you have more influence than you think by vanessa bohns

In the end, the ratings of how often the students found themselves observing others were 67% higher than how much they thought they were being watched.Īnother topic in the book is the ability to say “no.” When we ask a favor from someone, face-to-face is more “awkward” or “embarrassing,” and it is easier to ask via text message or email. She assigned students leaving the dining hall into different groups while eating one was asked how much they observed those around them while the second group was asked how much they thought they were being observed. Bohns describes a study conducted to see whether students in a dining hall felt more invisible than they were. It is easy to think that people are watching us when in fact they typically are not paying attention to us, conversely when people are watching us, we do not realize this.

Researchers from Stanford surveyed Facebook users about their perceptions of the size of their audiences and concluded that they “substantially underestimated the number of people who saw their posts, guessing their general audience to be just 27% of its true size.” Many of us spend time scrolling through social media looking at other people’s posts and forget that other people do the same to us. It is easy to be unaware of the greater impact we have on people. We underestimate the positive influence we have on people in our lives and overestimate the negative. Unlike most books about influence, Bohns aims to understand the influence one already has rather than describing how to gain it. If you have ever felt awkward asking someone for something, had a hard time saying “no,” or felt like everyone was staring at you, this book will show that while legitimate, these feelings are usually unnecessary. You Have More Influence Than You Think, by Vanessa Bohns, a psychology professor at Cornell University, describes how challenging psychological topics can be applied to everyday life. Sophia is a student at Glen Rock High School in Glen Rock, New Jersey.

You have more influence than you think by vanessa bohns