Lawrence Williams

His work also examines the paradoxical enjoyment of forms of entertainment that are horrifying, violent, and/or feature humiliation, in an attempt to better understand why and how consumers derive pleasure from aversive emotional experiences.

Dr. Williams studies the ways in which subtle cues in the environment influence judgments, decisions, and behaviors without people's awareness. His research program features three lines. In the first line, Dr. Williams examines the effects of people's experiences with fundamental aspects of the physical world (e.g., the temperature of objects or the space between objects) on people's subsequent thoughts and actions. These effects are the result of the associations between physical and psychological concepts people develop early in life.

The second line of his research program examines factors that contribute to people's paradoxical enjoyment of violent, fear-inducing, and/or socially awkward forms of entertainment. His third line of research examines how subtle cues, presented outside of awareness, can prompt people to exercise more self-control. Taken together, these three lines of research provide a clearer profile of nonconscious consumer behavior.

Honors and Distinctions

• National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow, 2005
• Whitebox Advisors Doctoral Fellow, 2007

Professional Affiliations

• American Marketing Association
• Association for Consumer Research
• Association for Psychological Science
• Society for Consumer Psychology
• Society for Judgment and Decision Making
• Society for Personality and Social Psychology

Research Interests

• Consumer psychology
• Judgment and decision making
• Self-control
• Emotion
• Nonconscious influences on consumer behavior

Teaching Interests

Selected Publications

• "The Scaffolded Mind: Higher Mental Processes are Grounded in Early Experience with the Physical World," European Journal of Social Psychology (Forthcoming); with Huang and Bargh.
• "Experiencing Physical Warmth Promotes Interpersonal Warmth," Science (2008); with Bargh.
• "Keeping One's Distance: The Influence of Spatial Distance Cues on Affect and Evaluation," Psychological Science, 19 (2008); with Bargh.

Work in Progress

• "When Distance (does not equal) Construal: The Dissociable Impact of Spatial Distance and Abstraction on Charitable Motivations," with Stein and Garcia
• "Finding Pleasure in the Unpleasant: Power and the Enjoyment of Aversive Media" with Hennessey and Bargh
• "Pleasure Can Be Good for You: The Nonconscious Impact of Hedonic Experiences on Self-Regulation," with Morsella, Poehlman, and Bargh
• "The Benefits of Nonconscious Emotion-Regulation," with Bargh, Nocera, and Gray
• "Keep it Separated: Stigma, Distance, and the Compartmentalization of Public and Private Life," with Sedlovskaya
• "Physical Distance Cues Attenuate the Sunk Cost Effect," with Garcia and Bargh

Education

• Ph.D., Psychology, Yale University
• M. Phil., Psychology, Yale University
• AB, Psychology, Harvard University