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Catherine Sanderson      

Professor, Author, and Speaker

Catherine A. Sanderson is the Poler Family Professor and Chair of Psychology at Amherst College.

She received a bachelor's degree in psychology, with a specialization in Health and Development, from Stanford University, and received both masters and doctoral degrees in psychology from Princeton University. Her research has received grant funding from the National Science Foundation and the National Institute of Health. Professor Sanderson has published over 25 journal articles and book chapters in addition to four college textbooks, middle school and high school health textbooks, as well as the Introduction to Psychology course for The Great Courses. In 2012, she was named one of the country's top 300 professors by the Princeton Review.

Professor Sanderson has written trade books on parenting as well as how mindset influences happiness, health, and even how long we live (The Positive Shift). Her latest trade book, published in North America as Why We Act: Turning Bystanders Into Moral Rebels (Harvard University Press) and internationally as The Bystander Effect: The Psychology of Courage and Inaction (HarperCollins), examines why good people so often stay silent or do nothing in the face of wrongdoing. For a preview of the topics addressed in this book, watch Catherine’s TEDx talk on the Psychology of Inaction, which describes the factors that contribute to inaction and provides strategies we all can use to help people act, even when those around them are not.

Professor Sanderson speaks regularly for public and corporate audiences on topics such as the science of happiness, the power of emotional intelligence, the art of aging well, and the psychology of courage and inaction. These talks have been featured in numerous mainstream media outlets, including The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, USA Today, The Atlantic, CNN, and CBS Sunday Morning with Jane Pauley. She also writes a weekly blog for Psychology Today - Norms Matter - that examines the power of social influence on virtually all aspects of our lives.

Catherine lives with her husband, Bart Hollander, and three children - Andrew, Robert, and Caroline - in Hadley, Massachusetts.

Speech Topics

The Art of Aging: A Prescription for Mind and Body

We've all heard about the placebo effect – which explains why name-brand medicines work better than the generic stuff, even when they share the exact same ingredients. But did you know that the way we think about ourselves and the world around us dramatically impacts our health, how fast or slow we age, and even how long we live? In fact, people with a positive mindset about aging live on average 7.5 years longer than those without. That might sound alarming to those of us who struggle to see the bright side, but the good news is we can make surprisingly simple changes or small shifts to how we think, feel, and act that will really pay off. In this talk, Dr. Catherine Sanderson breaks down the science of thought and shows how our mindset—or thought pattern—exerts a substantial influence on physical health. Most importantly, this talk ends by giving specific strategies we can all use, no matter our natural tendency, to make minor tweaks in our thoughts and behaviors that will improve the quality and length of our lives.

Merely Bystanders: The Psychology of Courage and Inaction

We are bombarded daily by news reports of bad behavior, from sexual harassment in the workplace to racist attacks on public transportation to bullying in schools. Although it’s easy to blame these acts on evil people, it’s far more complicated to understand why so many people fail to speak up in the presence of such behavior and how significant a role this silence plays in perpetuating the behavior itself. Using empirical research from psychology, biology, neuroscience, and economics, this talk examines the factors that lead most of us to stay silent in the face of bad behavior, and how the tendency to stay silent allows such acts to continue. As Martin Luther King Jr. said, “History will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people.” Finally, this talk will describe how to overcome the very natural human tendency to remain bystanders and practical strategies for resisting such pressure in their own lives.

The Science of Success: Understanding the Power of Emotional Intelligence

Many people focus on the importance of cognitive intelligence in predicting academic and professional success. But a growing amount of evidence suggests that other traits - including the ability to control impulses, manage adversity, find internal motivation, and build relationships – are essential in achieving the best outcomes in both personal and professional relationships. This talk will therefore focus on the importance of so-called emotional intelligence (or EQ) in predicting success, and provide specific strategies for increasing your own EQ.

The Science of Happiness

This talk presents both surprising and not-so-surprising information on the science behind happiness. What role do money, marriage, friends, children, weather, age, and religion play in making us feel happier? Is happiness stable over time? How can happiness be increased? Professor Catherine Sanderson will describe cutting-edge research from the field of positive psychology on the factors that do (and do not) predict happiness, and provide participants with practical (and relatively easy!) ways to increase their own psychological well-being.

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