Scholars@Duke
James Shah

James Shah

Associate Professor of Psychology and Neuroscience
Psychology & Neuroscience
james.shah@duke.edu
Box 90086, Durham, NC 27708-0085
322 Reuben-Cooke Building, Durham, NC 27710

Selected Publications

For what it’s worth: The regulatory pleasure and purpose of a good life

Chapter · January 1, 2018 When one does not know what harbor one is making for, no wind is the right wind. ... Full text Cite

To “do the right thing” or to “just do it”: Locomotion and assessment as distinct self-regulatory imperatives

Chapter · January 1, 2018 Imagine yourself and your spouse on a holiday eve, at the eleventh hour sally to the local mall to get those missing items on your shopping list. You drive into the parking lot, which brims with hundreds of vehicles, and you look intently for a free spot. ... Full text Cite

In good company: managing interpersonal resources that support self-regulation.

Journal Article Personality & social psychology bulletin · June 2015 Effective self-regulation could involve not only managing internal resources for goal pursuit but also the often-fleeting interpersonal resources that can support goal attainment. In five studies, we test whether people who are effective self-regulators te ... Full text Cite

Indifferent reactions: regulatory responses to the apathy of others.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · August 2014 How do people react to indifference when they see it in others? In 5 studies we examined how people may respond to it as a cue to disengage when they lack sufficient commitment to a goal or task themselves. Across the studies, participants were either expo ... Full text Cite

When gender fits self-regulatory preferences: The impact of regulatory fit on gender-based ingroup favoritism

Journal Article Social Psychology · January 24, 2013 Females are perceived to have less power than males. These differences in perceived power might render different self-regulatory strategies appropriate: Women should (as members of other low-power groups) care about security, whereas men should (as members ... Full text Cite

Making it Easier on Yourself: Sensitivity to External Support for Self-regulation

Journal Article Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · 2012 Cite

For whom the goals loom: Context-driven goal contagion.

Journal Article Social Cognition · 2012 Cite

Indifferent Reactions: Regulatory Responses to the Apathy of Others. Invited Revision

Journal Article Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · 2012 Cite

The object of my protection: Shielding fundamental motives from the implicit motivational influence of others

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · November 1, 2011 Goal shielding theory suggests that one's focal pursuits automatically inhibit the activation of interfering goals (Shah, Friedman, & Kruglanski, 2002); however, it is not entirely clear how individuals come to identify what constitutes "interfering". Thre ... Full text Cite

Up close and threatening: Regulatory resistance to the motivational influence of others

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 2010 Cite

Confusing one instrumental other for another: goal effects on social categorization.

Journal Article Psychological science · December 2009 How do everyday goals shape the way people categorize others in the social environment? Research on social categorization has emphasized the role of feature-based categories such as race and gender, showing that people rely on such categories when perceivi ... Full text Cite

Moments of weakness: the implicit context dependencies of temptations.

Journal Article Personality & social psychology bulletin · July 2009 The implicit appeal of temptations may vary by the social and self-regulatory contexts in which they are encountered. In each of four studies, participants were subliminally primed with the name of someone associated with either drug use or drug abstinence ... Full text Cite

How goal instrumentality shapes relationship evaluations.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · August 2008 Findings from 6 experiments support the hypothesis that relationship evaluations and behavioral tendencies are goal dependent, reflecting the instrumentality of significant others for the self's progress toward currently active goals. Experiments 1 and 3 f ... Full text Cite

Hopelessness theory and the approach system: Cognitive vulnerability predicts decreases in goal-directed behavior

Journal Article Cognitive Therapy and Research · April 1, 2008 The study tested an integration of the hopelessness theory of depression (Abramson et al. 1989) and Davidson's (1994) approach/withdrawal theory of depression in a sample of undergraduates (N = 248). According to this integrated theory (Abramson et al. 200 ... Full text Cite

Explicit and implicit cognition: a preliminary test of a dual-process theory of cognitive vulnerability to depression.

Journal Article Behaviour research and therapy · June 2007 Two studies were conducted to test a dual-process theory of cognitive vulnerability to depression. According to this theory, implicit and explicit cognitive processes have differential effects on depressive reactions to stressful life events. Implicit proc ... Full text Cite

Why some groups just feel better: the regulatory fit of group power.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · February 2007 The current research applied the regulatory fit hypothesis (E. T. Higgins, 2000) to the evaluation of groups, suggesting that individuals' group appraisal depends on how well the groups fit their regulatory needs. Specifically, it was predicted that higher ... Full text Cite

Strength and safety in numbers: considering the social implications of regulatory focus.

Journal Article Journal of personality · December 2006 The present article examines how individual and situational differences in individuals' regulatory focus on nurturance and gain (promotion) and on security and safety (prevention) may have significant, and distinct, social and interpersonal implications. W ... Full text Cite

Self-control in action: implicit dispositions toward goals and away from temptations.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · May 2006 Five studies examined whether, in self-control dilemmas, individuals develop an implicit disposition to approach goals and avoid temptations, psychologically as well as physically. Using a method developed by A. K. Solarz (1960; see also K. L. Duckworth, J ... Full text Cite

The automatic pursuit and management of goals

Journal Article Current Directions in Psychological Science · February 1, 2005 This article reviews recent research on the automatic activation and management of goals. In particular, it focuses on research examining the variety of ways in which goals may be automatically brought to mind in everyday settings and how such goal priming ... Full text Cite

Emotional transfer in goal systems

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · November 1, 2004 Five experimental studies explored the phenomenon of affective transfer in goal systems. We find that affect associated with goal attainment may be transferred to means cognitively associated with such goal-events, and that factors affecting the dimensions ... Full text Cite

Promoting us or preventing them: regulatory focus and manifestations of intergroup bias.

Journal Article Personality & social psychology bulletin · April 2004 Four studies examined whether situational and individual differences in individuals' regulatory focus influence how intergroup bias is expressed emotionally and behaviorally. Consistent with past findings on promotion focus, these studies found evidence th ... Full text Cite

Implicit prevention and promotion goal orientation and asymmetrical frontal EEG activity.

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 2004 Cite

Emotional transfer in goal systems

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 2004 Cite

Implicit regulatory focus associated with asymmetrical frontal cortical activity

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · January 1, 2004 Regulatory focus theory identifies two separate motivational systems, promotion and prevention, that fulfill different regulatory needs and are differentially related to approach and avoidance. In the psychophysiological literature, approach- and avoidance ... Full text Cite

The motivational looking glass: how significant others implicitly affect goal appraisals.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · September 2003 Three studies manipulate the accessibility of significant-other representations to explore how these representations may automatically influence how goals are construed and experienced. Study 1 finds that the perceived attainment expectations of a signific ... Full text Cite

When opportunity knocks: bottom-up priming of goals by means and its effects on self-regulation.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · June 2003 Four studies using general attribute goals or specific task goals revealed that attainment means cognitively activate the goals they are perceived to serve. A range of means replicated this effect including goal-directed activities, specific behavioral str ... Full text Cite

Automatic for the people: how representations of significant others implicitly affect goal pursuit.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · April 2003 Five studies are presented that explore how representations of significant others may automatically affect goal pursuit. Specifically, evidence is presented that suggests goals may be primed by one's representation of a significant other and that this prim ... Full text Cite

Forgetting all else: on the antecedents and consequences of goal shielding.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · December 2002 Six studies explore the role of goal shielding in self-regulation by examining how the activation of focal goals to which the individual is committed inhibits the accessibility of alternative goals. Consistent evidence was found for such goal shielding, an ... Full text Cite

When similarity breeds content: need for closure and the allure of homogeneous and self-resembling groups.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · September 2002 Four studies explored the relation between members' need for cognitive closure and their feelings toward groups. It was found that high (vs. low) need for closure individuals liked in-groups and out-groups more as function of the degree to which their memb ... Full text Cite

When similarity breeds content: Need for closure and the allure of homogeneous and self-resembling groups

Journal Article Journal of Personality and Social Psychology · January 1, 2002 Four studies explored the relation between members' need for cognitive closure and their feelings toward groups. It was found that high (vs. low) need for closure individuals liked in-groups and out-groups more as function of the degree to which their memb ... Full text Cite

Priming against your will: How goal pursuit is affected by accessible alternatives

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · 2002 Cite

A theory of goal systems

Journal Article Advances in Experimental Social Psychology · January 1, 2002 Full text Cite

Priming against your will: How accessible alternatives affect goal pursuit

Journal Article Journal of Experimental Social Psychology · January 1, 2002 Four studies examined how diverse aspects of goal pursuit are influenced by the accessibility of alternative goals. It was consistently found that such an accessibility often affects the resources allocated to a focal goal, influencing commitment, progress ... Full text Cite

Regulatory concerns and appraisal efficiency: the general impact of promotion and prevention.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · May 2001 It was hypothesized that people's appraisals both of themselves and of other objects in the world are more efficient when the emotional dimension underlying their appraisals fits their regulatory concerns. Regulatory focus theory distinguishes 2 such funda ... Full text Cite

To "do the right thing" or to "just do it": locomotion and assessment as distinct self-regulatory imperatives.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · November 2000 An integrated series of studies investigated 2 functional dimensions of self-regulation referred to as assessment and locomotion (E. T. Higgins and A. W. Kruglanski, 1995). Assessment constitutes the comparative aspect of self-regulation that critically ev ... Full text Cite

Membership has its (epistemic) rewards: need for closure effects on in-group bias.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · August 1998 Three studies examined the impact of the need for cognitive closure on manifestations of in-group bias. All 3 studies found that high (vs. low) need for closure increased in-group favoritism and outgroup derogation. Specifically, Study 1 found a positive r ... Full text Cite

Performance incentives and means: how regulatory focus influences goal attainment.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · February 1998 Study 1 demonstrated that as individuals' promotion-related ideal strength increases, performance on an anagram task is greater for a monetary task incentive framed in terms of gains and nongains (i.e., promotion framed) than one framed in terms of losses ... Full text Cite

Expectancy x value effects: regulatory focus as determinant of magnitude and direction.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · September 1997 The authors propose that a promotion focus involves construal of achievement goals as aspirations whose attainment brings accomplishment. Commitment to these accomplishment goals is characterized by attempts to attain the highest expected utility. In contr ... Full text Cite

Emotional responses to goal attainment: strength of regulatory focus as moderator.

Journal Article Journal of personality and social psychology · March 1997 Goals with a promotion focus versus a prevention focus are distinguished. Chronic ideal goals (hopes and aspirations) have a promotion focus, whereas ought goals (duties and responsibilities) have a prevention focus. The hypothesis that emotional responses ... Full text Cite

Goals and framing: How outcome focus influences motivation and emotion

Journal Article Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin · 1995 Cite