Pamela K. Smith

Dr. Smith received her Ph.D. in social psychology from New York University in 2004. From 2006-2009 she was a postdoctoral researcher, then an assistant professor at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands. During her graduate work she was awarded Society of Experimental Social Psychology Dissertation Award and the New York University Stuart Cook Award in Social Psychology. Prior to Radboud University, she was an assistant professor at Leiden University and a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Amsterdam.

Dr. Smith’s primary research interests are centered on how having or lacking social power affects low-level processes, particularly its nonconscious effects on basic cognition, motivation and interpersonal behavior. She also studies how particular cognitive styles are perceived as signs of power. Her other research is focused on basic systems – the BAS/BIS, approach vs. avoidance motivation, promotion vs. prevention – and how they explain the way people think, feel and behave.

Selected Publications

Dijksterhuis, A., & Smith, P. K. (2005). What do we do unconsciously? And how? Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15, 225-229.

Dijksterhuis, A., & Smith, P. K. (2002). Affective habituation: Subliminal exposure to extreme stimuli decreases their extremity. Emotion, 2, 203-214.

Dijksterhuis, A., Smith, P. K., Van Baaren, R. B., & Wigboldus, D. H. J. (2005). The unconscious consumer: Effects of environment on consumer behavior. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 15, 193-202.

McKenna, K. Y. A., Green, A. S., & Smith, P. K. (2001). Demarginalizing the sexual self. Journal of Sex Research, 38, 302-311.

Oettingen, G., Grant, H., Smith, P. K., Skinner, M., & Gollwitzer, P. M. (2006). Nonconscious goal pursuit: Acting in an explanatory vacuum. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 42, 668-675.

Park, D. C., Lautenschlager, G., Hedden, T., Davidson, N. S., Smith, A. D., & Smith, P. K. (2002). Models of visuospatial and verbal memory across the adult life span. Psychology and Aging, 17, 299-320.

Smith, P. K., & Bargh, J. A. (2008). Nonconscious effects of power on basic approach and avoidance tendencies. Social Cognition, 26, 1-24.

Smith, P. K., Dijksterhuis, A., & Chaiken, S. (2008). Subliminal exposure to faces and racial attitudes: Exposure to Whites makes Whites like Blacks less. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 50-64.

Smith, P. K., Dijksterhuis, A., & Wigboldus, D. H. J. (2008). Powerful people make good decisions even when they consciously think.Psychological Science, 19, 1258-1259.

Smith, P. K., Jost, J. T., & Vijay, R. (2008). Legitimacy crisis? Behavioral approach and inhibition when power differences are left unexplained. Social Justice Research, 21, 358-376.

Smith, P. K., Jostmann, N. B., Galinsky, A. D., & van Dijk, W. (2008). Lacking power impairs executive functions. Psychological Science, 19, 441-447.

Smith, P. K., & Trope, Y. (2006). You focus on the forest when you're in charge of the trees: Power priming and abstract information processing. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 90, 578-596.

Smith, P. K., Wigboldus, D. H. J., & Dijksterhuis, A. (2008). Abstract thinking increases one's sense of power. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 44, 378-385.

Dijksterhuis, A., Aarts, H., & Smith, P. K. (2005). The power of the subliminal: On subliminal persuasion and other potential applications. In R. R. Hassin, J. S. Uleman, & J. A. Bargh (Eds.), The new unconscious (pp. 77-106). New York: Oxford University Press.