The podcast ‘The Influence You Have’ illustrates that people are naturally inwardly focused and often underestimate the power they exert over others. It argues we humans tend to have egocentric bias, where we focus all cognitive resources on our own feelings while interacting with others, and construct a one-sided reality in our heads, failing to view the situation objectively and to recognize the impacts we have on other people. The podcast explained this central message from the following aspects. First, it pointed out that we naturally gravitate to the point of view of those being impacted rather than the ones exerting power. Both the scientific community and the general public have been fascinated by the Stanford prison experiment and the Milgram shock experiment for decades, yet most of the discussions were around the behavior and motives of the experiment participants, rather than the experimenters. We are all familiar with being put in uncomfortable situations and thus have no problem resonating with the ‘manipulated’ participants, yet few of us could shift perspectives and probe the question of ‘what effects do we have on  others?’. Second, the podcast revealed that people are often too consumed by their own problems and emotions that they fail to empathize with the difficulties others face. When psychologist Vanessa Bohns had experiment participants approach random strangers and ask them to fill out surveys, the participants in general significantly underestimated the proportion of strangers who were willing to help, falsely assuming that it was easy to refuse the request. Consumed by the anxiety of disturbing others and being rejected, the participants did not sense that the strangers were also worried about how they would be perceived after turning down this simple favor. Last but not the least, the podcast pointed out that we might not be aware of the power we have on others at all, especially when that power does harm. Bohns conducted a follow-up experiment, where she had participants approach strangers, but this time to request the strangers to vandalize library books. Results showed that, again, the participants significantly underestimated the influence they possessed to get others to do something unethical. We tend to overlook the social pressure and anxiety others face in interpersonal interactions, and ignore how palpable the fear of rejecting or standing up to unethical proposals is.

Like many psychological biases, the natural tendency to downplay the influence we have on others can have unexpected consequences. Jackie, one of my close friends, always had exceptional taste in fashion ever since we first met in college. I enjoyed seeing her polished outfits-of-the-day and would always compliment her style. As we got closer, she confessed that comments from others, though positive, made her feel obligated to put effort into dressing up for every single occasion, even when she didn’t feel like doing so, even when a casual outfit would have suited the occasion better. She was under the pressure to always look impeccable and to live up to the reputation of being the best-dressed person in the friend circle. I would have never imagined my compliments ended up burdening her, yet they did. This recollection resonates with the message of the podcast, which states all of us as individuals have surprisingly strong power to shape how others behave, and this power is almost impossible to prevail when collectively exerted on an individual. When combining this message with Wendell Berry’s poem ‘Enemies’, I realized we should strive to be cognizant of this misconception, acknowledge the scale of the power we have on others, as well as ensure the power doesn’t unintentionally promote unethical behavior.