Early Life and Education Background
In 1961, in Burnet Texas, Shepperd emerged after 9 months of incubation from womb he shared with his twin brother. After 18 years marked by successful accomplishments such as walking, riding a bicycle, and combining words into sentences, he was granted admission to Southwestern University in Georgetown, Texas, where he graduated in 1983 with a BA in psychology. He received an MA in educational psychology from the University of Texas under the mentoring of Toni Falbo and Mark Leary and a PhD in social psychology from the University of Missouri in 1988 under the mentorship of Robert M. Arkin.
Professional Career
Shepperd was an assistant professor at the College of Holy Cross in Worcester Massachusetts from 1988 to 1992 and then accepted a position at the University of Florida where he remains today. He also has held visiting positions at Texas A&M University (1990–1991); Katholieke Universiteit, Leuven, Belgium (2004); Université Paris X, Paris,...
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Selected Bibliography
Carroll, P. J., Sweeny, K., & Shepperd, J. A. (2006). Forsaking optimism. Review of General Psychology, 10, 56–73.
Helweg-Larsen, M., & Shepperd, J. A. (2001). Do moderators of the optimistic bias affect personal or target risk estimates? A review of the literature. Personality & Social Psychology Review, 5, 74–95.
Howell, J. L., & Shepperd, J. A. (2012). Reducing information avoidance through affirmation. Psychological Science, 23, 141–145. doi:10.1177/0 956797611424164.
Shepperd, J. A. (1993). Productivity loss in groups: A motivation analysis. Psychological Bulletin, 113, 67–81.
Shepperd, J. A., & McNulty, J. (2002). The affective consequences of expected and unexpected outcomes. Psychological Science, 13, 85–88.
Shepperd, J. A., Ouellette, J. A., & Fernandez, J. K. (1996). Abandoning unrealistic optimism: Performance estimates and the temporal proximity of self-relevant feedback. Journal of Personality & Social Psychology, 70, 844–855.
Shepperd, J. A., Malone, W., & Sweeny, K. (2008). Exploring causes of the self-serving bias. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 2, 895–908. URL: http://www.blackwell-synergy.com/doi/full/1 0.1111/j.1751-9004.2008.00078.x.
Shepperd, J. A., Klein, W. M. P., Waters, E. A., & Weinstein, N. D. (2013). Taking stock of unrealistic optimism. Perspectives in Psychological Science, 8, 395–411. doi:10.1177/1 745691613485247.
Shepperd, J. A., Waters, E. A., Weinstein, N. D., & Klein, W. M. P. (2015). A primer on unrealistic optimism. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 24, 232–237. doi:10.1177/0 963721414568341.
Sweeny, K., & Shepperd, J. A. (2010). The costs of optimism and the benefits of pessimism: Timing matters. Emotion, 10, 750–753. doi:10.1037/a0019016.
Sweeny, K., Melnyk, D., Malone, W., & Shepperd, J. A. (2010). Information avoidance: Who, what, when & why. Review of General Psychology, 14, 340–353. doi:10.1037/a0021288.
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Shepperd, J.A. (2016). Shepperd, James A.. In: Zeigler-Hill, V., Shackelford, T. (eds) Encyclopedia of Personality and Individual Differences. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_316-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-28099-8_316-1
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