About

Vanessa Bohns is the Braunstein Family Professor and Chair of Organizational Behavior at Cornell University’s ILR School. She is an expert on social influence, compliance, consent, why it's so hard to ask for things, and why it’s so hard to say no. Professor Bohns holds a PhD in Psychology from Columbia University and an AB from Brown University. Her research has been published in top academic journals in psychology, management, and law, and has 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. Her writing has appeared in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, Business Insider, and elsewhere.

Research topics

• Psychology
• Computer Science
• Social psychology
• Political Science
• Process management
• Economics
• Knowledge management
• Telecommunications
• Management
• Business
• Developmental psychology

Selected publications

• The Effect of Advanced Notice on Feelings of Informed Consent to a Request

  SSRN Electronic Journal · 2026-01-01

  preprintOpen access1st authorCorresponding
  PublisherDOI

• Forms of Commitment: Comparing Written and Verbal Consent in Three Psychological Experiments

  The Journal of Legal Studies · 2026-01-01

  articleSenior author

  Consent forms, often hailed as a means of protecting vulnerable individuals, are ubiquitous. We argue that consent forms are likely to activate people’s “contract schemas”—mental scripts implicitly called upon whenever people encounter documents that resemble contracts. Across three experiments, we identify the psychological baggage that accompanies contracts and elucidate how these problematic associations bedevil consent forms, which serve a distinct purpose. In Study 1, laboratory participants were asked to consent to an unrestricted search of their smartphones; those whose consent was sought in writing reported feeling more pressured to consent than participants approached verbally. In Study 2, participants regarded written consent as more binding than oral consent across a variety of domains. In Study 3, the introduction of written consent led people to downgrade the importance of verbal consent. In light of these findings, we call for greater judicial sensitivity to how ordinary people understand consent formalities. “The signature is the moral person himself, or at least the legal person.” (Jack Goody [1986, p. 73], quoted in Jacob 2007, p. 249)

  PublisherDOI

• Embracing Structure: Opportunities and Challenges of Implementing Structure in Organizations

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  article

  Structure —explicit and predetermined rules, specificity, and order imposed to guide behavior—has long been recognized as a means of elevating outcomes for individuals, groups, and organizations beyond default processes. Yet, structured tools are often underutilized in practice, raising critical questions: why are they resisted, and how can organizations encourage greater adoption? Addressing these challenges requires increasing awareness of their benefits and targeting psychological barriers to their use. The papers in this symposium tackle these issues in three ways. First, they highlight the limitations of default processes, demonstrating that humans underperform in detecting their partner’s conversational topic preferences compared to machine learning algorithms. Second, they illustrate the benefits of structure, showing how structured tools enhance conversational safety, promote equal speaking time in groups, and empower individuals to make voluntary choices during consent procedures. Third, they explore psychological barriers, such as concerns about enjoyment, that undermine the adoption of structured approaches. Collectively, this symposium showcases structure as a powerful tool for improving outcomes for individuals, groups, and organizations, while emphasizing the importance of thoughtful design and implementation that accounts for individuals’ psychological needs and motivations. Topic preference detection: A novel approach to understand perspective taking in conversation Author: Michael Yeomans; Imperial College London Author: Alison Wood Brooks; Harvard Business School Unlocking the power of equal airtime: Nudging conversational safety in group conversations Author: F Katelynn Boland; Author: Nicholas Demetrio Zambrotta; UC Berkeley, Haas School of Business Author: Nicole Abi-Esber; London School of Economics and Political Science Structuring Requests to Empower Voluntary Consent Author: Rachel Schlund; Cornell University Author: Roseanna Sommers; Author: Vanessa Bohns; Cornell University Overcoming Resistance to Structured Collaboration: The Role of Hedonic Perceptions Author: Kelly Harrington; Northwestern University Author: Loran F. Nordgren;

  PublisherDOI

• Humans vs. Machines: Exploring the Social and Ethical Frontiers of Technology

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  articleSenior author

  As human-machine interactions become increasingly prevalent, understanding the dynamics of these exchanges is critical for both individual and societal outcomes. This symposium brings together six cutting-edge papers exploring how humans interact with machines and each other, the individual-level and societal consequences of these interactions, and the ethical implications of machine involvement in human life. By examining a range of contexts—from conversational dynamics to civic engagement and ethical dilemmas—this symposium sheds light on the opportunities and challenges posed by the integration of technology into social, emotional, and decision-making domains. The first half of the symposium (Papers 1–3) focuses on interpersonal dynamics between humans and machines, examining short-term interactions, emotional connections, and the broader implications of AI engagement for well-being and loneliness. The second half of the symposium (Papers 4–6) explores systemic societal impacts and ethical concerns, including how AI amplifies biases, facilitates voter engagement, and challenges informed consent. Together, these papers demonstrate the multifaceted effects of human-machine interactions, offering theoretical and practical insights.

  PublisherDOI

• A Downside to Liking Your Boss: Getting Assigned More Work

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2025-07-01

  articleSenior author

  Task allocation is a common job requirement; however, previous research finds that managers often feel anxious and guilty about overburdening subordinates when delegating (Akinola et al., 2018). Across five studies, we demonstrate that managers assign additional tasks to employees who like them more (vs. less), above and beyond performance. We also show that this preference is influenced by managers’ impression management concerns but not by expected compliance. Moreover, we show that this preference increases in high-stakes contexts where managers' impression management concerns are heightened. This research makes theoretical contributions to the task allocation literature by demonstrating that managers use how much their employees like them as a cue when deciding how to allocate additional tasks. Additionally, this research demonstrates how managers’ impression management concerns are consequential motivators of task allocation decisions. There are practical implications for managers as well, who should be mindful of how their impression management goals can lead to the inequitable assignment of additional work.

  PublisherDOI

• Giving people the words to say no leads them to feel freer to say yes

  Scientific Reports · 2024-01-05 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  We examine how to structure requests to help people feel they can say no (or yes) more voluntarily. Specifically, we examine the effect of having the requester provide the request-target with an explicit phrase they can use to decline requests. Part of the difficulty of saying no is finding the words to do so when put on the spot. Providing individuals with an explicit script they can use to decline a request may help override implicit scripts and norms of politeness that generally dictate compliance. This should make individuals feel more comfortable refusing requests and make agreement feel more voluntary. Hence, we hypothesized that telling people how to say no (by providing them with an explicit script) would make compliance decisions feel more voluntary above and beyond merely telling them they can say no. Across two experimental lab studies (N = 535), we find support for this prediction.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• “You knew what you were getting into”: Perspective differences in gauging informed consent

  Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · 2024-12-24 · 2 citations

  articleSenior author
  PublisherDOI

• Issue Information

  Journal of Empirical Legal Studies · 2024-02-15

  paratextOpen access

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  PublisherOA PDFDOI

• Social Pitfalls At Work: Mistaken Beliefs About Maximizing Workplace Social Value

  Academy of Management Proceedings · 2023-07-24

  article

  Much of employees’ professional success and emotional well-being comes from their social interactions in the workplace. Unfortunately, employees sometimes fail to socialize as effectively as they could, reducing their social capital at work and limiting the potential benefits they could gain from building strong social connections in the workplace. This symposium demonstrates four new ways that employees fail to maximize their social value at work, and additionally suggests a reason why they do so: workers have mistaken forecasts regarding their social interactions. In particular, the symposium showcases four distinct contexts of social interactions – talking to dissimilar others, seeking help, gossiping, and being humorous – and suggests methods for improving social capital and consequently career success. Taken together, these symposium presentations shed light on the various pitfalls, mistaken beliefs, and surprising ignorance we have when it comes to optimal workplace socialization. The research findings will encourage people to examine their own assumptions regarding social interactions at work, so that they can create more effective connections and uplifting moments, and achieve greater social capital for themselves in the workplace. A Closer Look at Homophily: Why Do People Avoid Talking to Dissimilar Others? Author: Erica Boothby; The Wharton School, U. of Pennsylvania Author: Gus Cooney; Harvard U. Should I Ask Over Zoom, Phone, Email, or In-Person? Communication Channel and Predicted Compliance Author: Vanessa Bohns; Cornell U. Author: Mahdi Roghanizad; Ted Rogers School of Management, Toronto Metropolitan U. Gossipers Beware: Gossipers Underestimate the Negative Reputational Consequences of Gossiping Author: Andrew Choi; U. of California, Berkeley Author: Sonya Mishra; U. of California, Berkeley Author: Juliana Schroeder; U. of California, Berkeley The First Laugh: It is Easier Than We Think to Attempt Humor with Strangers Author: Elizabeth Jiang; UCLA Author: Sanford Ely DeVoe; UCLA

  PublisherDOI

• Consent searches and underestimation of compliance: Robustness to type of search, consequences of search, and demographic sample

  Journal of Empirical Legal Studies · 2023-12-26 · 5 citations

  articleOpen accessSenior author

  Abstract Most police searches today are authorized by citizens' consent, rather than probable cause or reasonable suspicion. The main constitutional limitation on so‐called “consent searches” is the voluntariness test: whether a reasonable person would have felt free to refuse the officer's request to conduct the search. We investigate whether this legal inquiry is subject to a systematic bias whereby uninvolved decision‐makers overstate the voluntariness of consent and underestimate the psychological pressure individuals feel to comply. We find evidence for a robust bias extending to requests, tasks, and populations that have not been examined previously. Across three pre‐registered experiments, we approached participants (“Experiencers”) with intrusive search requests and measured their behavioral compliance and self‐reported feelings of psychological freedom. Another group of participants (“Forecasters”) reported whether they would comply if hypothetically placed in the same situation. Study 1 investigated participants' willingness to allow experimenters access to their unlocked personal smartphones in order to read through the search histories on their web browsers—a private sphere where many individuals feel they have something to hide. Results revealed that whereas 27% of Forecasters reported they would permit such a search, 92% of Experiencers complied when asked. Study 2 replicated this underestimation‐of‐compliance effect when individuals were asked to permit a search of their purses, backpacks, and other bags—traditional searches not eligible for the heightened legal protection extended to digital devices. Study 3 replicated the gap between Forecasters' projections and Experiencers' behavior in a more representative sample, and found it persists even when participants' predictions are incentivized monetarily.

  PublisherOA PDFDOI

Recent grants

• Psychological Assessment of Voluntary Consent

  NSF · $251k · 2018–2021

Frequent coauthors

• Francis J. Flynn

  17 shared

• Daniel A. Newark

  HEC Paris

  16 shared

• Roseanna Sommers

  University of Michigan–Ann Arbor

  12 shared

• Erica J. Boothby

  University of Pennsylvania

  9 shared

• Rachel Schlund

  New York State School of Industrial and Labor Relations

  7 shared

• Amy Z. Xu

  University of British Columbia

  6 shared

• M. Mahdi Roghanizad

  Rogers (United States)

  6 shared

• Francesca Gino

  Harvard University

  5 shared

Education

• PhD, Psychology

  Columbia University

  2008

• AB, Psychology

  Brown University

  2000