Through the use of specific examples and tests the podcast supports a strong argument that the influence we have on others is typically greater than we give it credit for. In the podcast by hidden brain, we are shown multiple studies on how a person’s actions can influence another’s. A specific example that stood out was the situation with the pregnant woman on the subway. The woman states that at first she would walk around the subway car waiting for someone to notice her and give up their seat, but after a while she would begin to ask them if she could sit down. She claims that in doing this she made the other person feel good because they were able to walk away knowing they did something good today for another person, highlighting how one small action could have a significant affect on someone’s day. Another example is an individual’s feeling when they receive a knock from someone asking for donation money. The podcast explained how people who knew ahead of time would do everything they could to avoid it, but people who did not know ahead of time would be faced with the decision and would typically give them money. These two examples show how people faced with decisions on the spot will most likely make the right decision.
A personal experience I had with having a bigger effect than I imagined has to be with my younger brother. A lot of the time, my younger brother will usually want to do something with me and I will say later or another time. In specific, we were going to watch a show together, but I had planned to hang out with my friends. At the time I was really only thinking about myself and did not take into consideration how that might make him feel. After learning of how he felt, I felt really bad about it because I can remember back when I was younger and I would ask my older cousins to do something and they would give the same response.
Liam, I think it is mature of you to acknowledge how your past decisions have affected your younger brother. I am certain that realization will lead you to make changes.
Ps, I’m sure you’re a great older brother!
You said in your first paragraph that “people faced with decisions on the spot will most likely make the right decision”. What do you mean by right decision? Because what if this “right decision” was not what the other party wanted to hear? Like the example in the podcast where if a coworker was to ask you out on the spot and you said yes but in reality you wanted to say no. On the basis of your second paragraph though, on your personal story, I used to put my little brother to the side so much that he turned to other things to kind of like occupy himself so its like the way I treated him made that distance between us so I can relate to your story. Im not saying we don’t have a bond though because we do but it just kind of forced him to do other things which was impacted by me.
I can definitely relate to your current situation right now, disregarding your siblings due to selfishness. I realized that people change and as they grow older their perspective of us – older siblings, can very well worsen based on how we treat them when we were younger. However, It is never too late to start forming that relationship again and I think you will do a great job.
I relate to how you realized that you were disregarding your younger brother. I used to do the same ignoring him when he wants to hang out. To me, it was annoying because it would be hard to do what I regularly did with him around. However, I remembered when I was younger wanting to hang with my older brothers and their friends and they would say I’m annoying. It made me realize he just wanted to have fun with me.