After listening to the podcast “The Influence You Have,” it became increasingly obvious to me how much power people have over each other without even knowing about it. After looking at the results of the Milgram Experiment, some psychologists wanted to see how people react to being asked to do something by a complete stranger. Throughout the podcast, they talked about various experiments they performed, whether it was asking someone to fill out a questionnaire, vandalize a library book, ask for someone’s seat on the subway, ask to borrow someone’s phone or money, or by setting up two booths, where one asks for something and the other doesn’t. The results of these experiments were always the same: a surprise. The people asking for the favor always had a higher percentage of people say yes than they expected to, which is the result of social pressure. In the podcast, they explain the term egocentric bias. Egocentric bias is when you are so worried about your own anxiety and feelings that you don’t stop to think about what the other person is feeling. In our minds, when asking for a favor, it’s easy for the other person to say no, but often that is not the case. When asking someone to do something for you, you don’t realize the struggle they have to say no, which can lead to them agreeing anyway (like when people said vandalizing the book is wrong, but do it anyway). Because of this egocentric bias that we have, we don’t realize how much influence we hold over other people.

“The Influence You Have”  really resonates with me because I too have often thought how would I act in certain situations? It’s very easy to assume I would do the right thing, but there is no way to really know. I, along with the scientists, was surprised by the results of their experiments. I didn’t understand why so many people would agree to do all these tasks. But then I thought about it more, about how I would react if, for example, someone came up to me and asked me to sign a sheet that says this stranger pitched an idea to me when he never really did. I would probably agree, since it can’t hurt me to say yes, and it’s much easier than saying no and rejecting someone.

I found it interesting how they explored the idea of what it feels like to be the one asking the questions, to be the one asking for a seat on the subway. It really helped put into perspective how much anxiety and stress there is from both sides of the equation. The one asking for the seat is nervous they will be rejected, which is what makes asking in the first place so difficult, and the one being asked feels pressure into saying yes, because they don’t want to be viewed poorly if they say no. By not wanting to say no, it gives someone asking you to do something a sense of power they may not be aware of.

One time my sister made a dessert that I really enjoyed, so I told her I thought it was delicious. To me, I was simply complementing her on what she made and also thanking her for making it. Little did I know that she felt pressured to make it much more often. Of course this was not my intention, but she felt like I was asking her to make it more, and in return she did not want to say no.