People skills are a science.
The skills that build trust in a room are the same ones behind your health, your career and your closest relationships. We make them learnable — backed by science.
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- 5M+
- Newsletter subscribers
- 800K+
- Companies
- 250+
This is bigger than small talk
Relationships shape how we live, work, heal and age. Decades of research keep finding the same thing: people with stronger relationships do better — at work, in their health, over a lifetime. And relationships are built on skills you can learn.
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2×
Career
The market reward for skills like teamwork and leadership has roughly doubled. The highest-paid skill stack is technical and social.
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29%
Health
Strong relationships track with healthier hearts and bodies. Poor social connection is linked to a 29% higher risk of heart disease.
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50%
Longevity
Connection is one of the strongest predictors of a long life. Across 148 studies, people with strong relationships were 50% more likely to survive.
Sources: Edin et al. (2022); Valtorta et al. (2016); Holt-Lunstad, Smith & Layton (2010). Research links relationships to these outcomes — people skills are how you build them.
What we do
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Content
800+ science-backed articles, videos and research on communication, body language and people skills.
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Training
From People School to coach certification — practical training for the conversations that shape your career and relationships.
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Speaking
Custom keynotes and workshops delivered to Google, Meta, Microsoft, Amazon, and 250+ organizations.
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Books
NY Times bestselling author, translated into 18 languages.
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Started in 2012 as a research blog.
In 2012, behavioral researcher Vanessa Van Edwards started Science of People with a thesis most people found counterintuitive: people skills aren't innate talent — they're science you can learn. The skills that shape our health, our careers and our relationships were the ones no one was actually teaching.
What started as a research blog is now a platform used by 5M+ students in 100+ countries. Two decades of behavioral science research have gone into the methodology — refined through original studies, three bestselling books and millions of real-world interactions.
Vanessa is a NY Times bestselling author, behavioral researcher and the creator of People School. She teaches her material at Harvard, her books have been translated into 18 languages, and she has been featured at SXSW, MIT and Stanford, and in the Wall Street Journal, Forbes, CNN and Entrepreneur.
In the age of AI, your ability to communicate is your greatest investment.
Vanessa Van EdwardsFounder, Science of People
