Contagion, Persuasion, and Motivation

Linda Barrington is the Associate Dean for External Relations in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business as well as the executive director of Cornell’s Institute for Compensation Studies. Dr. Barrington’s published research addresses employee compensation, gender issues in the workplace, employees with disabilities, and workforce demographics.

Robert H. Frank is the Henrietta Johnson Louis Professor of Management Emeritus and Professor of Economics Emeritus at the SC Johnson Graduate School of Management in the Cornell SC Johnson College of Business. An economist by training, his work explores the interplay of human nature and consumer behavior. His many books include “Success and Luck”, “Choosing the Right Pond”, “Passions Within Reason”, “Microeconomics and Behavior”, and this year’s “Under the Influence: Putting Peer Pressure to Work”. His work has been translated into 23 languages and has appeared in the American Economic Review, Econometrica, Journal of Political Economy, and other leading professional journals. He is a frequent contributor to the New York Times and a Distinguished Senior Fellow at Demos.

Sahara Byrne is a Professor in the Department of Communication in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences (CALS) at Cornell University and an inaugural Director of the Cornell Center for the Social Sciences. Her research focuses on the effectiveness of messaging for focused purposes and audiences. She is particularly interested in testing when and why youth resist campaigns, interventions, and policies designed to protect them from engaging in risky behaviors. Her recent work explores unintended responses to persuasive and strategic messages, especially those designed to be prosocial, such as health campaigns.

Vanessa Bohns studies social influence, compliance, and consent, as well as why it’s so hard to ask for things and why it’s so hard to say no. Professor Bohns is author of the book You Have More Influence Than You Think (2021, Norton). She received her Ph.D. in social psychology from Columbia University and her A.B. in psychology from Brown University. Prior to joining Cornell in 2014, Professor Bohns taught at the University of Toronto and the University of Waterloo in Canada. 

Professor Bohns’ research has been published in top academic journals in psychology, management, and law, and covered by media outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, The Economist, and NPR. Her popular press and practitioner writing has appeared in publications such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, and Harvard Business Review. 

Professor Bohns is currently an associate editor at Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes. She previously served as an associate editor at the Journal of Experimental Social Psychology and Social and Personality Psychology Compass, and she sits on the editorial boards of the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology and Social Cognition. 

Professor Bohns teaches Psychology of Work (ILRID 1520), Morality at Work (ILROB 4760), and Writing Persuasively About the Science of Persuasion (ILROB 2240), and she lectures in the EMHRM program.