The phenomenology of shrinkage is established through injection molding experiments in which shrinkage was measured at 25-mm intervals along the length and width of rectangular plaques, molded in an instrumented mold. A simple solidification model, which assumes the solidified material to be elastic, is developed for the effect of time-varying temperature and pressure histories on part shrinkage. This model predicts a linear dependence of shrinkage on an "effective pressure," which combines the thermal diffusivity of the material, the wall thickness, and the time-varying cavity pressure into a single parameter that is uniquely related to the shrinkage. The effective pressure is shown to effectively correlate in-plane shrinkage data. The solidification model characterizes two material parameters, which can be estimated from the pressure-volume-temperature (PVT) diagram for the material, that describe the sensitivity of the shrinkage to the local cavity pressure history. The residual stresses predicted by this model are rather crude. POLYM. ENG. SCI., 59:1648-1656 2019. (c) 2019 Society of Plastics Engineers