It's a bit of a social taboo to be 'judging' others. Yet, all of us do it all the time. In fact, I've noticed that leaders and people in positions of higher responsibility tend to judge people a lot more than the average bloke. What is it about judging people that's so taboo then? And how do 'successful' people use smart judgement to climb up in their careers?
'Judging' someone refers to making often pre-mature stereotyping and application of generalisations in the assessment of a person's character. For instance, branding a person as quiet just because he didnt talk to you much the first time you met him would be 'judging' him since you don't have enough evidence to suggest that you're right. Similarly, thinking that an attractive woman is dumb just because she's attractive would again be judging her. Now, these judgements can be right or wrong obviously but let us assume that more often than not they are right (it would help explain why everyone judges). Among the cases where the judgements are wrong, if they are made by a society at large they can be often self-fulfilling and lead to them eventually becoming correct because of how the judged people react. If black men are considered gangsters in Southern US (used to happen as recently as the 1990s) a number of them end up so, since they are may not be given equal opportunity in other fields to succeed.
So, why do we judge at all? Let me borrow a concept from behavioural finance and talk about heuristics. We use heuristics to make decisions, when we do not have complete information about something. The lesser the information we have the more prone we are to using a heuristic. A heuristic is something like this : You take the most colourful apple thinking it's tasty although you've never tasted it, based on your prior experience of eating bright apples. Heuristics help us because we do not have to 'search' for complete information on things and can make decisions without wasting often unnecessary time in gathering information which may or may not be worth the time spent in acquiring them. Thus, we end up using these heuristics or 'rules-of-thumb' as we call them in layman language. They can be very useful most of the time but can lead to incorrect decisions at times and can also lead to systemic biases which are difficult to eliminate.
Judging a person is the equivalent if using a large number of heuristics to decide on his/her character. It may be right or wrong, but it's often important for us to understand a person's character before dealing with him. Using heuristics will let us break the ice much easier or to take more important decisions such as whether to do business with him. Coming back to the self-fulfilling aspect of judging people- some of these heuristics have become so common that we accept them as fact. For example, someone who is polite is more often than not considered as nice (and enough people abuse this heuristic). Also, a well-dressed person is considered organised by the people he meets even if he is completely disorganised in real life. Judging people helps us take quick decisions which would not otherwise have been possible considering the time and effort required to collect information about all the people we meet.
What's so wrong about judging people then? It can obviously go wrong a few times, but most of the time if you're right then what's the big deal? This has to do with the application of humanity rather than decision making theories. We are offended by the idea that people try and use their personal experiences to define our character, that too in the matter of a few minutes. It is against your idea of yourself being completely unique. There is however, no getting around heuristics. First impression is always the best, and accepting heuristics such as this is part of living as a functional social being,
'Judging' someone refers to making often pre-mature stereotyping and application of generalisations in the assessment of a person's character. For instance, branding a person as quiet just because he didnt talk to you much the first time you met him would be 'judging' him since you don't have enough evidence to suggest that you're right. Similarly, thinking that an attractive woman is dumb just because she's attractive would again be judging her. Now, these judgements can be right or wrong obviously but let us assume that more often than not they are right (it would help explain why everyone judges). Among the cases where the judgements are wrong, if they are made by a society at large they can be often self-fulfilling and lead to them eventually becoming correct because of how the judged people react. If black men are considered gangsters in Southern US (used to happen as recently as the 1990s) a number of them end up so, since they are may not be given equal opportunity in other fields to succeed.
So, why do we judge at all? Let me borrow a concept from behavioural finance and talk about heuristics. We use heuristics to make decisions, when we do not have complete information about something. The lesser the information we have the more prone we are to using a heuristic. A heuristic is something like this : You take the most colourful apple thinking it's tasty although you've never tasted it, based on your prior experience of eating bright apples. Heuristics help us because we do not have to 'search' for complete information on things and can make decisions without wasting often unnecessary time in gathering information which may or may not be worth the time spent in acquiring them. Thus, we end up using these heuristics or 'rules-of-thumb' as we call them in layman language. They can be very useful most of the time but can lead to incorrect decisions at times and can also lead to systemic biases which are difficult to eliminate.
Judging a person is the equivalent if using a large number of heuristics to decide on his/her character. It may be right or wrong, but it's often important for us to understand a person's character before dealing with him. Using heuristics will let us break the ice much easier or to take more important decisions such as whether to do business with him. Coming back to the self-fulfilling aspect of judging people- some of these heuristics have become so common that we accept them as fact. For example, someone who is polite is more often than not considered as nice (and enough people abuse this heuristic). Also, a well-dressed person is considered organised by the people he meets even if he is completely disorganised in real life. Judging people helps us take quick decisions which would not otherwise have been possible considering the time and effort required to collect information about all the people we meet.
What's so wrong about judging people then? It can obviously go wrong a few times, but most of the time if you're right then what's the big deal? This has to do with the application of humanity rather than decision making theories. We are offended by the idea that people try and use their personal experiences to define our character, that too in the matter of a few minutes. It is against your idea of yourself being completely unique. There is however, no getting around heuristics. First impression is always the best, and accepting heuristics such as this is part of living as a functional social being,
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