Human Element Series - Ep. 167 - Paying Attention To The Human Side with Vanessa Bohns

Welcome to the Social Engineer Podcast, The Human Element series. We're on episode 167. I'm Chris Hadnagy, founder and CEO of Social Engineer LLC, social-engineer.org, and the Innocent Lives Foundation, hosting this podcast for way too long, since 2009. This episode is sponsored by social-engineer.com. You can go there to our website and check it out. By the way, we're revamping it, so maybe by the time this comes out, it will be all brand new. But if you haven't heard, we— We're going to be doing a lot of things. focus, of course, the name gives it away, on social engineering. I know it's not a big shocker, but we like to help companies learn how they can stay secure and be secure against human-based attacks. As we see now, it's like nonstop, right? Every day there's another breach, usually involving something to do with phishing, vishing now picking up, and even smishing. So we can check out our site there about the different things that we offer and how we can help you stay secure from that, social-engineer.com. If you like the topic of social engineering, we run a Slack channel. And in that, we have over 1,000 people in there now talking about psychology and pretexting and phishing and vishing. We even have a job board. We've had 7 or so people find employment in different parts of InfoSec community. So join us in there. It's a family-friendly chat, not aggressive, non-confrontational. So come on in and talk to us about social engineering in there. Of course, shout out to Clutch. I'm one of their biggest fans, but they give us the music for the podcast. So if you like them, you can check them out at pro-rock.com. And please don't forget to check out innocentlivesfoundation.org. The amazing team there has been working now for over 4 and a half years in unmasking child predators and those who create child abuse material. We've just reached over 400 cases submitted to law enforcement. I'm really proud of that number, and we're continuing our mission. Sadly, with COVID it's kind of increased, but we are working hard to help law enforcement stop people who are hurting kids. So you could check that out at innocentlives Okay, let's get to our guest. I'm really excited today. Don't often have a psychologist, a PhD, that can talk about social engineering, so I'm really excited to be talking with Vanessa Bohns. Vanessa is a social psychologist and professor of organizational behavior at Cornell University. She also holds a PhD from Columbia University and an AB from Brown University. I think you just hit like every university. I don't even know how you did that. Her writing has appeared in New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review, and her research has been widely featured in media including the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Atlantic, The Economist, and on NPR's Hidden Brain. And if you haven't read it yet, her first book just came out in September and it's entitled You Have More Influence Than You Think. I cannot thank you enough for being here, Vanessa. Thanks for joining us.

Thank you so much for having me. It's such a pleasure.

So, of course, the first question, how did you make this your field? Like, what was the motivator to say, I'm going to look into influence and social engineering with all of the degrees and education that you have?

Yeah, that's a good question. And, you know, I think it was a bit of a windy path. I was a psychology major in undergrad, which makes it sound like a very straightforward path to my psychology PhD, but I actually thought I would go into marketing and advertising. And I got what at the time was my dream job at Ogilvy& Mather in New York City right out of college. And I joined them and it was great, but I wasn't that fulfilled. I was in the account management department and I kept seeing these people in the market research department who were doing all this cool research. And I was like, I kind of want to go be them. And they all had PhDs. And so I kind of took on a few different jobs in between and then went back and got my PhD, still thinking I was going to end up in advertising. And then when I went to graduate school, I fell in love with research and teaching and just kind of wanted to keep doing it. And in particular, I started working with a professor there, Frank Flynn, on social influence. And we were doing a study where, as a graduate student, I would go down to Penn Station every day, go up to people and ask them to participate in my study. So I would go up to people and be like, hey, you know, will you fill out a survey? They would answer, fill it out if they said yes. And I had to do this day after day. And it was absolutely terrifying and traumatizing, which is so silly because it's just asking someone for the simplest thing. And at the end of the study, I was showing Frank, you know, the professor I was working with, the data, and our hypothesis didn't work. Hmm. And so we were kind of looking at the data and we were like, okay, this is kind of a bummer. And for me in particular, I was like, I am really bummed about this because this was horrible. Like, you don't understand how awful it was asking people to fill out this survey. And he was kind of looking at the data and he was like, you know, you're describing this terrible, uh, you know, these terrible interactions, like full of rejection, but I'm looking at this data and most people were agreeing. Most people were saying yes to you. And so that began what has now been the research I've done for the past 15 years. On the difference between how we think influence works in our head and what's happening in our head and what's happening in reality. And this idea that in our heads, we're so consumed with our own anxieties and the potential for rejection. And in fact, we assume that rejection is much more likely than it is. We assume that people are going to be belligerent and not cooperative and disagreeable. When in fact, people default to being cooperative and agreeable and are much more likely to do things for us than we think. And so that's taken me to today where now I run lots of studies on that very phenomenon.

So why? Why do we make the assumption that people are going to be belligerent and rude to us when we make a request?

So there's a few reasons. So one is something we call negativity bias. Which is that we tend to focus on the negative things that have happened, and those live long in our minds and are very emotionally salient. And so that time that someone did reject us is the thing we think of, as opposed to those 10 times when someone said yes, and, you know, it was just a forgettable experience because they said yes and you moved on. Um, so when we sort of reflect on the possibility of what's gonna happen if I ask someone for something, those rejections loom large because they tend to be so much more painful. And the part that we actually study the most is this other bias called egocentrism, which is that we're so focused on our own experience of a situation that we're really bad at getting in the other person's head and sort of recognizing what's going on in their head. And so when we're asking someone for something, we know we're worried about rejection, we're anxious, you know, we're worried about how we're coming across. We forget that that person still standing there, right? Imagine you were in their position. Someone comes up to you, they ask you for something. You're worried about appearing like a jerk, right? You're worried about offending this other person. And saying no can, you know, be sort of a risky thing to do. And so, like, a socially risky thing to do. And so we forget that though, when we're in the position of asking someone for something.

That is fascinating and beautifully— I mean, I could just see it being like so accurate because It is hard to think about the other person many times when you're approaching that. But I know from the people that I work with and many of the people I employ here, they get so nervous when they're going to have to make a vision call or when I send them out on their first engagement, they have to interact with a complete stranger. And I'm like, nothing can happen to you. You're on the phone. Like, nothing can happen. The worst they can do is like hang up on you. That is literally the worst. But they get filled with so much anxiety doing it. That is a great explanation of probably why that happens.

Yeah, so true. And so at this point, we've actually run studies with— where we've had participants come into the lab, and at this point they've asked over 15,000 people for things in these 15 years. And it's funny because the way the paradigm works, our experimental paradigm, is we bring people in, we tell them you're going to go out and ask people to do things, and we've had them ask people for small favors like a questionnaire like I did. We've had them ask people like to borrow their phone. We've had them ask for charitable donations. And we've also had them ask for unethical things like, will you vandalize this library book? Will you sign your signature on this form that's clearly a lie? And in every case, we tell them you're going to ask people for things. And like the fear in the room is palpable. Like you said, there's just so much anxiety, you know? And then we have them go out and do it. We ask them, how many people do you think are basically going to agree to do this? They go out and do it. They have to get a certain number to agree. They come back. They ask questions like, what if no one agrees? Or, what if this takes way more than that hour we have allotted? And then they come back and they practically bound back into the lab because it's so much easier than they expected. People were so much more agreeable than they expected. And it just took them so much less time than they expected. You can see it on their faces, just the actual difference.

I teach a 4-day social engineering class and every night they get sent out to do basically what you just said. We send them out to do homework and they have to go interact with strangers, but everything has to be ethical, right? So none of the vandalism stuff. And every class there is usually a larger group of people who are like, this isn't going to work. What if I get arrested? I'm like, why are you going to get arrested? Right? I mean, you're asking someone for their full name and a date of birth. That's it. Like, why are you gonna, you know, you're not doing anything with that in a, in an elicitation conversation. And like you said, next day they come back in and they're like, I don't understand how that works so well. Right? And it's like life-changing for so many people, like having a conversation. It's—

I love it. And do you do that to like demonstrate that it's so easy to get people to just give their personal information to you?

So yeah, part of the class is to teach people like, so there's reasons why people may come. Maybe they come because they wanna be a social engineer professionally. Or we've had a large number of salespeople come because they want to increase their sales ability. We've had people that come just because they're enthusiasts or they work in an IT department and they want to know these skills. And all of them, when we send them out, we're telling them like, you need to understand how this works, either from an attack perspective or a defense perspective. But all of social engineering involves conversation, whether it's phone, email, text. They're asking you for the craziest things, the attackers. So you gotta be comfortable with doing the same thing and going out there. And every night we increase the level of intimacy and ask that they have to get from these— from people in the public. And by day 4, people are shocked that they were running around town getting these amazing questions answered from complete strangers and going, I don't know why that worked. I don't understand it.

I love it. Yeah, that's so similar to my experiments. And we have— so I mentioned this to you before we started talking officially, but we have this great experiment where we ask people in the lab— we have 2 groups of people who are randomly assigned. One group, we say, if we ran a study where we asked you to unlock your phone and hand it to us so we could search through your phone, you know, would you let us do that? And most people say, no way, right? There's no way I would do that. And another condition randomly assigned, we don't say that, we just go up and say, hey, will you unlock your phone and hand it over to us? We're gonna, we're gonna search through it in the other room. And 97% of the people we ask unlock their phone and hand it over to us. We were shocked. We didn't think anyone would. We really just didn't think this was gonna work. They just hand it over, we walk out, we don't actually search anyone's phones, you know, it's just to show that like it's so easy.

Wow. 97%? It

was

wild. If you had asked me to guess what number, I would have, I would never have thought that high.

No, we didn't either. We were completely flabbergasted and we were sure, you know, we ran the study for 2 weeks before someone said no. We were sure people were gonna be saying no all over the place, but they just couldn't find the words. And we would do things like we upped the ante. We said things like, you know, we're gonna search your web search history, which we wanted to get something that like no one wants anyone to see what they have been Googling, right? So, Yeah, and even in that case, the numbers were nearly as high. They were like over 85%.

I'm just thinking like, if someone said that, you start thinking, okay, what pictures do I have that I want anyone to see? What web history do I have that I don't want anyone to see? What other things that I download or what, like what's on, I don't wanna hand you my phone unlocked so you can leave the room at that. Now I can't even watch you search it.

Exactly. And our experimenter would leave the room and sometimes the person would be like standing up half ready to be like, to go through all those things you just said. Wait a minute, I don't want you looking at that, you know. But in the moment, that goes back to what we were talking about. In the moment, we are wired to be agreeable, right? We are— our default sort of response when we're not thinking, when we're just kind of asked for something and we're kind of just using the scripts of the moment, are someone asked me for something, so sure, here, you know. And then after, I start thinking, oh my gosh, what did I just do?

I mean, so what are the implications of that from a security posture. I mean, like, you know, we're trying to— my company, we're trying to help people stay more secure, but then you just blew my mind with 97% of actual targets out there would be like, hey, here's my phone unlocked, have fun. Like, how do— what do you do with that information?

Yeah, you know, I actually think that from a security standpoint, one of the most important findings there is all the people who said that they wouldn't, right? You have 75% of people Saying, I wouldn't do this, but then 97% actually doing it. And so it's really about convincing those 75% of people, if you're trying to keep them safe and keep people safe, that actually in the moment, like, you need a strategy because you would do it. Mm-hmm. If you're not actually planning ahead, if you're not aware of the power of the situation in these moments, then you actually would do exactly what these people are doing. And you don't think you would, so you're probably overconfident in your ability to sort of say no in the moment. And so it kind of begs the question of what would your strategy be in that moment, right? Do you have a script? Do you have a way of vetting that person? Do you have something you would do if you found yourself in that situation?

That's, that's funny. I taught this, the class I told you about in the UK, and the first time I taught it in the UK, I was in London and all the Brits came in and they said, this doesn't work in the UK. British people won't talk on the street. And I'm like, well, you guys paid a lot of money to come here, so you're gonna go do the homework. Like, that's just it. Like, you're gonna do it because that's what you paid for. And they're like, okay, but we're telling you now it's gonna fail. Okay. They came back the next day, they're like, I don't understand how this works. I can't get people to just talk to me on the street, but now it's working. And I'm like, because it's human, right? It's not about British, non-British, you know, wherever you're from in the world, you're human.

Exactly. I get, I get that question all the time too, or people always are like, it wouldn't work. You know, insert place here. And we've now done it in New York City, in Palo Alto, in Toronto. We've done it in Beijing. We've done it in— Wow. The Netherlands and Amsterdam. Um, and it, it, you know, there's, there's some differences in different places, uh, but not nothing majorly different. You still get this effect. And those are the ones I'm talking about, the ones where you ask someone for like a favor or to do something unethical, not the, not the phone unlocking one. But the other ones where you go up and you ask someone for something, people think that people will say no. You know, they think people on the street here would never stop and like give me that, right? But they always do.

Yeah. Yeah. That's, that's, and, and New York City, I mean, that's where I hail from originally. I, I, I'm shocked you said go to Penn Station and people just stop and even talk to you. Like, you know,

yeah,

that, that is, that is crazy.

But you think about too, the way that like, someone chooses a target, right? Because in our heads, again, like you— when I was told like, I'm gonna go to Penn Station and ask people to fill this out. Mm-hmm. Or when we tell our participants like, you're gonna go ask people to fill something out or to borrow their phone or whatever it is, you're in your head, you're imagining this busy person kind of running around who you have to stop and catch up with. And, you know, they have better things to do. They have a clear excuse, but that's not what people do. They find the person who's just sitting and waiting, right? Like I would go to the people waiting for their train. who were reading the paper or didn't have anything to do. And so in my head, it was a very different sort of target than in reality.

Yeah. So what are the consequences if you do underestimate your own influence? Like, what, what could be the consequences of that?

Well, so there's, there's several, right? So there's kind of the positive consequences where it's like, okay, this is actually a very empowering thing, right? You just told me that people are more likely to do things for me than I think. And so I can get, help more readily than I think. I can get, you know, I can get new clients more readily than I think, right? There's all these ways in which there's all this opportunity out there that I'm potentially missing if I think, if I sort of second-guess myself before I ask for something and assume like, I'm not going to ask because they're going to say no, right? Or I'm going to ask for less because I assume they're going to say no to that, right? And so we show that, you know, In many cases, people are more likely to do things and bigger things. Like, they're more likely to say yes to even bigger requests than you realize, right? And when you don't realize that, you miss opportunities. The other piece that I always like to highlight though, as well, is that at the same time, that means that we may unintentionally kind of pressure people to do things they don't really want to do. And that can also be a negative consequence. So if I ask someone to do something and they are only saying yes because they can't say no in the moment and they're going to regret it 2 seconds later, right? Do I really want to have asked them in that way? And so that gets to, I mentioned we have people do these unethical requests, right? So we have people go into libraries and say, I'm playing a prank on my friend. Will you just write the word pickle in pen in this library book? And they guess how many people will agree. They think most people will say no, just like the other studies. They go up, actually most people say yes. unbelievably, they say, I don't know, like, this seems wrong. I'm not sure about this. Mm-hmm. But then they agree. And then our participants come back and they say, I can't believe how unethical people are, like the things people are willing to do. And they don't think about like the, the role they played in eliciting that behavior. And so you can kind of extend that to all sorts of con— you know, other circumstances like unethical behavior in organizations. You can extend it to MeToo, uh, applications, right? Asking people out in the workplace who feel uncomfortable saying no to you. And so there's kind of these 2 takeaways. There's missed opportunities when you don't realize how hard it is for people to say no to you. And at the same time, there's potential unintentional negative influence when you aren't aware of that as well.

So did you say you found that people, when they would walk up and ask them to write something in the book, when people would do it, they would almost blame the writer? Saying, wow, that person was so unethical.

Yeah. So they, their thinking was like, I just learned something about humanity that people are willing to do all this crazy stuff. Right. Um, it, it's actually very reminiscent of the Stanley Milgram shock experiments where people would say like, how could people shock someone? You know, how could you, how could someone be so awful as to shock someone in the other room? But the whole point of those experiments was the situation, right, puts people in this, this place where they feel too embarrassed to leave. They feel like they need to be agreeable with the experimenter, right? It's really not about the person as much as it is about the situation. And when we ask someone for something, we're that person's situation. We're the powerful situation that's come in and is impacting that person, but we don't see ourselves that way.

That's a— that's fat. Yeah, you think about that experiment. I mean, what was it, 9 out of 12 went all the way to the conclusion with those shocks? And

I think they had— he actually had a number of conditions that don't get talked about, but I think it was some— it was around like 65% went all the way of like the classic condition.

I mean, that's— that's— yeah, I mean, so it is impossible for anyone to sit here and go, that would never be me, because there's a 65% chance it would be you.

That's exactly right. Yeah.

That's, that's a— that's an interesting way of thinking about all of that. So all these years of research, what would you say is, I don't know, your favorite find? Maybe the thing that you're like, wow, I can't believe we actually figured this out.

I mean, I definitely think that both the book vandalism and the phone unlocking studies to me were just so fascinating because we didn't think they would work. Like, we designed them thinking like, how far can we take this? You know, is this really— each time we were just like, this is not going to work. People are not going to agree to this. And so each time we surprise ourselves, you know, it's just amazing to me because then I know it's going to be surprising to other people, right? So I think those are just, those are my favorite findings because they were so surprising to me.

The pretext with the book vandalizing is interesting because you say like, I want to play a prank. So it's almost like you're getting this person involved in your Your joke. You're getting this person involved in the fun that you're about to have with your friend. And it kind of almost minimizes the idea that you're asking them to, because you didn't say like, will you vandalize this book? That word would definitely make me feel a lot more, you know, like, ooh, I don't know if I can do that. But when you, if you were to walk up and be like, hey, I wanna play a joke on my friend. Will you write this word in here? And you didn't make it an offensive word, right? Mm-hmm. So, cuz some people might be like, oh, I don't wanna write that. That's terrible. Like you didn't make it an offensive word, so it wasn't anything terrible. But it's just a word in the middle of this library book. Yeah.

Yeah, I think that's possible. And I think, you know, I think it's that there was a reason, right? There was— it wasn't just like they went up and said, hey, will you write this without a reason? And so that follows these classic studies by Ellen Langer on waiting in line for the copier. I don't know if you or your audience may be aware of these studies, but where people would walk up and asked to cut in line in the copier. And some of them would say, I need to cut in line because I need to make copies, right? And that's not an explanation. It's like, it's just, it sounds like an explanation, but everyone's there to make copies. That's not a reason to need to cut in front of someone. But people just process it as this person has a reason, right? Mm-hmm. And that reason isn't like really setting off any kind of major red flags. You know, they didn't swear, right? If there was like a really bad word or something, they provided some sort of reason. And I think that could be also what was happening in those studies. It's like, all right, they have a reason that sounds, you know, innocuous enough. I'm not gonna process it too hard and just assume that it's okay, right?

Yeah, we had Ellen on the show and she talked to us about that experiment and she seemed like you. She was like, you know, I didn't think it was gonna work. So, 'cause it's like you said, it's not really an excuse. I mean, it's like everyone needs to make copies. That's why we're all standing here. And just the fact that people would be like, yeah, sure, you can cut in front of me. Like, wow, that's— Yeah. That's crazy, right? That's, that's, it's just so, uh, it is, it is. Humans are so fascinating when we think about that because, you know, nowadays, especially with the phone one, you know, I'm thinking how much are we constantly getting bombarded with the idea that we need to keep our devices secure? You know, make sure you have your passwords, use your biometrics, make sure you're using second factor auth. But then somebody says, will you unlock this and let me take it to another room? And that, like, that, that made me nervous when you were talking about it. I'm like, ooh, like, that's not safe. Like, like, you know, I don't want you having my phone in another room. My client data's on there, you know?

That's exactly right. And that's, I mean, I'm sure this is something you talk about all the time, but this is my, my co-author Rosanna Summers, who's at the University of Michigan. And I talked about this quite a bit after that study that, you know, people focus so much on the tech side. of, you know, not having your data stolen, right? Like, we're gonna come up with 1,000 ways to lock your phone, but the second a person asks you, you like just subvert all of those things. So you really have to pay attention to the human side as well.

Yeah, that is a great message, paying attention to the human side. Wow, that's fascinating. So what's your next study? What are you gonna do? What are you gonna do now?

Well, so we actually, we've been playing around with that paradigm quite a bit because it was so strong, and it's actually pretty rare in social psychology have an effect that big where you're getting huge yeses in one and mostly nos in the other. And so we've just been trying different things, like how do we get people to basically slow down and not automatically hand over their phone? And so we tried a few things. We tried what we called an advisory. We said, just so you know, you can still do the study even if you say no. Right. So they knew that they weren't going to be penalized. It didn't change anything. They weren't sort of deciding based on a cost-benefit, you know, kind of equation, right? Whether or not to hand over their phone, they were just doing it automatically. And so that didn't do anything. We tried giving them a consent form and we thought maybe if they saw it like written down that they had to write, like, I'm consenting to giving my phone over, that that might slow them down and they would think about it and they would— But no, they just thought it was more official that way. And so it didn't change how likely they were. Wow. So what we're basically trying to crack this, how do you get people in that situation to override that sort of automatic impulse to be agreeable to that person? And so our next thought is to give them almost like a safe word, we've been calling it. So basically, like, giving them the words, if you don't want to do this, say this, right? Say, I do not consent, or I do not want to, or we just give them basically a phrase they can use so they don't have to come up with the words in the moment. We're basically telling them we won't be offended because here is your key out of this, right? And I have no idea what to expect at this point because it's been such a robust effect, like, we can't get rid of it. So if this gets rid of it, that would be really— Impressive, but I just don't know.

It would, it would go a long way in, in talking about security training if it does work. Like, like your, your original concept, what you said is having predefined scripts about what you'll do when you're in a situation before you get into the situation. Like, that is something we've been preaching for years to people. Even something as simple as like, how do you use an ATM? And I always tell people like, have a script in your head because Otherwise, you're walking up to the thing with your card out, you're leaving your receipt behind, and you're carrying your money in your hands like this. I mean, you're the perfect target for getting mugged, right? Have a predefined script. How do you use an ATM? And why I want it to work, because if not, then it's almost like, what do we, what do we do now?

We do. And actually, I think there's good reason. I think like based on your experience, based on some other research we have, that it, it could work. So I mean, one of the, the places I actually talk about Scripts in is another way of saying no, right? Like situations where you're being asked for something when you're that person on the other side, those people I was going up to in Penn Station who couldn't say no, right? And you want to say no. How do you get out of that situation? And I often suggest scripts. And so actually, the only place that I couldn't get my studies to work in the whole world was this one street in Toronto where there were tons of people petitioning. Greenpeace was there. There's this organization in Canada called Because I'm a Girl. They were there. You know, there were all these. petitioners trying to get people to sign up for their charity. And people would walk down the street and have their scripts. Like, they knew when they walked down the street they were gonna get petitioned. And so they knew what they were gonna say. They planned ahead. They had their script. Um, and so I, for that reason, I usually tell people like, have a script in your head. How are you gonna say no when you wind up in this situation? And it really comes from that street in Toronto.

That is fascinating. Have you, uh, just, just curious, have you thought about like on that consent form? Putting something like, you know, you're consenting to this and that means we may see embarrassing or illegal content on your phone to see if that makes them go, yeah, I don't feel comfortable anymore.

That's a great possibility because we had the condition where we actually said, you know, we're gonna look at your search history and they did not like that. I will say like, they actually, some people would randomly just be like, I searched for this because of the, like they would give an explanation. Like I searched for this really random thing and Again, we didn't search anybody's phones. Like it was a, it was an ethical, uh, IRB-approved experiment and we never looked, but they thought they like really believed that we would. And so they didn't like that part, but they still handed over their phones. But I do wonder if you had that in the consent form, if that would slow them down. Like if you're verbalizing it, it just didn't, they didn't like it, but they still weren't going to say anything. But if they actually had to take the time to read it. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good possibility.

Yeah, I just, I just like, I'm just curious, like, what would make the, what would make the person think, right? Because I want to believe that there's got to be something that can stop us and go, in the moment, I'm going to have this thought process. That's just, oh, so I hope you find it.

I do too. I have one other theory, which kind of goes with a lot of my other research on getting out of your head and recognizing your own influence. And so A lot of the studies that I've talked about are like you asking for something, you not realizing that you have this power because people find it hard to say no to you. And so if you want to get better at recognizing that power, one of my recommendations is often to get out of your own head and try to visualize yourself from a third-party perspective. Like you're a fly on the wall, you're watching a movie, or like, how would you advise a friend? How would you explain yourself to a friend? Because in the moment, moment, we're kind of, it's like us and the other person and we're so involved and we can't see outside of that, you know, and sort of break free of that, um, interaction. And so I think in the moment, if you could get someone to think like, how am I going to explain this? If something happens, how would I explain it to like my partner or my friend, or what would I advise a friend to do in this situation? I do wonder if something that gets people out of their own head in the moment could be helpful.

Yeah, it kind of goes along with like Dr. Goleman's research on amygdala hijacking, right? It's that when you get that emotional override, your critical thought centers are just not there. You got— you need that. You need something to bring you back. That's— I can't wait. I hope you find it. We're gonna have to talk about it again. I could see that we're, we're coming close to the time, so let me ask you a couple questions. I'm sure you have many, but who would you consider some of your biggest mentors in your life and career that got you where you are today?

I mean, definitely the professor I mentioned, Frank Flynn. He was one of the first professors I worked with at graduate school. He was always so just supportive of everything and very open with his time and generous with his advice. And then, I mean, it's funny because my dad was a mechanic and didn't really mentor me in a traditional way of like, he knew nothing about academia, you know, he knew nothing about experiments or psychology, but he really modeled, I think, a certain kind of tenacity that really always stuck with me. And a hopefulness and a sort of a gratefulness for what he had. So he really came from nothing and slept on friends' couches growing up and worked on a tobacco field and wound up enlisting in the Army. And he eventually became a mechanic. And he always dreamed of sending his kids to college. And he wound up sending his— I'm his first kid. I went to Brown. He sent his second kid to Rutgers. such an accomplishment to him. And he just was always, he just worked so hard for that. And he was so grateful when he achieved it. And so there's something about there that the hard work, but also the not constantly like, I'm never going to stop and be grateful for what I've accomplished. And I think that's been a really important sort of model and has stuck with me.

Man, what a beautiful lesson. Wow. That's really nice. I mean, sometimes it doesn't matter how much book smart you have. You can learn the deepest things from people who just appreciate life and have lived that hard life. That's, that's wonderful. Besides your book, which we'll put into the show notes, many of our listeners love to read. So it doesn't even have to be about this topic. It could be just a book that you read that you really like. But is there any books that you would like to recommend?

Sure. So, you know, I came to Anne Lamott quite late, actually. When I wrote my book, I wanted to read a bunch of books about writing and the writing process, and so I picked up Bird by Bird by Anne Lamott, which is just an incredible book, and it's about so much more than writing, I quickly discovered. It's so funny, and there's so many life lessons, and it's just really incredible. And Bird by Bird refers to basically her father's advice to her brother who was working on this, like, bird project when he was in school. And he was like, how am I gonna finish it? And was overwhelmed. And her dad just said, bird by bird. And so it's like, again, like taking this one step, you know, at a time. And then I really love Chris Hadfield's Guide to— Astronaut's Guide to Life on Earth. That's another one that I feel like really just it kind of adds to a lot of the themes that I've just been talking about, where he really talks about, you know, what it's like to be an astronaut, which is awesome in itself. And then, you know, how at each point, like, if disaster's about to strike, you can't freak out. You just work the problem and you keep moving forward. And I think I often, like, when something feels a little overwhelming here on Earth, I think of that book. Yeah. And how he was just like, work the problem. Like, you can't freak out. And I reflect on it more than I ever expected when I first read it.

It's nice when you have a book that kind of sticks with you for years and just has that effect on you. I love that. I haven't read that one either, so it sounds wonderful. And a smart idea about picking up Anne Lamott's books before you started writing. That's very thorough. That's great. That's a good recommendation for many people who are thinking about writing. I can't thank you enough for coming on the show, for sharing your research with us, for doing the research first of all. I mean, from— as a professional social engineer, the research that you're doing is so valuable for us to understand, and I hope that you find the answers because that can really change our whole industry and help us to make people more secure. So I'm rooting for you.

Thank you so much, and thank you for your ideas. I love it. I'm going to test them out.

Yeah. Oh, I can't wait. I can't wait to hear how it works then. That would be great.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

You know, we'll put, um, you can, you know, I have your website, um, as a connection, so vanessabohns.com, as well as your Twitter, Twitter, Instagram, and LinkedIn if people want to connect with you. I know a lot of listeners sometimes like to reach out to the guests and talk about their research, so, um, you know, you'll— we'll put all those in the show notes. So if anyone's listening and you'd like to reach out to Dr. Bohns, you can do that through the show notes there. And we'll put all those links there as well as the books and some links to your research and things like that. So thank you so much for everything.

Thank you. That's great.

And we thank you all for joining us today. Next time in the Human Element series, we'll be joined by improv expert Clay Drinko. That'll be a fun one. So we'll see you next month.