John Petrocelli

Social Psychologist Dr. John V. Petrocelli has the goal of helping organizational leaders better position themselves and their organizations to reach their fullest potential. With strategies rooted in scientific research, that’s exactly what he does, empowering organizational leaders with proven tools for improving communication, strengthening influence, and establishing a foundation of evidence-based management.

A provocative and convincing speaker, Dr. Petrocelli offers practical and immediately actionable strategies that actually enhance the chances of successfully meeting professional and organizational goals. By emphasizing social science and the things that successful organizations do consistently and effectively, he shows organizations and their employees a clear path to accomplishing their goals.

Dr. Petrocelli offers keynotes and seminars on a variety of leadership, communication, and evidence-based management topics that are critical to high-performance in business management, market intelligence, technology, behavioral design, finance, education, and health care.

Dr. John V. Petrocelli is an experimental social psychologist who researches, writes, and speaks about the science of communication and decision making. He is a Professor of Psychology at Wake Forest University, teaching social psychology and judgment and decision making. He is also the author of The Life-Changing Science of Detecting Bullshit. His research examines the causes and consequences of bullshit and bullshitting in the way of better understanding and improving bullshit detection and disposal. Dr. Petrocelli’s research contributions also include attitudes and persuasion and the intersections of counterfactual thinking with learning, memory and decision making. His research and writings have been featured by the Wall Street Journal and in his popular TEDx Talk, Why BS is More Dangerous Than a Lie. Dr. Petrocelli has delivered keynotes for Financial Executives Networking Group of Charlotte, NC, Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business, and more.

In addition to his research and position as an Associate Editor of the Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, he has authored over 50 papers in his field’s most prestigious journals, including the Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, Journal of Experimental Social Psychology, Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, British Journal of Social Psychology, and Thinking and Reasoning. He has received numerous awards for his teaching and research achievements.

Dr. Petrocelli is a member of the American Psychological Association, the Association for Psychological Science. He was also elected to the highly selective Society for Experimental Social Psychology, and he is a fellow of the Society for Personality and Social Psychology. He gives frequent invited addresses and speaks regularly at national conferences, and is available for speaking and consulting engagements, primarily in business.