It activates when I designate someone that I want it to be used on. When I used it on Sam I had no real reason to use it so I put a question out there all "what is my catchphrase, first person to answer gets a Brucey Bonus" and Sam answered it so I used it on him. Yesterday I got Statham to finally say "please" which I'd been asking all game and again said "okay, you get the brucey bonus!" Not long after that Teddy came in and showed up with the "okay so it's a tie between Neeson and Weaver" and everyone was liek "huh?" and then Weaver steamed in and quickly killed off the bulletproof townie Neeson to save her own ass, and promptly spent the rest of the time trying to somehow claim I was wrong about Neeson even though i'd said nothing about him at any point.