Why do we judge others?

Why do we judge others?

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Its an incredibly touchy subject.

Some people are scared to talk about it, others, like myself, love to talk about it and debate it…so here we go:)

Firstly why do we judge people?

My theory on that is the following:
I believe it is biologically programmed into us, for survival purposes.
When we were still nomadic, and living out in the wild, we constantly had to survey and judge our environment, especially when it becomes new, our mind scans through everything and assess whether it is safe or dangerous.

Although we have evolutionized and moved into cities, that part of our nature has stayed with us, and that is why everyone we meet we will judge to the best of our abilities based on our knoweledge and experience.

I read an interesting definition of “common sense”…it is merely the sum of all our prejudices we have acquired by the age of 18. Some people have experienced more and that is why they seem more practical.

There is nothing wrong with judging someone, but get to know the person after you judge them to find out how accurate you were. The more you do this, the better you will become at reading someone you meet the first time.

I am personally not very good at this yet, I am very quick to judge people, and pretty quick to decide I don’t like somebody, but have been proven wrong many times.

From experience, I seem to judge according to whether someone is able to be my friend and add value to my life, that we share common interests and that it would be an asset to have them as my friend.
This doesn’t mean I will only be friends with people who are better than or equal to me, because if I see someone is a good person and I can get along with them, and I know I can help them improve themselves I will gladly do so.

Based on looks alone, it seems men are much more prone to judge the opposite sex than women.
The moment a man sees a woman he analyzes her in terms of beauty, face, body and smile and thus decides what kind of interaction he wants with her. I do not think this is wrong, because the idea is trying to find someone you are going to spend the rest of your life with, and if you are not 100% absolutely crazy about the way she looks, and she is really attractive to you (forget about being attractive to others) then it probably will not be what you are looking for and thus not as strong a connection as it could be with someone else.

The physical appearance is what you see all the time so it must be what you are satisfied with.

Women also judge men based on looks alone, and sometimes looks are enough to make her want to talk to you, but generally women judge men based on other criteria.
Body language is something like 90% of all communication. How a man carries himself, how he walks, is he confident, can he keep strong eye contact, does it look like he can lead, or does he let others push him around, does he go for what he wants, are the words that come out of his mouth sincere and genuine, is he comfortable in his own skin?

These things matter way more to a girl than how he looks, even if he is a little chubby and not so good-looking, it doesnt matter that much, he can still get a girl who is a super-model.

The thing about judging someone is that you should not just follow general opinion.

I used to have huge prejudices against things that now become my favourites!
Take sushi for example, I was brought up in a family that didn’t eat fish, and therefore had the strong belief that fish was gross. When I was a little older I actually tried sushi for the first time, and I absolutely loved it! Now its my favourite food!

When it comes to people, bear in mind that people have defences up initially, and this can make them come across as rude, or arrogant, or selfish or nasty while when you break through that barrier, they become the nicest people you have ever met.

The more people are good and try and be nice to others and are then taken advantage of, the more careful they become and the more hesitant they become to initially be nice to strangers. This is the defence system I’m talking about.

To sum up:
There is nothing wrong with judging otheres, everyone does it all the time.
Just don’t stick to your initial judgement without verifying it a bit further, you may be pleasantly suprised! (Of course, if you see a guy with a gun, and hes coming at you…judge him as dangerous and get out of there asap!)

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http://www.pluginid.com Glen Allsopp

There is nothing wrong with judging otheres, everyone does it all the time.

Maybe you are right, but maybe you see there is nothing wrong with it because we are all so used to it.

Personally, I’m trying not to judge people and catch myself when I do.

Unless it is a chode at a club