To be judgmental is to jump to negative conclusions about other people off of the basis of little to no information. Think of people as like a box. There is the outside of the box that is readily visible to the outside observer. The outside of the box consists of the person’s outward appearance, actions, speech, etc. The inside of the box consists of anything not visible to an outside observer. The inside of the box includes the person’s past life experiences, the person’s upbringing, the person’s medical history, etc. What judgmental people tend to do is make assumptions about what is inside of the box based on what they see on the outside of the box. The problem is that the outside of the box does not tell us much about what is inside.
Three examples of common target groups for judgment are drug addicts, homeless people and morbidly obese people.
When Judgmental Jen sees a drug addict, she may think that the drug addict is being ridiculous for thinking that drug addiction is a disease. Judgmental Jen thinks that all that drug addicts need to do is stop taking the drugs, get clean and move on with their lives. According to Jen, drug addicts who want to be seen as having a disease are just asking for pity points.
In reality, drug addiction is caused by physiological changes in the brain that cause the brain’s pleasure circuit to become less easily stimulated. This means that activities such as eating that should give us pleasure do not give the addict much pleasure anymore. The addict can only feel pleasure when taking the drug. Some studies show that drug addicts are disproportionately more likely to have suffered from previous childhood abuse. Many drug addicts may also have a reduced sense of self worth and believe that they are not worth being saved and getting clean. The reasons for chronic problems with drug addiction are many and complex; but Judgmental Jen does not want to think about all of the complexities of drug addiction and what causes it. Judgmental Jen would rather give herself a pat on the back for being “better than those people who just seem to keep making bad decisions.”
When Judgmental Gary sees a homeless person, he figures it is just another drug or alcohol addict who has made a lot of bad decisions and is too lazy to find work. Judgmental Gary gives himself a pat on the back for being a harder worker and making better decisions than this guy.
However, according to the National Law Center of Homelessness and Poverty (in the United States), the top cause of homelessness is insufficient income and lack of affordable housing. The second leading cause of homelessness is unemployment. For women, domestic violence is one of the leading causes of homelessness. While addiction is a factor that can lead to homelessness, it is not the most common cause of homelessness.
When Judgmental Judy sees a morbidly obese person, she just rolls her eyes. Another fat slob that just doesn’t stop eating. Why don’t these people just get a life. Judgmental Judy simply eats until she is full. She cannot see how someone can stuff him/herself every day, and then gain all of this weight.
In reality, obesity is a disease with a complex range of causes. Brain scan studies have shown that unhealthy foods have addictive properties. They stimulate the same part of the brain (the nucleus accumbens) as cocaine and heroine. Though unhealthy foods are not as powerfully addictive as illicit drugs, they are much more readily available than illicit drugs. In fact, it is hard to avoid being in a room that contains at least some unhealthy food products.
Of course Judgmental Judy has plenty of exposure to unhealthy foods too, but she may not be as genetically prone to addiction to unhealthy foods as some other people. She also may not know about the serious emotional issues that can drive people to overeat. For some people, food is the only way they can cope with their life problems and past traumas without losing their minds. Other obese people are just too busy and have too many responsibilities to even think about their own health.
Furthermore, many scientists believe that a person’s body has what is called a weight set point, and for some obese people, the weight set point can be unusually high. What this means is that the brain will tell the person to eat and make him/her feel hungry until his/her body weight reaches its weight set point, which may be in the obese range. Many people trying to lose weight have reported feeling hungry all the time. Even if they lose the weight, it can easily come right back when they start eating enough to not feel hungry. The point is that there are many causes of obesity, and many life circumstances that make losing weight very difficult.
Being judgmental is easy
Once someone decides to be judgmental, he/she will find opportunities to be judgmental everywhere he/she goes. At work, someone shows up late for a meeting. Judgmental Jane thinks this woman must be disorganized or have poor work ethic. In reality, there are oodles of reasons for someone to arrive at a meeting late.
While walking on the sidewalk, Judgmental Jim sees a lady who seems to be frowning. What a sourpuss he thinks. What he does not know is that she just lost her husband and children in a house fire the previous day.
Judgmental Mike sees a mother with a couple of screaming children at a department store. Another parent who can’t control her children Mike thinks. Of course Mike has never been a parent. He is only assuming that parenting is easier than it actually is.
Recall the previous blog post The Evildoer and the Nut Job where an abuser appears calm while the victim is in hysterics. The “calm one” assures others present that she is just crazy, but he “loves her anyway.” Judgmental Jim has no problem with assuming that this lady is just another nut job. I am much more like the calm and patient one Jim thinks. What Jim does not know is that only weeks later, the “nut job” will get strangled to death by the “calm one.”
While bad decisions are a factor that can lead to bad situations such as drug addiction, judgmental people can make bad decisions, too. By luck, the bad decisions made by the judgmental person may not have the same devastating consequences as the bad decisions made by another person. In fact, often people will judge others even though they would not have done any better if they were trapped in the same circumstances.
Why do people get judgmental?
There are plenty of articles on the internet that talk about judgmental people. Many of these articles will say that people get judgmental because they feel insecure. By judging other people, they are validating themselves. Nonetheless, I think there is another major reason that people can get judgmental: excessive pride. Some people just have pride issues. They want to think that they are better than others.
Some arrogant people like to think that they are the best at everything; and if there is something they are not good at, then it must be a thing that they are “too good for” anyway. For example, a software engineer with pride issues may be very good at computer programming, but not be good at interacting with people; so he figures that interacting with people is more “menial work” and that such a job should be left to people who are not as smart as he is.
In a way, being judgmental can be kind of fun. Judgmental Carla can just take a walk around the block thinking to herself I am better than him…and her…and him…and her… and by the time she has finished her walk around the block, she is feeling like #1.
Being judgmental and being compassionate do not go together
It is hard to have compassion for someone when you are judging him/her. How would Judgmental Jen have compassion on a drug addict when she is too busy thinking that the drug addict is just making bad decisions and messing around when he could just get clean? Why would Judgmental Gary have compassion on a homeless person when he thinks that the homeless person is homeless because of laziness and bad decisions? How would Judgmental Judy have compassion on a morbidly obese person who has trouble moving when she sees the person as a slob who just eats too much and doesn’t move enough? How could one have compassion on a woman who is frowning when he thinks she is just a sourpuss?
When people are judgmental of others, it is a red flag that they are most likely not compassionate people.
Judging people based on over-generalizations
Sometimes, a judgmental person can think that people are more similar to each other than they actually are. Every person is unique, but not necessarily in the eyes of the judgmental person. For example, a judgmental person may jump to the conclusion that someone is lying because, the judgmental person figures, everybody lies.
Judgmental Jim meets a physics professor at a top-tier university. Judgmental Jim figures that this professor must be full of pride and ego for having such a prestigious job and being so smart; but, Judgmental Jim figures, this physics nerd is probably not as street smart as he is science smart. Judgmental Jim thinks this physics nerd would be too socially inept to know when someone is trying to manipulate him or take advantage of him.
Judgmental Jamie overhears Annie discussing how bad of a manager their boss is. Annie would never have the guts to say that to his face Jamie thinks. Jamie figures that all people are quick to say bad things about someone behind his/her back, but would never mention it to his/her face. What Jamie does not know is that Annie is planning on confronting their boss the very next day. Annie considers speaking up to be important when something is not right.
As we can see, over-generalizations can be pretty offensive because they can falsely attack someone’s character.
The thing about over-generalizations is that they do apply to some people. Some people do lie all the time. Some highly intelligent people are full of pride. Some people are two-faced. Because these over-generalizations are correct for some people, a judgmental individual may believe that they are correct for everybody.
The short bridge from being judgmental to being prejudiced
I am figuring that people who are judgmental are also more likely to be prejudiced. Prejudice essentially means pre-judge. When a person starts to judge another person based on the other person’s membership in a group, it becomes prejudice. A prejudiced person may assume that a young woman has a fear of getting fat because “all young women have a fear of getting fat.” A prejudiced person may assume that a black person is living on welfare. A prejudiced person may assume that the Hispanic woman he/she sees at the grocery store is a cleaning lady, never finding out that she is a university professor.
In one episode of Hell’s Kitchen, the chefs were told to prepare a birthday feast for a Latino girl. The Latino girl specified that she did not want the food to be too spicy, but one of the chefs put hot spices into the food anyway because, he said, all Latinos like spicy food. Sure enough, when the girl tried his food, it was too spicy and she did not like it.
How do you feel when people make assumptions about you because of your membership in a certain group? Maybe those assumptions are correct, but maybe they are not. Maybe these assumptions are made about you even when you insist that they are not true.
When people are not being judgmental
If you were to openly identify as being non-judgmental, or evenly openly condemn judgmental behaviors, people may use this against you. They may figure that because you take pride in being non-judgmental, they can manipulate you by accusing you of being judgmental for seeing any bad in someone at all. In these cases, it is good to know when you are not being judgmental.
When you evaluate someone’s behavior as being wrong, you are not being judgmental. Wrongful behaviors are things we can see “on the outside of the box.” When you make assumptions about why the individual is exhibiting this behavior, then it is possible that you are being judgmental because you are making assumptions about the person’s inner thought process.
Sometimes we can see what are called “red flags” that somebody is up to no good. Recognizing these red flags does not make you judgmental. It makes you wise. Recall a previous post on this blog What is a good person, anyway?, which presents a discussion of how we can tell when someone’s actions are a manifestation of his/her true character. When a person who did something wrong is perfectly calm, is not being deceived or manipulated, knows full well what he/she is doing and feels no remorse afterwards, then we have sufficient information to figure that the bad deed is a manifestation of the person’s true character. At this point, we are not being judgmental by associating the bad deed with the person’s true nature.
Someone may call you judgmental when you are not being judgmental, particularly when you violate their rules of politeness and denounce their behavior as wrong. You also may be called judgmental when you proclaim someone to be a bad person even if the individual is doing things that only a bad person would do. Some people may want you to see them as being better than they actually are, and will call you judgmental even if your negative evaluation of them is based on sufficient information.
“But I didn’t know…”
Sometimes a judgmental person’s assumptions are proven to be false, in which case the judgmental person may earnestly say “I didn’t know” as if this is supposed to absolve him/her from responsibility for his/her behavior. Meanwhile, there is not necessarily any sincere apology for misjudging the other person and for putting the other person in a negative light.
Let us say that Judgmental Jen is informed of the large amounts of scientific research showing that her assumptions about drug addicts were wrong. Judgmental Jen exclaims “Hey, I am not a neuroscience nerd. Don’t expect me to know about that stuff.” What Judgmental Jen should have known is that people like her have no business making assumptions about something they know little about, and pushing those assumptions onto other people.
What if we just ignore these judgmental people?
Some people say that judgmental people cannot hurt us as long as we don’t let them hurt us. All we need to do is stop caring about what they think, and all is good.
The truth is that words can hurt. Voicing judgments towards the other person can be verbally abusive, and some people are more vulnerable to hurtful words than others. Even when people are weak and prone to making bad decisions, they should be built up, not put down.
Physical harm also can happen to people as a result of judgmental thinking. Let us say that a young woman orders for a meal to be served without dairy in a restaurant. The waiter figures the young woman is probably just putting herself on a diet to lose weight and look better in a bathing suit. She won’t know the difference if there is a little dairy in it. What the waiter does not know is that the woman has a real dairy intolerance that can cause her to be sick for a day or two as a result of dairy being put into the food.
Misinformation also can hurt people, particularly by doing damage to someone’s reputation. When a judgmental person makes false assumptions about someone in his/her circle of people, he/she can potentially spread false information about the person that places the person in a negative light. Damage to the person’s reputation can affect the person’s ability to find employment, find a date or be included in social functions. Even if the judgmental person eventually realizes that the information he/she spread was false, it may be too late. Misinformation can spread, but it cannot completely unspread. People tell people, who tell other people, who tell other people.