In 2003 he was awarded a Guggenheim Fellowship, and in 2007 he was recognized as a Board of Governors and Distinguished Professor of Sociology.
Later he turned his attention to what he has termed cognitive sociology, pointing out how much society rather than human nature shapes our mental lives, and how much the commonalities that mark out social groups involve shared patterns of thinking.
His work in this vein includes The Fine Line (1991); Terra Cognita (1992); Social Mindscapes (1997); The Elephant in the Room (2006); and Ancestors and Relatives (2011).
His own writing is notable for its use of multiple examples from everyday life, an approach which one of his students, Wayne Brekhus, has called "Zerubavelian" sociology.
[3][4] He is married to Yael Zerubavel, a scholar of Israeli history who also teaches at Rutgers University.