The experiment in the beginning of the podcast showed how people tended to put themselves in the shoes of the influenced––the person who was receiving greater shocks each time they responded incorrectly. But it is questioned why the influencer––the person giving the orders to the teacher to give the shocks––is not receiving the most attention. This is proof, Bohns argues, that we sometimes overlook our own influence on others. When Bohns was handing out surveys to random people on the subway, it felt embarrassing to her and she was afraid of being rejected, afraid of others having a negative influence on her. But after collecting more surveys than she was expecting, she realized that she had an influence on them that she hadn’t realized before––that because she asked, they were also feeling that same awkwardness that she was and they felt that they should fill out the form.

It is difficult to say when something I said to someone influenced them because people don’t talk about how they are influenced. All I can think of were times when I was young and said something rude on accident and was called out for it. If I said something to someone that had a great influence over them, I would’ve known that what I said was going to have that influence. Some simple thing I said to someone might’ve had a big impact on them, but I couldn’t know because they never told me it did. On the other hand, it is really easy for me to think of ways in which I was significantly impacted by others. I am a heavy thinker, and I have a habit of over-processing things that people say to me. There were a lot of very smart people I looked up to throughout high school, and whenever they spoke to me, I treated their words as if I was hearing some celebrity speak. Before high school, I was nearly failing all of my classes, but I was introduced to people who were way ahead of me in academics, and when they told their stories to me, I was devastated and upset at myself for not having higher standards. Because of the things they said to me, I changed a lot. Through this exercise, I learned that an interaction is usually selfish; people are taking in more information about other people than they are about themselves and their impact on others. And when you become aware of your influence, you have better control over both what comes into and out of you during an interaction.