David Williams

About

David M. Williams is a Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences, as well as a Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at Brown University. He also serves as the Associate Dean of the School of Public Health. Dr. Williams holds a BS in psychology from Stockton University and a PhD in clinical psychology from Virginia Tech. Since joining Brown University’s research faculty in 2006 and the teaching faculty in 2009, his work has focused on health behavior science, particularly examining the psychological and social determinants of health-related behaviors such as exercise, smoking cessation, and weight management. His research explores affective responses to physical activity, self-regulation, outcome expectancy, and motivation, contributing to the development of theory-based interventions aimed at promoting healthy behaviors. Dr. Williams has authored two books on health behavior and has an extensive publication record, including articles that investigate the mediators and moderators of health behavior change, the role of affect and self-efficacy, and the efficacy of various intervention strategies.

Research topics

• Computer Science
• Radiology
• Developmental psychology
• Social psychology
• Intensive care medicine
• Cognitive psychology
• Medicine
• Linguistics
• Psychology
• Communication

Selected publications

• Affective Determinants of Physical Activity: A Conceptual Framework and Narrative Review

  Frontiers in Psychology · 2020 · 195 citations

  Senior authorCorresponding

  (e.g., intrinsic motivation, fear, and hedonic motivation). After defining each category of affective construct, we provide examples of relevant research showing how each construct may relate to PA behavior. We conclude each section with a discussion of future directions for research.

  DOI

• Physical activity interventions: an update on advancing sedentary time, technology, and dissemination and implementation research

  Journal of Behavioral Medicine · 2024-11-10 · 4 citations

  review
  PublisherDOI

• Exercise That Feels as Good as Possible: Acceptability of an Affect‐Based Exercise Prescription Among Stage 0–III Breast Cancer Survivors

  Psycho-Oncology · 2025-07-30 · 1 citations

  articleOpen access

  BACKGROUND: Leaders in the field have called for exercise counseling to become standard of care by 2029. An Affect-based exercise prescription (Affect-Rx) may be a viable strategy for supporting this effort. AIMS: Guided by the ORBIT Model for developing behavioral treatments, this Phase 1b study evaluated breast cancer survivors' perceived acceptability of Affect-Rx. Additionally, the feasibility of trial methods and opportunities for protocol refinements were assessed. METHOD: Participants wer…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Memory of affective responses to physical activity (study 1) and a pilot intervention to reduce negative memory bias (study 2) in adults with overweight or obesity

  Psychology of sport and exercise · 2025-11-13

  article
  PublisherDOI

• JWST Lensed Quasar Dark Matter Survey III: Dark Matter Sensitive Flux Ratios and Warm Dark Matter Constraint from the Full Sample

  ArXiv.org · 2025-11-11

  preprintOpen accessSenior author

  We present the full sample of measurements of the warm dust emission of 31 strongly-lensed, multiply imaged quasars, observed with JWST MIRI multiband imaging, which we use to constrain the particle properties of dark matter. The strongly lensed warm dust region of quasars is compact and statistically sensitive to a population of dark matter halos down to masses of $10^6$ M$_\odot$. The high spatial resolution and infrared sensitivity of MIRI make it uniquely suited to measure multiply imaged wa…

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• NIH Grant R21CA137211

  NIH · $410k · 2012

• NIH Grant F32HL078709

  NIH · $62k · 2006

• Physical Activity Promotion Based on Positive Psychology: Development and Piloting of a Novel Intervention Approach

  NIH · $378k · 2018–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Michael P. Pender

  189 shared

• Anne‐Louise Ponsonby

  Murdoch Children's Research Institute

  182 shared

• Bruce Taylor

  University of Tasmania

  165 shared

• Ingrid van der Mei

  University of Tasmania

  153 shared

• Alan Coulthard

  University of Queensland

  152 shared

• Robyn Lucas

  Australian National University

  148 shared

• Shira Dunsiger

  John Brown University

  144 shared

• Patricia C. Valery

  143 shared

Education

• B.S., Psychology

  Stockton University

• Ph.D., Clinical Psychology

  Virginia Tech

Similar researchers at Brown University

• Bess Marcush-118
• Damaris Rohsenowh-97
• Kristina Jacksonh-67