Natalie J. Shook

Assistant professor

Contact information

Phone: (804) 828-9651
E-mail: njshook@vcu.edu

Education

Ph.D. (2007) Ohio State University

Program affiliation

Social Psychology

Research interests

I have three main lines of research. The first concerns attitude formation through exploratory behavior and associative learning. That is, how do people explore their environment and learn to associate positivity and negativity with novel objects. With the second research project, I am exploring prejudice reduction through intergroup contact. Specifically, I am interested in how automatically activated racial attitudes are affected by successful interracial relationships, and vice versa. Finally, I am working on a project that is focused on determining how sensitive people are to discrimination and what factors may influence perceptions of discrimination.

Selected publications

Fazio, R. H., Eiser, J. R., & Shook, N. J. (2004). Attitude formation through exploration: Valence asymmetries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 87, 293-311.

Shook, N. J., Fazio, R. H., & Vasey, M. W. (2007). Negativity bias in attitude learning: A possible indicator of vulnerability to emotional disorder? Journal of Behavior Therapy and Experimental Psychiatry, 38, 144-155.

Shook, N. J., Fazio, R. H., & Eiser, J. R. (2007). Attitude generalization: Similarity, valence, and extremity. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 43, 641-647.

Eiser, J. R., Shook, N. J., & Fazio, R. H. (in press). Attitude learning through exploration: Advice and strategy appraisals. European Journal of Social Psychology.

Recent/current courses taught at VCU

• Social Psychology, graduate level