You say ”Peter is really nice!” Your friend says ”I think he’s fake.”. You’re both describing the same phenomenon, but what you’re really describing is not Peter, but your relationship to Peter.
Hi everyone, it’s Erik Thor here. In this article, I’m reflecting on how I see myself and how I see and describe other people. How can I have an accurate view of myself and others? How can I avoid falling into negative or positive bias?
Listen to the voiceover instead, if you prefer!
Imagine you’re spending time with a friend, and you’re both talking about someone you know. You say, “Peter is really nice, he’s such an ISFJ! (Introverted, Sensing, Feeling Judging personality type in the MBTI)” and your friend counters, “I think he is kind of fake, to be honest, probably an ESTJ (Extroverted, Sensing, Thinking and Judging personality type) putting on a show.”
But what is really happening? You’re both describing the same person and the same phenomenon, but you have a different relationship to it. When you say he is nice, you’re accurately describing the fact that he is kind and well-mannered. When your friend speaks, she might be correctly pointing out that he tries too hard to listen or be polite, and that he doesn’t reveal his true thoughts.
The argument I want to make is that when we talk about people, we aren’t just describing them; we are describing ourselves in relation to them. This perfectly explains why personality is a shared, social phenomenon, rather than an individual reality. Let’s face it – it’s impossible to be objective when you’re describing another person or assigning them a personality type. This is why I always advise you to let the person you’re describing be part of the conversation. You let each person have the final say over how they define themselves. You understand that anything you say about the other person is simply your view – based on your position relative to that person. Because let’s face it. We all have a bias.
Perspective clouds our ability to see something for what it really is.
We all have a bias – both about others and ourselves
Similarly, when you talk about yourself, you might have a negative or positive bias.
Negative Bias: You might think of yourself as “anxious” or “perfectionistic.”
Positive Bias: You might describe those same traits as “detail-oriented” or “conscientious.”
Both are just ways to describe what are, in reality, very useful phenomena. Your perspective on your own reality is shaped by how you feel about yourself. Most personality type descriptions online are written in an overly positive tone, and because they are positive, we want to relate to what we’re reading and identify with it. This is what is known as the Forer Effect. If I say something negative about someone, they will get defensive, but if I say something that sounds nice, people will want to agree with it or identify with it, at least most of the time.
I’m not arguing that you should always have a “pink clouds and rainbows” view of the world where everything is always positive. Instead, I aim for an objective understanding of myself and others. I prefer descriptions that focus on simply explaining actions and events without the need to say “this is good” or “this is bad.”
The Power of Neutral Observation
An objective, neutral view is neither unkind nor overly positive; it is simply reality. When we have a neutral view, we focus on the facts. Your partner is no longer “lazy,” “passive,” or “overly critical,” and they are certainly not this way because they are ISTPs. I encourage you to look inside the person, trying to understand their thought patterns, the situation, and what really happens, and most of all, to talk with the other person, because you can only guess at what might be going on – only the other person will know the truth of what really happened in them at that moment.
You might say: “When he didn’t volunteer to take in the laundry, I felt like he was selfish.” He might say, “I was planning to cook us dinner today, while you were taking care of the laundry.”
You might think, “When he described a potential problem with my idea, I felt like he was dismissive,” and he might say, “I was simply trying to offer constructive support, to help us find solutions to potential problems.”
When we observe without judgment, life starts to follow a different pattern where you’re no longer the victim or the hero of a situation, and there are no good or evil people. Everyone has a reason for everything, and life becomes a series of neutral events.
You get to decide what you do about those events – and how you want to relate to them. You realize what gives rise to the judgment, and what actually happened, and you get the chance to deal with the reality of the situation, rather than the story you might like to tell yourself about the situation. This leads to less anxiety, less worrying about others, less anger towards others, and more peace.
Removing the Labels
Imagine if children never received compliments or criticism. If they did well or badly, instead of saying “good job” or “bad job,” the teacher asked, “How do you feel about this? What do you think?” By removing bias in language, we give people the chance to inform their own understanding of what is really going on.
When we use “colored” words like good, evil, honest, sincere, annoying, or interesting, we are simply showing our own bias. We are negotiating our right to be ourselves relative to other people. Humans have evolved to see life as a story – a story with heroes and villains, challenges to overcome, and quests. As good a story can make us feel, it can also lie to us.
A hero needs villains to conquer in order to be a hero. A hero needs victims to save. A hammer needs a nail. Every time we create a positive reality, we create an opposing negative threat. When you cheer for a football team, the other side becomes the enemy. This is a natural result of storytelling; we divide our reality into good and evil, right and wrong, beautiful and ugly. But what is the truth hidden underneath?
The Practice of Two Sides
Every story has two sides. The practice to start working on today is to recognize that:
Someone who seems happy on the outside might hold sadness on the inside.
Someone who seems cold or distant might actually be very sensitive.
And most importantly, someone who seems shallow or superficial on the outside might hold incredible depth inside, if you’re able to get to know them.
If we can learn to see both sides, we can flip the box open and find the true nature of the person underneath. All these adjectives and labels can easily become obstacles to a deep and meaningful relationship.
I used to fall into negative self-talk, thinking harsh criticism was the only way to “polish myself into a diamond”. But really, I was just being mean to myself for no reason; perhaps subconsciously, I was trying to sabotage myself and convince myself to quit. That doesn’t help me grow or become who I am meant to be. The best thing I can do is simply notice what is actually happening without falling into judgment.
Be careful with your words. They say as much about you as they say about the other person. You’re not really describing the other person – just your relationship to them. The real work is not the impossible work – the work of changing another person to be more to your liking. The real work is changing your relationship to the relationship, learning to navigate people’s unique social rituals and quirks, and finding your place with the other person. Let’s start with changing our relationship to ourselves. What’s a name you often call yourself – an adjective you often use about yourself – that is unnecessarily mean or hurtful, and which disguises the objective, neutral reality of what actually happened?
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