Vanessa Bohns, Ph.D.

Vanessa Bohns, Ph.D.

Social psychologist, author, professor, and chair of organizational behavior at Cornell University's ILR School

Vanessa Bohns, Ph.D. is a social psychologist, professor, and chair of organizational behavior at the New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations at Cornell University (the ILR School), and author of the 2021 book You Have More Influence Than You Think: How We Underestimate Our Power of Persuasion, and Why It Matters.

Prof. Bohns holds a Ph.D. from Columbia University and an AB from Brown University. Her research has been published in top academic journals in psychology, management, and law, and her research and writing have been featured in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Atlantic, the Economist, and on NPR’s Hidden Brain, among other media outlets. Prof. Bohns is an expert on help-seeking, social influence, compliance, consent, and why it’s so hard to say no.