Lawler Receiving Award

Professor Edward J. Lawler will receive a Distinguished Career Award at the American Sociological Association meetings this August in Philadelphia.

The award is from the association’s Altruism, Morality and Social Solidarity Section. It recognizes his long-standing work on how and when people develop emotional ties to groups and thereby tend to act in the collective interest.

A social psychologist, Lawler served as dean of the ILR School from 1997 to 2005. He is ILR’s Martin P. Catherwood Professor of Industrial and Labor Relations and a Cornell professor of sociology.

Lawler previously received the prestigious Cooley Mead Distinguished Career award from the Social Psychology Section the American Sociological Association.

He also previously received a social theory prize from the organization’s Theory Section for his paper, "The Affect Theory of Social Exchange." Much of his research has been funded by numerous grants from the National Science Foundation.

Lawler is co-author, with Shane Thye and Jeongkoo Yoon, of an award-winning book, “Social Commitments in a Depersonalized World,” published in 2009 by the Russell Sage Foundation.