2010): 37-48. Full Text
  - Anderson, JE, Kay, AC, and Fitzsimons, GM. "In search of the silver lining: the justice motive fosters perceptions of benefits in the later lives of tragedy victims." Psychological science : a journal of the American Psychological Society / APS 21, no. 11 (2010): 1599-1604. Full Text
  - Callan, MJ, Kay, AC, Olson, JM, Brar, N, and Whitefield, N. "The effects of priming legal concepts on perceived trust and competitiveness, self-interested attitudes, and competitive behavior." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 46, no. 2 (2010): 325-335. Full Text
  - Gaucher, D, Hafer, CL, Kay, AC, and Davidenko, N. "Compensatory rationalizations and the resolution of everyday undeserved outcomes." Personality & Social Psychology Bulletin 36, no. 1 (January 2010): 109-118. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Moscovitch, DA, and Laurin, K. "Randomness, attributions of arousal, and belief in god." Psychological Science 21, no. 2 (2010): 216-218. Full Text
  - Laurin, K, Shepherd, S, and Kay, AC. "Restricted emigration, System Inescapability, and Defense of the Status Quo: System-Justifying Consequences of Restricted Exit Opportunities." Psychological Science 21, no. 8 (2010): 1075-1082. Full Text
  - Smeesters, D, Wheeler, SC, and Kay, AC. "Chapter Five: Indirect prime-to-behavior effects: The role of perceptions of the self, others, and situations in connecting primed constructs to social behavior." Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 42 (2010): 259-317. Full Text
  - Jost, JT, Kay, AC, and Thorisdottir, H. "Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification." Social and Psychological Bases of Ideology and System Justification (May 1, 2009): 1-552. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Zanna, MP. "A Contextual Analysis of the System Justification Motive and Its Societal Consequences." (May 1, 2009). (Chapter) Full Text
  - Bryan, CJ, Dweck, CS, Ross, L, Kay, AC, and Mislavsky, NO. "Political mindset: Effects of schema priming on liberal-conservative political positions." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45, no. 4 (2009): 890-895. Full Text
  - Callan, MJ, Kay, AC, Davidenko, N, and Ellard, JH. "The effects of justice motivation on memory for self- and other-relevant events." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 45, no. 4 (2009): 614-623. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Czapliński, S, and Jost, JT. "Left-right ideological differences in system Justification following exposure to complementary versus noncomplementary stereotype exemplars." European Journal of Social Psychology 39, no. 2 (2009): 290-298. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Gaucher, D, Peach, JM, Laurin, K, Friesen, J, Zanna, MP, and Spencer, SJ. "Inequality, Discrimination, and the Power of the Status Quo: Direct Evidence for a Motivation to See the Way Things Are as the Way They Should Be." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 97, no. 3 (2009): 421-434. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Whitson, JA, Gaucher, D, and Galinsky, AD. "Compensatory control: Achieving order through the mind, our institutions, and the heavens." Current Directions in Psychological Science 18, no. 5 (2009): 264-268. Full Text
  - Smeesters, D, Wheeler, SC, and Kay, AC. "The Role of Interpersonal Perceptions in the Prime-to-Behavior Pathway." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 96, no. 2 (2009): 395-414. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Gaucher, D, Napier, JL, Callan, MJ, and Laurin, K. "God and the Government: Testing a Compensatory Control Mechanism for the Support of External Systems." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 95, no. 1 (2008): 18-35. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Wheeler, SC, and Smeesters, D. "The situated person: Effects of construct accessibility on situation construals and interpersonal perception." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44, no. 2 (2008): 275-291. Full Text
  - Lau, GP, Kay, AC, and Spencer, SJ. "Loving those who justify inequality: The effects of system threat on attraction to women who embody benevolent sexist ideals." Psychological Science 19, no. 1 (2008): 20-21. Full Text
  - Laurin, K, Kay, AC, and Moscovitch, DA. "On the belief in God: Towards an understanding of the emotional substrates of compensatory control." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 44, no. 6 (2008): 1559-1562. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Jost, JT, Mandisodza, AN, Sherman, SJ, Petrocelli, JV, and Johnson, AL. "Panglossian Ideology In The Service Of System Justification: How Complementary Stereotypes Help Us To Rationalize Inequality." Advances in Experimental Social Psychology 39 (2007): 305-358. Full Text
  - Jost, JT, and Kay, AC. "Exposure to benevolent sexism and complementary gender stereotypes: Consequences for specific and diffuse forms of system justification." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 88, no. 3 (2005): 498-509. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Jost, JT, and Young, S. "Victim derogation and victim enhancement as alternate routes to system justification." Psychological Science 16, no. 3 (2005): 240-246. Full Text
  - Fitzsimons, GM, and Kay, AC. "Language and Interpersonal Cognition: Causal Effects of Variations in Pronoun Usage on Perceptions of Closeness." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 30, no. 5 (2004): 547-557. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Wheeler, SC, Bargh, JA, and Ross, L. "Material priming: The influence of mundane physical objects on situational construal and competitive behavioral choice." Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes 95, no. 1 (2004): 83-96. Full Text
  - Baldwin, MW, and Kay, AC. "Adult attachment and the inhibition of rejection." Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 22, no. 3 (2003): 275-293. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Jost, JT. "Complementary Justice: Effects of "Poor but Happy" and "Poor but Honest" Stereotype Exemplars on System Justification and Implicit Activation of the Justice Motive." Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 85, no. 5 (2003): 823-837. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, and Ross, L. "The perceptual push: The interplay of implicit cues and explicit situational construals on behavioral intentions in the prisoner's dilemma." Journal of Experimental Social Psychology 39, no. 6 (2003): 634-643. Full Text
  - Mendelson, MJ, and Kay, AC. "Positive feelings in friendship: Does imbalance in the relationship matter?." Journal of Social and Personal Relationships 20, no. 1 (2003): 101-116. Full Text
  - Kay, AC, Jimenez, MC, and Jost, JT. "Sour Grapes, Sweet Lemons, and the Anticipatory Rationalization of the Status Quo." Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 28, no. 9 (September 2002): 1300-1312. Full Text
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