Why We Love to Read People... ??
Arthur P. Antonopoulos
Adjunct Faculty at the Department of Psychology, Hellenic American University
People Watching ?? has become a hobby for many out there. Long hours spent at a cafeteria drinking coffee and observing those who pass by ??.
But how effective is to make assumptions in a blink of an eye? And how much are we really learning about the other person in those blinks? (not much to be honest).
Understanding another human being is an investment. This means it requires time and patience and most of all... interaction. If we are not prepared to give time ? (of which we have little), patience (of which we probably have none), and interaction (which is difficult when someone just passes by)... then what are we really doing? ??
Well, I'm glad you asked (you did ask, didn't you??)
What we are doing is:
1?? passing false judgment
2?? creating false assumptions
3?? reinforcing our belief that our poor judgement and assumptions are valid
4?? teaching ourselves that we are good at it.
We cannot be good at it because our judgements and assumptions cannot be reaffirmed (unless you grab and interview everyone who passes by... which I do not recommend you do????♀?).
You are you who you are, depending on where you are.
Context is important in understanding others and reading behaviour and it is difficult to do so in the middle of a street ??. And to make matters even more interesting, you need varying context for the same individual. A street, then a dinner, a drive in their car, holidays, their interactions with their loved ones, their working environment and so on... the list is truly endless.
But we skip context because it is inconvenient.
The truth be told, reading others only tells us about us ????. Yep, that's right, only about us. It tells us how we view the world. How we perceive the social architecture of our community through our experiences.
How we judge others is a reflection of our inner most beliefs, fear, hopes and aspirations.
So, perhaps, next time you're sipping your latte (I prefer a flat white), and you're lazily passing out split-second labels to people you've never seen and will probably never see again (unless you're that character in Beef) reflect on how your view of the outside world is an inner-eye into your world. Your thoughts. Your beliefs.
Freelance Copyeditor & ELT Author
1 年The word "empathy" comes to mind when I read this. So does "sensing", namely, an intuitive or energetic reaction to another individual. One question: when trained professionals, like psychologists, diagnose someone as a narcissist, does that make them a narcissist too? Or is it that everyone has "narcissistic" characteristics that they control to different degrees?