Vanessa Bohns
People/Faculty
Department Chair and Braunstein Family Professor
Organizational Behavior
Contact
133 Statler Dr
377 Ives Hall Faculty Wing
Ithaca, NY 14853
United States
Tel
Websites
Overview
Professor Bohns is a social psychologist studying social influence, compliance, consent, why it's so hard to ask for things, and why it’s so hard to say no. She is author of the books You Have More Influence Than You Think: How we underestimate our power of persuasion, and why it matters (Norton, 2021) and Should I Say Something? The science of what to share—and what to keep to yourself (Hachette, 2026). Professor Bohns received her PhD from Columbia University and her AB from Brown University. Her research has been published in top academic journals in psychology, management, and law, and has been covered by media outlets such as the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Atlantic, Economist, and NPR. Her writing has appeared in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. At ILR, Professor Bohns teaches "Psychology of Work," "Exercising Your Influence at Cornell and Beyond," "Morality at Work," and "Writing Persuasively about the Science of Persuasion," and lectures in the EMHRM program. She has been at Cornell since 2014.
Should I Say Something?
We all have moments in our daily lives when we wonder not only how to say something, but if we should say it at all. In Should I Say Something? social psychologist and organizational behavior expert Vanessa Bohns shows how to make informed decisions about when to express something and when to keep it to ourselves.
Publications
Journal Articles
- Roseanna Sommers, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2026). Forms of Commitment: Comparing Written and Verbal Consent in Three Psychological Experiments.
- Rachel Schlund, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2026). You knew what you were getting into: Perspective differences in gauging informed consent. . Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 186.
- Rachel Schlund, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2025). Do New Hires Really Understand Your Policies?. Harvard Business Review.
- Rachel Schlund, Roseanna Sommers, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2024). Three Ways to Make a Request That Doesn’t Feel Coercive . Harvard Business Review.
- Rachel Schlund, Roseanna Sommers, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2024). Giving people the words to say no leads them to feel freer to say yes. (DOI:10.1038/s41598-023-50532-3)
- Roseanna Sommers, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2024). Consent Searches and Underestimation of Compliance: Robustness to Type of Search, Consequences of Search, and Demographic Sample. Journal of Empirical Legal Studies, 21, 4-34. (DOI:10.1111/jels.12375)
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2022). Toward a Psychology of Consent. Psychological Science, 4, 1093-1100. (DOI:10.1177/17456916211040807)
- Mahdi Roghanizad, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2022). Should I Ask Over Zoom, Phone, Email or In-Person? Communication Channel and Predicted vs. Actual Compliance . Social Psychological and Personality Science, 13, 1163-1172. (DOI:10.1177/19485506211063259)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & Rachel Schlund. (2021). Consent is an Organizational Behavior Issue. Research in Organizational Behavior. (DOI:10.1016/j.riob.2021.100138)
- Erica Boothby, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2021). Why a simple act of kindness is not as simple as it seems: Underestimating the positive impact of our compliments on others. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 47, 826-840. (DOI:10.1177/0146167220949003)
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2021). Need a favor? Research suggests it's best to ask in person. Harvard Business Review.
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2021). Be Intentional About How You Spend Your Time Off. Harvard Business Review.
- Laura Giurge, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2021). You Don't Need to Answer Right Away! Receivers Overestimate How Quickly Senders Expect Responses to Non-Urgent Work Emails. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 167, 114-128. (DOI:10.1016/j.obhdp.2021.08.002)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & Francis J. Flynn. (2021). Empathy and Expectations of Others' Willingness to Help. Personality & Individual Differences, 168(1), 110368. (DOI:10.1016/j.paid.2020.110368)
- Erica Boothby, Xuan Zhao, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2021). A simple compliment can make a big difference. . Harvard Business Review.
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2020). Three myths that stop people from asking for help at work. Harvard Business Review.
- Laura M Giurge, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2020). Three tips to avoid work from home burnout. Harvard Business Review.
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & Lauren DeVincent. (2019). Rejecting unwanted romantic advances is more difficult than suitors realize. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 10(8), 1102-1110. (DOI:10.1177/1948550618769880)
- Roseanna Sommers, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2019). The Voluntariness of Voluntary Consent: Consent Searches and the Psychology of Compliance. Yale Law Journal, 128(7), 1962-2033.
- Sebastian Deri, Daniel Stein, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2019). With a little help from my friends (and strangers): Closeness as a moderator of the underestimation-of-compliance effect. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 6-15. (DOI:10.1016/j.jesp.2018.11.002)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & Daniel Newark. (2019). Power and perceived influence: I caused your behavior, but I’m not responsible for it. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 13(1), e12427. (DOI:10.1111/spc3.12427)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, Daniel Newark, & Erica Boothby. (2018). When do we feel responsible for other people's behaviors and attitudes?. Advances in Group Processes, 35, 159 - 179. (DOI:10.1108/S0882-614520180000035007)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & Lauren DeVincent. (2018). To reduce sexual misconduct, help people understand how their advances might be received. Harvard Business Review.
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2017). A face-to-face request is 34 times more successful than an email. Harvard Business Review.
- M. Roghanizad, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2017). Ask in person: You're less persuasive than you think over email. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 69, 223-226. (DOI:10.1016/j.jesp.2016.10.002)
- D. Newark, Vanessa K. Bohns, & F. Flynn. (2017). A helping hand is hard at work: Help-seekers’ underestimation of helper effort. . Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 139, 18-29. (DOI:10.1016/j.obhdp.2017.01.001)
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2016). (Mis)understanding our influence over others: A review of the underestimation of compliance effect. Current Directions in Psychological Science, 25, 119-123. (DOI:10.1177/0963721415628011)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, Daniel Newark, & Amy Xu. (2016). For a dollar, would you..? How (we think) money influences compliance with our requests.. Organizational Behavior & Human Decision Processes, 134, 45-62. (DOI:10.1016/j.obhdp.2016.04.004)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, Abigail A Scholer, & Uzma Rehman. (2015). Implicit theories of attraction. Social Cognition, 33, 284-307. (DOI:10.1521/soco.2015.33.4.284)
- D. Newark, F. J. Flynn, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2014). Once bitten, twice shy: The effect of a past refusal on expectations of future compliance. Social Psychological and Personality Science, 5, 218-225. (DOI:10.1177/1948550613490967)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, M. Roghanizad, & A. Xu. (2014). Underestimating our influence over others’ unethical behavior and decisions. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 40, 348-362. (DOI:10.1177/0146167213511825)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & F.J. Flynn. (2013). Guilt by design: Structuring organizations to elicit guilt as an affective reaction to failure. Organization Science, 24, 1157-1173. (DOI:10.1287/orsc.1120.0787)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, K. Lucas, G.M. Molden, D.C. Finkle, E.J. Coolsen, M.K. Kumashiro, C.E. Rusbult, & C.E. Higgins. (2013). Opposites fit: Regulatory focus complementarity and relationship well-being. Social Cognition, 31, 1-14. (DOI:10.1521/soco.2013.31.1.1)
- J. Gu, Vanessa K. Bohns, & G.J. Leonardelli. (2013). Regulatory focus and interdependent economic decision-making. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 49, 692-698. (DOI:10.1016/j.jesp.2012.11.008)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & F.J. Flynn. (2013). Underestimating our influence over others at work. Research in Organizational Behavior, 33, 97-112. (DOI:10.1016/j.riob.2013.10.002)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & S.S. Wiltermuth. (2012). It hurts when I do this (or you do that): Posture and pain tolerance. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 48, 341-345. (DOI:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.05.022)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, M.J.J. Handgraaf, J.M. Sun, H. Aaldering, C. Mao, & J. Logg. (2011). Are social prediction errors universal? Predicting compliance with a direct request across cultures. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 47, 676-680. (DOI:10.1016/j.jesp.2011.01.001)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & E.T. Higgins. (2011). Liking the same things, but doing things differently: Outcome versus strategic compatibility in partner preferences for joint tasks. Social Cognition, 29, 497-527. (DOI:10.1521/soco.2011.29.5.497)
- C. Zhong, Vanessa K. Bohns, & F. Gino. (2010). Good lamps are the best police: Darkness increases self-interested behavior and dishonesty. Psychological Science, 21, 311-314. (DOI:10.1177/0956797609360754)
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & F.J. Flynn. (2010). Why didn’t you just ask? Underestimating the discomfort of help-seeking. Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, 46, 402-409. (DOI:10.1016/j.jesp.2009.12.015)
- F.J. Flynn, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2008). If you need help, just ask: Underestimating compliance with direct requests for help. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 95, 128-143. (DOI:10.1037/0022-3514.95.1.128)
Books
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2021). You Have More Influence Than You Think: How we underestimate our power of persuasion and why it matters. W. W. Norton.
Newspapers
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2019). McDonald’s fired its CEO for sleeping with an employee – research shows why even consensual office romances can be a problem. The Conversation (republished by Chicago Tribune, MarketWatch, Quartz, Business Insider, and other media outlets).
- Roseanna Sommers, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2019). Would you let the police search your phone? We are much more likely to give consent than we think. The New York Times.
- Vanessa K. Bohns. (2014). Would you lie for me? Why we underestimate our own powers of persuasion. New York Times.. New York Times.
Book Chapters
- Vanessa K. Bohns, & F.J. Flynn. (2015). Empathy gaps between helpers and help-seekers: Implications for cooperation. In Emerging Trends in the Social and Behavioral Sciences. Wiley.
- G. Leonardelli, Vanessa K. Bohns, & J. Gu. (2015). Security seeking in a regulatory focus whodunit: The case of the relative orientation in behavioral economics. In The Handbook of Personal Security. Taylor & Francis.
- F.J. Flynn, & Vanessa K. Bohns. (2012). Underestimating one’s influence in help-seeking. In Six Degrees of Social Influence: Science, application, and the psychology of Robert Cialdini. (pp. 14-26). Oxford University Press.
Honors and Awards
- You Have More Influence Than You Think named runner-up for Best Behavioral Science Book (2023), Global Association of Applied Behavioral Scientists. 2023
- Radar list of 30 management thinkers to watch (2022), Thinkers 50. 2022
- You Have More Influence Than You Think named a Best Book for Ethical Leaders (2021), Notre Dame Deloitte Center for Ethical Leadership. 2021
- Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Scholarship and Creative Activities (2021), SUNY. 2021
- Elected Fellow (2019), Society for Personality and Social Psychology. 2019
- Provost Research Innovation Award in Social Sciences (2018), Cornell University. 2018
- Elected Fellow (2013), Society of Experimental Social Psychology. 2013
Vanessa Bohns In the News
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