Lawrence H Williams
Biographic Data
| ID | 3921853 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Lawrence H Williams |
| GIVEN NAMES | Lawrence H |
| FAMILY NAME | Williams |
| SIGNATURE | WILLIAMS L H |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1520-3591 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 10 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 9 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 10 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2020 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Thinking Through Dilemmas
Departing from the sociological dual process model that divides thoughts into automatic and unconscious, or deliberate and conscious occurrences, this book draws on empirical cases to demonstrate the existence of “automatic deliberation.” Through research into the ways in which people address difficult subjects, such as death and dying, pedophilia, and career decision-making, the author sheds light on a mode of thinking which is both habitual and…
Culture Talk and the Politics of the New Right
Right-wing policy approaches addressing violence against women often draw from xenophobic conceptions of racialized groups as culturally backward. While antiracist, anticolonial feminist scholarship has convincingly critiqued this, how to talk about culture in a context of gendered racism remains pressingly unresolved. In our work, we examine how the politics of culture shape policies and practices designed to combat violence against women in the…
How Career Identity Shapes the Meaning of Work for Referred Employees
Sociological explanations for why referred employees typically have longer tenures than nonreferred employees tend to be either that referred employees enter their jobs possessing a clearer sense of employer expectations or that they often receive support from their referrers while on the job. However, through analysis of work-history interviews conducted with salespersons in Toronto, Canada, I find that the significance of each of these factors …
Thinking about careers
Many social scientific studies have shown the positive effects of self-awareness and reflexivity in shaping individuals’ career paths. However, using life- and work-history interviews conducted with salespersons in Toronto, Canada, I find that high levels of self-awareness – as demonstrated by active deliberation over one’s career – has both positive and negative results in terms of career outcomes. Respondents whose careers initially progressed …
Active Intuition
Sociologists have been split between explaining individual thought and action in terms of factors internal and external to any given individual. In this paper, I argue that while these two explanations may often be complementary, they do not amount to a complete account of how people actually think or act. Using secondary interviews conducted with individuals tasked to think about death and dying, I demonstrate how individuals actively intuit the…
Synthesizing Proximate and Distal Levels of Explanation
In this paper, we argue that despite the growing acceptance of psychological research by mainstream sociologists, the discipline of sociology remains largely averse to biology. This is because the kind of psychological research that sociologists now utilize tends to rely on the same assumptions of thought, action, and human behavior – broadly construed – that sociologists have on the whole tacitly endorsed since Durkheim’s seminal criticism of Ka…
Turning inward
In this paper, I argue that the dominant view of reflexivity in contemporary social science is overly decontextualized, despite the value that reflexivity scholars have placed on the dynamic and active nature of individual thought and action. While this problem has been highlighted before, in terms of how habitual actions shape the way that individuals engage in reflexive thought, little attention has been given to the ways in which non-internali…
From Conscious Values to Tacit Beliefs
Much sociological research is now focused on demonstrating how culture both motivates individuals to act and provides them with justifications for their actions (see Vaisey 2009). However, I argue that this sociological work relies on a model of action that sees culture itself as driving action beyond individuals’ reflexive use of culture. I argue that it does so by conceptualizing the internalization of culture as pre-subjective and impersonal, …
Thinking through death and employment
Over the past two decades, the word schema has become increasingly used by scholars studying culture. Viewed largely as a kind of mental shortcut that individuals internalize by means of their various experiences, the concept enables researchers to study how societal-level factors such as norms and values impact individual action by way of shaping individuals’ cognitive structures. However, little attention is given to how and why particular sche…
Talk of Pedophilia
Sociologists have increasingly been using theories and models borrowed from cognitive science and psychology to address questions of personal motivation. One influential model is the dual-process model, a cognitive model which holds that individuals think and act either unconsciously and automatically, or consciously and deliberately. Through an analysis of conversations between individuals who are sexually attracted to minors, however, I find th…
Talk of Pedophilia
Sociologists have increasingly been using theories and models borrowed from cognitive science and psychology to address questions of personal motivation. One influential model is the dual-process model, a cognitive model which holds that individuals think and act either unconsciously and automatically, or consciously and deliberately. Through an analysis of conversations between individuals who are sexually attracted to minors, however, I find th…
Thinking through death and employment
Over the past two decades, the word schema has become increasingly used by scholars studying culture. Viewed largely as a kind of mental shortcut that individuals internalize by means of their various experiences, the concept enables researchers to study how societal-level factors such as norms and values impact individual action by way of shaping individuals’ cognitive structures. However, little attention is given to how and why particular sche…
Synthesizing Proximate and Distal Levels of Explanation
In this paper, we argue that despite the growing acceptance of psychological research by mainstream sociologists, the discipline of sociology remains largely averse to biology. This is because the kind of psychological research that sociologists now utilize tends to rely on the same assumptions of thought, action, and human behavior – broadly construed – that sociologists have on the whole tacitly endorsed since Durkheim’s seminal criticism of Ka…
From Conscious Values to Tacit Beliefs
Much sociological research is now focused on demonstrating how culture both motivates individuals to act and provides them with justifications for their actions (see Vaisey 2009). However, I argue that this sociological work relies on a model of action that sees culture itself as driving action beyond individuals’ reflexive use of culture. I argue that it does so by conceptualizing the internalization of culture as pre-subjective and impersonal, …
Turning inward
In this paper, I argue that the dominant view of reflexivity in contemporary social science is overly decontextualized, despite the value that reflexivity scholars have placed on the dynamic and active nature of individual thought and action. While this problem has been highlighted before, in terms of how habitual actions shape the way that individuals engage in reflexive thought, little attention has been given to the ways in which non-internali…
From Conscious Values to Tacit Beliefs
Much sociological research is now focused on demonstrating how culture both motivates individuals to act and provides them with justifications for their actions (see Vaisey 2009). However, I argue that this sociological work relies on a model of action that sees culture itself as driving action beyond individuals’ reflexive use of culture. I argue that it does so by conceptualizing the internalization of culture as pre-subjective and impersonal, …
Thinking through death and employment
Over the past two decades, the word schema has become increasingly used by scholars studying culture. Viewed largely as a kind of mental shortcut that individuals internalize by means of their various experiences, the concept enables researchers to study how societal-level factors such as norms and values impact individual action by way of shaping individuals’ cognitive structures. However, little attention is given to how and why particular sche…
Talk of Pedophilia
Sociologists have increasingly been using theories and models borrowed from cognitive science and psychology to address questions of personal motivation. One influential model is the dual-process model, a cognitive model which holds that individuals think and act either unconsciously and automatically, or consciously and deliberately. Through an analysis of conversations between individuals who are sexually attracted to minors, however, I find th…
Thinking about careers
Many social scientific studies have shown the positive effects of self-awareness and reflexivity in shaping individuals’ career paths. However, using life- and work-history interviews conducted with salespersons in Toronto, Canada, I find that high levels of self-awareness – as demonstrated by active deliberation over one’s career – has both positive and negative results in terms of career outcomes. Respondents whose careers initially progressed …
Active Intuition
Sociologists have been split between explaining individual thought and action in terms of factors internal and external to any given individual. In this paper, I argue that while these two explanations may often be complementary, they do not amount to a complete account of how people actually think or act. Using secondary interviews conducted with individuals tasked to think about death and dying, I demonstrate how individuals actively intuit the…
Synthesizing Proximate and Distal Levels of Explanation
In this paper, we argue that despite the growing acceptance of psychological research by mainstream sociologists, the discipline of sociology remains largely averse to biology. This is because the kind of psychological research that sociologists now utilize tends to rely on the same assumptions of thought, action, and human behavior – broadly construed – that sociologists have on the whole tacitly endorsed since Durkheim’s seminal criticism of Ka…
Culture Talk and the Politics of the New Right
Right-wing policy approaches addressing violence against women often draw from xenophobic conceptions of racialized groups as culturally backward. While antiracist, anticolonial feminist scholarship has convincingly critiqued this, how to talk about culture in a context of gendered racism remains pressingly unresolved. In our work, we examine how the politics of culture shape policies and practices designed to combat violence against women in the…
How Career Identity Shapes the Meaning of Work for Referred Employees
Sociological explanations for why referred employees typically have longer tenures than nonreferred employees tend to be either that referred employees enter their jobs possessing a clearer sense of employer expectations or that they often receive support from their referrers while on the job. However, through analysis of work-history interviews conducted with salespersons in Toronto, Canada, I find that the significance of each of these factors …
Thinking Through Dilemmas
Departing from the sociological dual process model that divides thoughts into automatic and unconscious, or deliberate and conscious occurrences, this book draws on empirical cases to demonstrate the existence of “automatic deliberation.” Through research into the ways in which people address difficult subjects, such as death and dying, pedophilia, and career decision-making, the author sheds light on a mode of thinking which is both habitual and…
Sociology (10 works) · Epistemology (7 works) · Psychology (7 works) · Social and Cultural Dynamics (6 works) · Philosophy (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Social Psychology (5 works) · Social science (4 works) · Action (physics (3 works) · Cognition (3 works)