Why do we judge others?

Most of us give ourselves the right to judge and have a say in how others should think, act, feel, or lead their lives. We think that our (narrow) reality is applicable to the rest of the world, and We tend to criticize what does not fit our vision or what we do not understand.

Perhaps, the video that you are going to see below will help you to be more empathetic and curb your desire to prejudge other people.

If we knew what that person you come across on the street is going through, we might be more empathetic. I leave you this video that I hope will make a change in you:

[You may be interested: 10 simple ways to be more pleasant]

By doing this, we not only unfairly reduce the wonderful complexity of the other, but it is also likely that once that assumption is made, we will tend to adopt a selective attention, that is, that we pay attention to what corroborates our hypothesis about that individual and to discard what does not fit that hypothesis. A) Yes, our conception of the other becomes more rigid. For example, if we believe that a person is clumsy, we will tend to focus only on those situations that confirm that idea, and we will abstract from those moments that demonstrate the opposite. As a result of this, we deprive the other of his totality as being and we ignore their personal history, their belief system, their culture, their religion, their family background, all their past experiences, etc.

The interesting thing is when we realize that the criticisms we direct towards others are just as harsh as those we direct towards ourselves. In other words, the external world is somehow a reflection of our internal world. The way we judge others is an extension of how we judge ourselves. And some of us are so used to being excessively critical and demanding of ourselves, it is so normalized in our cognitive structure, that we do not even notice it.

When it is too hard to look inside oneself, we deploy defense mechanisms to avoid assuming desires, emotions or characteristics of our own, considered unacceptable for our self-image. This phenomenon is called projection in psychology and it consists of placing or projecting onto another person what we are not capable of assuming as our own. Similarly, Carl Jung used the term "shadow" to refer to such unacceptable and unconscious aspects of our personality.

If we manage to increase our self-awareness and transform our internal dialogue, we will be more tolerant of ourselves, and this will be extrapolated to our vision of others. Each encounter gives us the opportunity to develop a greater self-knowledge, since it reflects to us what we accept and what we do not accept from ourselves. In fact, if we are honest enough with ourselves, we will find that our criticisms of others actually give us more information about ourselves than about others. What's more, By making these unconscious responses conscious, we will notice that the emotional charge evaporates.

When you find yourself criticizing someone, stop for a moment and ask yourself what has caused that reaction to the other person. Next come three unconscious defense mechanisms (projections) that can explain those gut reactions that we experience with some people:

1. Never and under no circumstances would you tolerate the same behavior or personality trait in yourself. For example, imagine you have a very disorganized and forgetful friend. And suppose that his "defect" has no negative impact directly on your life, but simply witnessing it irritates you deeply and you do not know why. If you look back at your story, you will likely realize that it has to do with internalized family myths or rules. Perhaps in your family, this type of "irresponsible" behavior was very frowned upon and therefore, you had to strongly repress and control this aspect of your personality to please your parents. The fact that you have had to make that effort in some way makes you believe that others should also act the same.

2. That individual's behavior, attitude, or physical traits unknowingly remind you of someone you've had a bad experience with in the past. The fact of not having been able to elaborate that bad experience makes every time you meet someone you unconsciously associate with that person you hold a grudge against, that emotional response of rejection is reactivated.

3. You wish you could act the same but you don't dare. You feel envy And since that emotion is too difficult to accept, you try to look for something negative in the other so you don't have to deal with your own frustrations. For example, let's imagine that you are a shy person and you have a particularly outgoing person in front of you. You may think: "How naughty, how does he try to get attention!" When deep down, maybe you would like to be able to have that fluency.

When we are able to understand each other better and accept both our strengths and weaknesses, not only We develop a greater compassion towards ourselves but also in general towards others. Making our way of judging others more aware does not mean that we no longer have preferences. It is normal not to get along equally well with everyone and that some personality traits or behaviors do not attract us as much. There are people we just don't feel like relating to. But when we experience a strong emotional reaction for no sufficiently reasonable reason to justify it, that is when it becomes harmful. There is something unresolved there that our unconscious is trying to communicate to us. Instead of feeding on negative emotions, it is much more productive to ask ourselves what is going on inside us and to do some work of introspection. The fact of understanding how our mind works allows us to grow, and therefore closer to happiness and success.

by Jasmine Murga