Lawrence Williams

Biography

Lawrence Williams is an associate professor of Marketing at the Leeds School of Business, University of Colorado Boulder.  He received his Ph.D. in Psychology at Yale University in 2008.  In his research, Dr. Williams examines the subtle influence of environmental cues on consumer behavior, the impact of psychological distance on consumers’ emotional judgments, and the mechanisms of self-regulation and self-control.  His research has been published in the Journal of Consumer Research, Psychological Science, and Science, amongst other outlets. 

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

• Consumer behavior
• Promotion
• E-commerce marketing

Selected Publications

• "The Pursuit of Meaning and the Preference for Less Expensive Options," Journal of Consumer Research (2022); with Mead.
• "Conceptualizing Consciousness in Consumer Research," Journal of Consumer Research (2017); with Poehlman.
• "The Distinct Affective Consequences of Psychological Distance and Construal Level,” Journal of Consumer Research (2014); with Stein and Galguera.

Work in Progress

• "Prolonging the Search for Meaning: How Hedonic versus Eudaimonic Consumption Experiences Shape Preference for Variety,” with Percival Carter
• ​"The Regulation of Emotions via System Fit,” with Fernandes and Kan

Education

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