Perception of Others and The Self

dedicated to S.G. "not a dime store psychologist"

Here is a bit of dime store psychology that bubbled up to the surface of my mind the other night.

I suspect that for many people much of the qualities one sees in others is more of reflection of one's own qualities and not the other person.

I fashion my self a honest person. Also, a person that, on a good day, tries to see the best in people and, on a bad day, tries to see nothing; to with-hold judgment.

My thought is is that my own predispositions strongly affect how I see others. I have a tendency to assume that people reciprocate these same feelings I feel towards them; that people assume I am honest and non-judgmental and that I see the best in them.

I remember a time, as a typically confused and depressed teenager, that I believed most people to be miserable fucks and if they appeared to be happy they were probably bullshitting themselves.

I am the same person as that confused teenager. Human nature hasn't changed in 10 years What has changed? Me of course and consequentially my view of people.

Now I am not saying that how one views others directly mirrors how one sees oneself. If a person feels stupid that person most likely does not think everyone else is stupid, by definition this person will think everyone else is smarter.

The point is, is that this person's perception of others has little to do with observed qualities of others and more do with how that person feels about oneself.

Of course this phenomenon would be most prominent with people one knows the least.

Do you want to test your own predispositions? How do you feel about some people the first time you meet them? If you like them its probably because there are some qualities in them that reflect positive feelings you feel about yourself.

If after the first meeting you don't like them, through their behaviors you perceived qualities about yourself that you are not too fond of, but the source of those feelings is the person who don't like. Thats why you don't like them.

Thats not to say those qualities you perceive in others are non-existent. If I "perceive" someone to be an asshole that doesn't mean they are not an asshole, that does not mean "its all in my head". What I am saying is, is that whatever qualities one perceives in another person that led one to judge them "asshole" or any such label, is very much related to one's own personal qualities, and perceptions of self.

A room of ten people may all come to the conclusion that the eleventh person is an asshole but I suspect they will all have at least subtly different reasons for judging that person as such.

So whats the point of all this? How might knowing this relationship between perception of self and perception of others, if it has any validity, change how one treats people? Well the very act of perceiving people will become an act of self-perception. To put it another way, it will be an act of self-reflection.

How one perceives people will reflect back to how one perceives oneself. How one treats other people will reflect back to how one treats oneself, and vise versa. If one is more aware how one treats others I suspect one will treat others better.

This idea takes the golden rule a step further. Treat others as how you would want to be treated, perceive others how one would want to be perceived.

If you perceive everyone is out to bullshit you and take advantage of you how could you possibly treat others how you would want to be treated? You will treat people will suspicion. You might engage in dishonest manipulation yourself, assuming everyone else is dishonest and manipulative.

But do you want to be perceived (by yourself or others) as full of shit, exploitive and manipulative? Probably not. And I argue you wont be able to avoid both the behaviors and those nasty little feelings you feel about yourself if you continue to perceive those qualities in others and treat them accordingly.

Like I said before, the very act of interacting with others will become an act of self-reflection. How do I treat others? How do I perceive them? What does this say about myself?

And through this process of self-reflection one will have to confront oneself and through confrontation with oneself come out the other side a better person, treating people more as they would like to be treated (Not to mention having a bit higher opinion of them).

You see, I am predisposed to self-reflection. Consequently I have come up with a little BS amateur shrinkery that reflects my own predisposition. Fancy that.