Pamela K. Smith

Assistant Professor of Management and Strategy

Smith teaches in the FlexMBA and Full-Time MBA programs.

Her 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 behaviors and cognitive styles are perceived as signs of power. Her other research is focused on various forms of psychological distance and levels of construal.

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

Selected Publications

Karremans, J. C., & Smith, P. K. (2010). Having the power to forgive: When the experience of power increases interpersonal forgiveness. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 36, 1010-1023.

Smith, P. K., & Galinsky, A. D. (2010). The nonconscious nature of power: Cues and consequences. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 4, 918-938.

Smith, P. K., & Ledgerwood (2010). Three problems with dual systems. Psychological Inquiry, 21, 242-249.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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