Amy Cuddy

Social media is a rocket fuel for our worst impulses, says Amy Cuddy, exacerbating incivility and bullying among adults both online and offline. But the same psychological mechanisms that elicit bullying – tribalism, the influence of norms, and desire for status – can just as easily be used to decrease bullying and increase bravery. The same human tendencies that are activated for bad, argues Cuddy, can be activated for good.

“Now, more than any other time, we have the science – and the stories – to build a brand-new program to fight against this menace,” Cuddy says.

In this talk, based on her forthcoming book, Bullies, Bystanders, and Bravehearts (HarperCollins, 2025) she covers the staggering psychological, physical, and socio-economic costs of bullying to individuals, organizations, and societies – and the unprecedented and surprising opportunities we have to engage in and lead through social bravery. She compellingly demonstrates that when we understand the psychology of these dynamics, virtually all of us will have the power to be bravehearts, rather than passive bystanders.

A renowned social psychologist, Cuddy shares an acute combination of scientific expertise and first-hand experience, drawing both from her personal journey and the stories of others to communicate important human truths.

Many of our biggest challenges call for us to be calmly confident, focused, and open to hearing others. Too often, we approach these high-pressure interactions with fear, execute with anxiety and distraction, and leave with regret. Based on her best-selling book Presence, Amy draws from psychology and neuroscience research, personal narratives, and her own challenges, focusing on:

* What holds us back from being present and effective in these challenging situations?
How does feeling powerless (vs. powerful) affect our thoughts, emotions, and behaviors, in turn undermining our ability to be smart, creative, attentive, and effective when we most need to be?
* How do we retrain our nervous systems to liberate us — rather than inhibit us — in these moments?
* How does our own presence help others to be present — and facilitate the building of trust in stressful interactions?
* What does powerful vs. powerless body language look like?
* Can we adapt our own body language — breathing, speech patterns, simple and complex posture, and movement — to directly affect how powerful we feel (and how powerful we appear to others)?

Audiences will be moved and inspired, leaving Amy’s keynote with a fresh, life-changing perspective on themselves and their interactions, and a concrete and immediately-actionable set of simple techniques to harness their own personal power and presence, freeing them to perform and interact at their very best — and empower others to do the same.

The pandemic and concurrent economic and cultural shifts have propelled workers and leaders into a new “Flux Era.” This new and ongoing flux has created a stew of conflicting emotions — hope, fear, excitement, dispiritedness, relief, and tension. And although human beings are more resilient than we generally appreciate, this psychological tilt-a-whirl has caused many of us to feel a loss of agency, leading us to make rash decisions. With her extensive background in cutting-edge behavioral science and research, Amy Cuddy offers answers in this groundbreaking and energizing talk on the workforce’s most top-of-mind questions around returning to work, such as:

* How do we approach returning to the office in this new era?
* How do we handle contentious conversations about how to return to work?
* How do we create workplace environments and cultures that are welcoming and inclusive to people working both in-person and virtually?
* And how do we re-empower and reset our employees so that they can thrive in the Flux Era?
* How do leaders better understand and respond to mental health challenges?
* Combining her openness and warmth with her deep expertise, Amy delivers this timely speech on how to come to terms with and thrive in these tumultuous times.

For more than twenty years, Amy Cuddy has been studying and writing about intergroup bias and the psychological underpinnings of how we judge and treat others.

She breaks down who and why we envy, pity, admire, and hate. Why do we bend over backwards to help some people – while turning a blind eye to the mistreatment of others? Why do we assume some people will be allies and others, predators? And how do those feelings and interactions affect how we see ourselves, and how we feel and behave in the future?

As her primary area of research, Cuddy draws from a deep well of knowledge and science to present a powerful and provocative evidence-based discussion that helps audiences understand how bigotry often plays a starring role in prejudice and workplace mobbing.

Our biases – whether simple or complex – impact the quality of our interactions and our productivity at work, says Cuddy. With potency and warmth, she shares with audiences how to reject and transcend stereotypes that divide and disempower, so that we can band together to categorically reject harassment and bullying at work.