We constantly get the message that everybody is different, and that we're all unique. Yet almost all of us are guilty of attributing thoughts and feelings to others based solely on how we'd react ourselves in their particular situation. This fallacy--as unrecognized as it is prevalent--apparently derives from the common assumption that our individual biology and biography are somehow universal.
Unconsciously, we seem to infer that despite all our differences we still represent, or exemplify, all of humanity; and that we can appreciate another's actions simply by reflecting on our own. Our basic priorities, standards, motives, and biases must, we assume, be the same as others. Minimizing, or ignoring, the enormous number of variables that can influence a person's behavior, we entertain the belief that we can adequately understand such behavior simply by likening it to our own. Or--to put it somewhat differently--we project our personal reality onto others as though, finally, everyone can be understood in terms of their essential similarity to us.
No doubt there are many affinities among us that more or less dictate how--in most instances, at least--we'll respond. For example, almost all of us can be expected to experience gratification or pleasure when we're complimented--and, on the contrary, to feel disappointed, angry or hurt when we're criticized. But even here we need to consider that many people who have poor self-esteem experience embarrassment, awkwardness, or even freshly awakened shame, when they receive acknowledgment or recognition. For deep down they regard themselves as not good enough; or even as frauds--not deserving any praise whatsoever. Additionally--as regards reacting to criticism--people who are unusually confident or self-accepting are able to handle negative evaluation with far less distress than most of us. Capable of self-validating, and experiencing themselves as fundamentally competent even when they've made a mistake, their "feathers" simply don't get ruffled as a result of unfavorable judgment.
Generally speaking, it's much more difficult to characterize faithfully someone else's thoughts and emotions than most of us might suppose. As a species, we're sufficiently complicated and diverse that even if a particular individual is a lot like us we can still err in assessing that person's feelings or behavioral motivations. And, of course, it's far trickier to correctly interpret the thoughts, feelings, needs or desires of others whose nature--or nurture--differs markedly from our own.
Take, for instance, someone whose early history was so filled with family violence or trauma that by the time they became adults, they were already "gun-shy"--predisposed toward anxiety and afraid to trust or become intimately involved with others. Or consider a person genetically prone toward anger who, as a result of severe parental abuse, entered adulthood with a pronounced chip on his shoulder. In both instances (based on the psychological wounds that left each of them scarred and "sensitized"), neither individual could help but over-react (or under-react) to us. Their world--and how they perceive themselves in it--diverges sharply from ours. And so their reactions, however distorted or deviant they may appear to us, may well have been adaptive or appropriate for them earlier, at a time when they were desperate to discover how best to cope with an environment experienced as deeply threatening.
If we are, then, to accurately discern, and effectively deal with, their problematic or "illogical" behavior, we must first accept its subjective legitimacy, realizing that we have little right to judge them for what we ourselves might have done--or become--were we subject to a negative environment similar to theirs. When our initial assumptions about such individuals prove false, rather than invalidate them we need to search for the cause(s) in their past that could help us make better sense of their behavior--enable us, that is, to understand its relative "reasonableness," even validity.
Again, their "normal" may be nothing like ours because what they had to endure in growing up may have been vastly dissimilar to our own, more typical--or traditional--upbringing. If we attempt to understand their behavior strictly in accordance with ours, we're likely to be far off the mark. What might seem to us "universal" (given our historically-based stimulus-response connections) may not at all describe their quite disparate reactions, governed by a whole different set of rules and assumptions. What might impress us as odd, idiosyncratic or plainly unjustified could in fact be what--quite understandably--became strongly programmed into them.
Admittedly, their words and deeds might not at all represent the norm. But if we could only grasp just where their behavior is "coming from," we could comprehend--and be more compassionate toward--its normalcy for them. And if we could get beyond our self-centered (and mostly unconscious) suppositions about how others should think, feel and behave, we might be far more successful in our relationships with people who don't fit our more "normal" expectations.
To reiterate, without knowing a substantial amount about a person's history, it can be extremely difficult to appreciate their internal experience. That said, I should add "vice versa," inasmuch as it may have been our upbringing that negatively differed from the national or community norm--whether our family was the poorest on the block, were unaccepted in the neighborhood, were substance-abusers; or whether we grew up in an environment that prompted us to feel alone, inferior, inadequate, anxious, enraged, or depressed.
Let me provide an example from my private practice that--on the surface, at least--would strike most people as highly irrational behavior. In working with a severely conflicted couple, I once made the point to the wife, who was demanding that her husband be totally--even brutally--honest with her about everything, that sometimes simple kindness and caring require a certain constraint--that being empathic might occasionally necessitate a certain lack of candor. I offered as a "for instance" the possibility of a woman's having a bad hair day. Taking both me and her husband by surprise, her reaction was one of instant rage, aggressively inquiring whether I was accusing her of having a bad hair day. When I explained that, no, I really wasn't alluding to her at all, that I was just looking for an example of when a white lie (or withheld communication) might better serve a relationship, I was rebuked for choosing an example that obviously betrayed my chauvinism.
At the moment my suddenly disgruntled client turned on me, her husband looked at me knowingly. Now could I appreciate how incredibly hard it was for him to stay in the relationship?--which he had left earlier but agreed (though reluctantly) to consider returning to, if couples counseling were able to successfully address their constant verbal battles. Although I could certainly appreciate--and sympathize with--the magnitude of his frustrations, I endeavored to restore some emotional stability to the situation by explaining how easy it must have been for his wife to misread my intentions. Since I had already begun to work with her individually and knew a good deal about her childhood abuse, I emphasized to him how in growing up she'd been neglected and mercilessly criticized by both her parents; and how, consequently, it must genuinely have felt as though the two of us were ganging up on her. Because she still harbored so much defensive anger from her childhood experiences (leading her to become acutely sensitive to the possibility of being criticized in the present), I explained how I must inadvertently have opened up this enormous reservoir of anger and resentment in her.
I said all of this in a way that validated, rather than shamed, the wife's exaggerated response toward me--both to neutralize her tendencies toward defensiveness and so that she could better grasp the present-day inappropriateness of her outburst. We discussed how my words had set off in her a transference reaction, a reaction meant not so much for me as her parents. Insofar as I had "triggered" something very deep (and as yet unresolved) within her, she couldn't help but reactively attack me (as she herself had so frequently been attacked in growing up).
