In this paper, we have studied the effect of ion temperature on the propagation of ion acoustic shock waves in unmagnetized, collisionless plasma in the presence of electrons that follow the generalized ( r, q) distribution. The Korteweg–de Vries–Burger equation has been derived, and shock structures have been presented. It has been found that only positive polarity shock structures might be observed for both Maxwellian and kappa distribution; however, both positive and negative polarity structures have been possible for the ( r, q) distribution. Interestingly, it has also been observed that the shock polarity changes with the ion temperature for the case of spiky distribution. We also found that the strength and steepening of the shock structures are directly proportional to the concentration of high energy particles, whereas the low energy particles are responsible of the reversal of shock polarity.