Professor; Social Research Area Head
Self-Regulation and Motivation Lab website
Research interests
My work focuses on self-regulation and motivation. Life demands a lot and people are rather astounding in all of the ways that they both triumph and fail in the face of such demands. In particular, I am interested in how motivational orientations affect decision-making, the regulation of self-control conflicts, and the management of change.
Selected publications
- Miele, D.B., & Scholer, A.A. (2018). The role of metamotivational monitoring in motivation regulation. Educational Psychologist, 53, 1-21.
- Beck, J.W., Scholer, A.A., & Hughes, J. (2017). Divergent effects of distance versus velocity disturbances on emotional experiences during goal pursuit. Journal of Applied Psychology, 102, 1109-1123.
- Hughes, J., & Scholer, A.A. (2017). When wanting the best goes right or wrong: Distinguishing between adaptive and maladaptive maximization. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 43, 570-583.
- Scholer, A.A., & Miele, D.B. (2016). The role of metamotivation in creating task-motivation fit. Motivation Science, 2, 171-197.
- Struk, A.A., Scholer, A.A., & Danckert, J. (2016). A self-regulatory approach to understanding boredom proneness. Cognition and Emotion, 30, 1388-1401.
- Zou, X. & Scholer, A.A. (2016). Motivational affordance and risk preference across decision domains. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 42, 275-289.
- Stroessner, S.J., Scholer, A.A., Marx, D.M., & Weisz, D.M. (2015). When threat matters: Self-regulation, threat salience, and stereotyping. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 59, 77-89.
- Cortes, K., Kammrath, L.K., Scholer, A.A., & Peetz, J. (2014). Self-regulating the effortful “Do’s” in relationships: A domain specific approach. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106, 380-397.
- Scholer, A.A., Ozaki, Y., & Higgins, E.T. (2014). Inflating and deflating the self: Sustaining motivational concerns through self-evaluation. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 51, 60-73.
- Zou, X.*, Scholer, A.A.,* & Higgins, E.T. (2014). In pursuit of progress: When risk-seeking serves promotion in the domain of gains. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 106, 183-201.
- Molden, D.C., Hui, C.M., Scholer, A.A., Meier, B.P., Noreen, E.E., Martin, V.Τ, & D’Agostino, P.R. (2012). The motivational versus metabolic role of carbohydrates in self-control. Psychological Science, 23, 1137-1144.
- Kammrath, L.K., & Scholer, A.A. (2011). The Pollyanna myth: How highly agreeable people judge positive and negative relational acts. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 37, 1172-1184.
- Scholer, A.A., Zou, X., Fujita, K., Stroessner, S.J., & Higgins, E.T. (2010). When risk seeking becomes a motivational necessity. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 99, 215-231.